New home file server, need some help

Dooms101 · Mar 30, 2011

I'v been wanting a cheap low energy computer to use as a home file and website server and I came across an HP a1350n that my friend is giving to me for free. It's socket 939, had a good OEM Asus motherboard, Athlon64 X2 4400+ (dual core 2.2Ghz), 2x 512mb DDR-400 cas3, WD Caviar SE 250GB Sata drive, HiPro 300watt PSU. The computer seems like a great performer for a low-traffic home server. Problem is I don't know a whole lot about setting up a server and was wondering if someone could help me out.

What I want to do with this server:
- host files for my local network
- stream media like movies, music
- remotely manage and access files using a login through a webpage (not sure if thats possible)

Open to all suggestions. I'd prefer to use a Linux OS like Ubuntu or something, but if it's exceedingly easier to use a MS OS I'll consider.

Automata · Mar 30, 2011

For any operating system, sharing files is cake. In Linux, you simply use Samba to share with Windows computers. This is what I use at home and has been working flawlessly for years on the same install. Check out some guides on how to setup Samba. I can give some help here if you have any questions. It is pretty easy to set up!

Website wise, what are you looking for, specifically? Your last two "wants" seem exactly the same to me. What are you going to be hosting? Is it going to be public? Is it really needed? Running a web server is fine for internal use, but you open up the possibility of exploits if the system is accessible outside your network; which is something you should take into consideration. If you are doing it for fun, have at it. Worst you can do is break your OS.

If you want information on specifics (setting user/group access, etc), feel free to ask away. I'll do by best to help out.

thobel · Mar 31, 2011

Dooms101 said:
I'v been wanting a cheap low energy computer to use as a home file and website server and I came across an HP a1350n that my friend is giving to me for free. It's socket 939, had a good OEM Asus motherboard, Athlon64 X2 4400+ (dual core 2.2Ghz), 2x 512mb DDR-400 cas3, WD Caviar SE 250GB Sata drive, HiPro 300watt PSU. The computer seems like a great performer for a low-traffic home server. Problem is I don't know a whole lot about setting up a server and was wondering if someone could help me out.

What I want to do with this server:
- host files for my local network
- stream media like movies, music
- accessible through web page or something
- possibly host a website

Open to all suggestions. I'd prefer to use a Linux OS like Ubuntu or something, but if it's exceedingly easier to use a MS OS I'll consider.

Windows Home Server.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/windowshomeserver/default.mspx

New version should be released anyday now.
http://connect.microsoft.com/windowshomeserver

Dooms101 · Mar 31, 2011

thideras said:
For any operating system, sharing files is cake. In Linux, you simply use Samba to share with Windows computers. This is what I use at home and has been working flawlessly for years on the same install. Check out some guides on how to setup Samba. I can give some help here if you have any questions. It is pretty easy to set up!

Website wise, what are you looking for, specifically? Your last two "wants" seem exactly the same to me. What are you going to be hosting? Is it going to be public? Is it really needed? Running a web server is fine for internal use, but you open up the possibility of exploits if the system is accessible outside your network; which is something you should take into consideration. If you are doing it for fun, have at it. Worst you can do is break your OS.

If you want information on specifics (setting user/group access, etc), feel free to ask away. I'll do by best to help out.

Sorry, original post wasn't very clear. I want to be able to remotely access files and stuff through maybe some kind of webpage or something. If thats not possible, maybe I can make something. I thought I heard of something that could do this automatically, but I am not too sure. I was thinking about hosting a site off it to, but I'd rather just stick to paid hosting.

thobel · Mar 31, 2011

Dooms101 said:
Sorry, original post wasn't very clear. I want to be able to remotely access files and stuff through maybe some kind of webpage or something. If thats not possible, maybe I can make something. I thought I heard of something that could do this automatically, but I am not too sure. I was thinking about hosting a site off it to, but I'd rather just stick to paid hosting.

WHS has remote web based file access out of the box. You also get the ability to remote to your LAN based desktops remotly. Also has media streaming, automated backups and of course file serving.

Dooms101 · Mar 31, 2011

thobel said:
WHS has remote web based file access out of the box. You also get the ability to remote to your LAN based desktops remotly. Also has media streaming, automated backups and of course file serving.

Thanks! I am going to try that out. Are those features built in? How much is it?

thobel · Mar 31, 2011

Dooms101 said:
Thanks! I am going to try that out. Are those features built in? How much is it?

Yes its built in and I think its about $100 or so. I would wait a few weeks for WHS 2011 to be released.

big_mike · Mar 31, 2011

For remote control I use LogMeIn. If I need a file from the computer I have accessed remotely I would usually use FTP. If you don't have an FTP account you can use DropBox or SkyDrive if you have HotMail account. I can't remember LogMeIn's paid account features, but it think that one of them had file transfer capability.

DreamerBrian · Mar 31, 2011

Dooms101 said:
I want to be able to remotely access files and stuff through maybe some kind of webpage or something. If thats not possible, maybe I can make something. I thought I heard of something that could do this automatically

If you were just talking about setting up a server with a means of having this functionality then I concur with what big mike said about using Amazon's Cloud Drive or Dropbox. Dropbox provides 2GB free storage and Cloud Drive provides 5GB free storage accessible to any computer that has an internet connection.

If you were interested in this project as a way to gain experience with server operating systems then please disregard the aforementioned recommendations.

Brian

thobel · Mar 31, 2011

big_mike said:
For remote control I use LogMeIn. If I need a file from the computer I have accessed remotely I would usually use FTP. If you don't have an FTP account you can use DropBox or SkyDrive if you have HotMail account. I can't remember LogMeIn's paid account features, but it think that one of them had file transfer capability.

DreamerBrian said:
If you were just talking about setting up a server with a means of having this functionality then I concur with what big mike said about using Amazon's Cloud Drive or Dropbox. Dropbox provides 2GB free storage and Cloud Drive provides 5GB free storage accessible to any computer that has an internet connection.

If you were interested in this project as a way to gain experience with server operating systems then please disregard the aforementioned recommendations.

Brian

Both of these are good solutions for remote access to files but dont do anything for your other needs like hosting your data and streaming media.

Dooms101 · Mar 31, 2011

thobel said:
Both of these are good solutions for remote access to files but dont do anything for your other needs like hosting your data and streaming media.

Yeah... well I want the files to be stored locally, and I'd like to make this into a project. Plus, 5GB is nowhere near enough for what I need. I'll probably be throwing in a 1.5TB drive along with the 250GB. I think I'll try WHS, I have heard a lot of great things about it. I think a friend of mine has a copy I can play with while I wait for WHS 2011.

Mpegger · Apr 1, 2011

Just a heads up; last I read, WHS 2011 will not include the drive extender like the current WHS has. Drive extender basically takes any number of hard drives you have in the system, regardless of size, and makes it seem like one large drive by pooling all the space together.

thobel · Apr 1, 2011

Mpegger said:
Just a heads up; last I read, WHS 2011 will not include the drive extender like the current WHS has. Drive extender basically takes any number of hard drives you have in the system, regardless of size, and makes it seem like one large drive by pooling all the space together.

your 100% correct DE will not be included. 3rd party developers have DE products available. Or you can use raid for redundency (what I'm doing)

Dooms101 · Apr 1, 2011

thobel said:
your 100% correct DE will not be included. 3rd party developers have DE products available. Or you can use raid for redundency (what I'm doing)

So DE is kind of like software RAID? Except it makes a JBOD collection appear like a single drive? I'd rather have a redundant RAID anyways. Is there a RC WHS11?

thobel · Apr 1, 2011

Dooms101 said:
So DE is kind of like software RAID? Except it makes a JBOD collection appear like a single drive? I'd rather have a redundant RAID anyways. Is there a RC WHS11?

It just went RTM today. Will be available in early april

http://windowsteamblog.com/windows/b/windowshomeserver/

DE is sorta software raid 1 but what people liked most was that you can add in any drive type and it gets added to the "raid" If your fine with raid then you would just add a drive and extend your array.

Mpegger · Apr 2, 2011

Dooms101 said:
So DE is kind of like software RAID? Except it makes a JBOD collection appear like a single drive? I'd rather have a redundant RAID anyways. Is there a RC WHS11?

You can have Redundancy with DE, on folders that you select. So you don't lose 1/2 your total hard drive space like you would in RAID 1, only on those folders you choose to mirror.

Also, unlike RAID, you do not require the same size drives or drives using the same interface. You can add in whatever size drives you wish from whatever interface (USB, IDE, SATA, SCSI, etc), when you want, and a simple click will add in, or even remove a drive from the total pool. The OS takes care of moving the data around the drives to balance things out.

BTW, what 3rd party DE solutions have been released for WHS '11?

thobel · Apr 2, 2011

Mpegger said:
You can have Redundancy with DE, on folders that you select. So you don't lose 1/2 your total hard drive space like you would in RAID 1, only on those folders you choose to mirror.

Also, unlike RAID, you do not require the same size drives or drives using the same interface. You can add in whatever size drives you wish from whatever interface (USB, IDE, SATA, SCSI, etc), when you want, and a simple click will add in, or even remove a drive from the total pool. The OS takes care of moving the data around the drives to balance things out.

BTW, what 3rd party DE solutions have been released for WHS '11?

http://forum.wegotserved.com/index....t-drivepool-for-the-windows-home-server-2011/

Thats one I'm moving to a Raid 6 Hardware solution so I don't follow the "new" DE crowd but I have seen others also.

FireMogle · Apr 2, 2011

I recently rebuilt my server and put WHS server on it, and it works like a charm.

The problem with my old one is that one of my HDDs failed from a RAID5 array.... and being cheap home use raid card I found no way to monitor or get alerts to it. While WHS is less efficient at redundancy than raid 5, the beauty of it is that I can just drop HDDs in at any point without worrying about anything else.

DE is essentially a JBOD system with optional raid1. IE, all your disks get thrown in a pool, and the folders you want get copied to two hard drives so a failure of one wont kill your datas.

Dooms101 · Apr 2, 2011

FireMogle said:
I recently rebuilt my server and put WHS server on it, and it works like a charm.

The problem with my old one is that one of my HDDs failed from a RAID5 array.... and being cheap home use raid card I found no way to monitor or get alerts to it. While WHS is less efficient at redundancy than raid 5, the beauty of it is that I can just drop HDDs in at any point without worrying about anything else.

DE is essentially a JBOD system with optional raid1. IE, all your disks get thrown in a pool, and the folders you want get copied to two hard drives so a failure of one wont kill your datas.

Ohhhh okay, that makes sense now. So why isn't DE is WHS11? Should I just get the old version so I have it?

imposter · Apr 2, 2011

thideras said:
For any operating system, sharing files is cake. In Linux, you simply use Samba to share with Windows computers. This is what I use at home and has been working flawlessly for years on the same install. Check out some guides on how to setup Samba. I can give some help here if you have any questions. It is pretty easy to set up!

Website wise, what are you looking for, specifically? Your last two "wants" seem exactly the same to me. What are you going to be hosting? Is it going to be public? Is it really needed? Running a web server is fine for internal use, but you open up the possibility of exploits if the system is accessible outside your network; which is something you should take into consideration. If you are doing it for fun, have at it. Worst you can do is break your OS.

If you want information on specifics (setting user/group access, etc), feel free to ask away. I'll do by best to help out.

not to but in, but does samba have brute force protection? Also are there options to make the connection encrypted?

New home file server, need some help

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