If you have a home server, what are you uses for it?

[Geralt]

2 minutes ago, lukesterboy said:

Anyone else have their systems to share please feel free, i love the systems that are converted compact desktop PC's like Dell Optiplex machines turned into plex servers!

Since this thread is lacking some pictures, here's my humble optiplex

 

[AshleyAshes]

Well, if we went to go with pictures.  I'm the most proud of this part of my server.  I put SODIMM memory in it with adaptors to save $40.  I just really appreciate the jankyness of this spare parts server.

 

[FloRolf]

59 minutes ago, sgtrecker78 said:

 please you with a picture

 

i don't really care if you work at Google or how much Money you make but i'm still pretty damn interested in a pic of that System.

You can send it via pm if you want, i'm just interested.  

[lukesterboy]

34 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

Well, if we went to go with pictures.  I'm the most proud of this part of my server.  I put SODIMM memory in it with adaptors to save $40.  I just really appreciate the jankyness of this spare parts server.

 

 

Wow, I love this! Didn't even know this was possible but nice!

[lukesterboy]

6 minutes ago, FloRolf said:

i don't really care if you work at Google or how much Money you make but i'm still pretty damn interested in a pic of that System.

You can send it via pm if you want, i'm just interested.  

 

Take it to pm's, just please leave this thread alone .

[Lehti]

2 hours ago, lukesterboy said:

If I ever get a dedicated NAS I think QNAP is definitely the way to go by far. By the sounds of yours, it is perfect for power consumption and has a good number of drives bays .

I don't know. In a way, I kind of regretting not getting a 4-bay or 5-bay model. Nothing prevents you from expanding it with a RAID enclosure, but those cost (diskless) about the same as the NAS itself does.

[Clyne]

I'm somewhat building a server atm, probably going to run it as a Plex server or something.

Just waiting for my Q6600 to arrive so that I can take the E6600 out of my 680i board and put it in my server.

E2200 is probably going to suffer running it as a server.

Currently in a 1U case

E2200 or E6600

2GB RAM

750GB HDD

250W Flex PSU

[lukesterboy]

1 hour ago, Bubblewhale said:

Just waiting for my Q6600 to arrive

What is a Q6600 a CPU?

[Clyne]

1 minute ago, lukesterboy said:

What is a Q6600 a CPU?

One of the most popular quad cores of it's time.

http://ark.intel.com/products/29765/Intel-Core2-Quad-Processor-Q6600-8M-Cache-2_40-GHz-1066-MHz-FSB

[lukesterboy]

5 minutes ago, Bubblewhale said:

One of the most popular quad cores of it's time.

http://ark.intel.com/products/29765/Intel-Core2-Quad-Processor-Q6600-8M-Cache-2_40-GHz-1066-MHz-FSB

 

Oh ok. Well for a plex server i guess that will run it fine

[Godlygamer23]

13 hours ago, lukesterboy said:

And plex pops up again! A Nice little system you got there, where do you keep it, is it quiet enough to keep in your living room like under your tv or anything, like an HTPC?

It stays in my office right next to my main PC. Right now, it's extremely audible due to a cheap Rosewill fan running at full speed constantly, so it's definitely not quiet enough for that at the moment.

[Guest]

So my home server mess is quite an interesting one.

 

Current Solution

• Hyperion (HP ML10v2, E3 1220v3, 16GB RAM, 240GB SSD boot, 3 x 240GB Intel SSD R0 {download disk}), dual 1Gig LAG
  • Server 2012 R2 Standard
    • Plex
      • 4-6 streams (mainly remote/off site)
    • Download client
      • Torrent/FTP
    • iTunes host
      • Airplay from wireless device to speakers can often take a little bit to switch over however I've found using iTunes remote to iTunes running on here, works a treat. Most of the speakers throughout the house are AirPlay enabled.
• Calix (HP ML10v2, E3 1220v3, 8GB RAM, 240GB SSD boot, 1TB SATA, dual 1Gig LAG
  • Server 2012 R2 Standard
    • This is currently is offline. I was debating migrating Plex to have its own host however I haven't got the need yet. I'm considering rolling out a Teamspeak server to it but I don't really have the need. For now this is used as a test environment for various work projects.
    • I may end up switching away from Ubiquiti AP's interally to Xirrus and subsequently have the XMS-E on premise controller running purely for completing XCWP certification.

• Xenyx (QNAP TS-453 Pro, Celeron, 4GB RAM, 4 x 5TB WD Red)
  • Qnap QTS
    • This is used as a storage target for both Calix and Hyperion as well as all clients on the network however will probably be replaced at some point shortly. 

 

 

Future Solution

I'm currently looking at acquiring two HP DL380 G8's (256-512GB RAM, dual E5 2690v2's, quad SFP+, storage unknown) through a friend of mine. I would be looking at re purposing both of the ML10v2's to act as SFP+ iSCSI targets for a HyperV/VMWare installation on one of the DL380's. The second DL380 would act as a test environment and would sit idle most of the time due to both power and lack of use.

 

I also want to look into a UPS upgrade to give me SNMP access for it enabling graceful shutdown of Calix and Hyperion. Currently while all on the UPS, Xenyx is the only client to receive shutdown commands via USB.  
 

I used to have a DS380 Silverstone 8 bay ITX server case running with a mini AsRock server board, 16GB of RAM, an E3v3 Xeon (1286?) and an LSI 9207-8i running FlexRAID however it struggled thermally due to a lack of airflow. This was then migrated to a Supermicro 3U however due to noise and power, I sold that off and moved to the QNAP. From the QNAP I then expanded due to a lack of performance to Hyperion and then added Calix shortly thereafter due to good pricing. 

 

If I do end up going ahead with the upgrade, I'll be looking at introducing a 10gig switch into the network and migrating all of the server equipment out of the office to the garage due to noise. This will be an expensive exercise due to the need to run fibre between the switch cabinet (Lack Rack :D) in the office and a rack that would be in the garage.

 

[Godlygamer23]

38 minutes ago, Windspeed36 said:

• • • iTunes host
      • Airplay from wireless device to speakers can often take a little bit to switch over however I've found using iTunes remote to iTunes running on here, works a treat. Most of the speakers throughout the house are AirPlay enabled.

Does the server do any kind of transcoding with iTunes?

[kirashi]

• What server is it, make and model (e.g. HP DL380 G5)?
  • Apple 2004 Mac Mini, complete with the original PowerPC CPU and a maximum of 1GB DDR RAM.
• What do you use it for mainly (NAS, DNS, Router, etc)?
  • Transmission-BT Download station serving the downloaded files over HTTP with Apache2
• What do you run on it (ESXi, windows server, etc)
  • Debian 8 (Jessie), because there's basically no other good PPC-compatible OS still being compiled
• What is the power consumption of your server?
  • Probably way more than it should be, but according to spec: max power is 85W under full load.
• How long do you run it for (24/7, 2 hours a day, etc)?
  • 24/7 baby, something has to maintain my private tracker ratio
• Suggest me ideas that I could do with my server, want to mess around with it but have no idea what to do.
  • Install a variant of Linux such as Ubuntu or Debian and start self-teaching the ins and outs of BASH command line
• Anything else you have to say?
  • I'd love to implement my Dell Optiplex 780 USFF as a server, but that requires effort, so nope

[Geralt]

Just curious, anyone here a sysadmin? It seems like I'm the only one using my server for Active Directory and stuff >.<

[Guest]

33 minutes ago, Geralt said:

Just curious, anyone here a sysadmin? It seems like I'm the only one using my server for Active Directory and stuff >.<

There's a few floating around. I know @.:MARK:. / @looneyruns some form of AD for the Schnitzel network

2 hours ago, Godlygamer23 said:

Does the server do any kind of transcoding with iTunes?

Nah - literally just playback but playing from iTunes versus direct device gives me the option to stream to multiple outputs simultaneously 

[unijab]

22 hours ago, sgtrecker78 said:

SO I'M A KID NOW

 

ok then

 

 

If you weren't lying.... just post a picture of all the parts to build your server.

 

Surely, a google hardware engineer that makes 150k+  /yr has a camera.

[lukesterboy]

9 hours ago, Windspeed36 said:

So my home server mess is quite an interesting one.

 

Current Solution

• Hyperion (HP ML10v2, E3 1220v3, 16GB RAM, 240GB SSD boot, 3 x 240GB Intel SSD R0 {download disk}), dual 1Gig LAG
  • Server 2012 R2 Standard
    • Plex
      • 4-6 streams (mainly remote/off site)
    • Download client
      • Torrent/FTP
    • iTunes host
      • Airplay from wireless device to speakers can often take a little bit to switch over however I've found using iTunes remote to iTunes running on here, works a treat. Most of the speakers throughout the house are AirPlay enabled.
• Calix (HP ML10v2, E3 1220v3, 8GB RAM, 240GB SSD boot, 1TB SATA, dual 1Gig LAG
  • Server 2012 R2 Standard
    • This is currently is offline. I was debating migrating Plex to have its own host however I haven't got the need yet. I'm considering rolling out a Teamspeak server to it but I don't really have the need. For now this is used as a test environment for various work projects.
    • I may end up switching away from Ubiquiti AP's interally to Xirrus and subsequently have the XMS-E on premise controller running purely for completing XCWP certification.

• Xenyx (QNAP TS-453 Pro, Celeron, 4GB RAM, 4 x 5TB WD Red)
  • Qnap QTS
    • This is used as a storage target for both Calix and Hyperion as well as all clients on the network however will probably be replaced at some point shortly. 

 

 

Future Solution

I'm currently looking at acquiring two HP DL380 G8's (256-512GB RAM, dual E5 2690v2's, quad SFP+, storage unknown) through a friend of mine. I would be looking at re purposing both of the ML10v2's to act as SFP+ iSCSI targets for a HyperV/VMWare installation on one of the DL380's. The second DL380 would act as a test environment and would sit idle most of the time due to both power and lack of use.

 

I also want to look into a UPS upgrade to give me SNMP access for it enabling graceful shutdown of Calix and Hyperion. Currently while all on the UPS, Xenyx is the only client to receive shutdown commands via USB.  
 

I used to have a DS380 Silverstone 8 bay ITX server case running with a mini AsRock server board, 16GB of RAM, an E3v3 Xeon (1286?) and an LSI 9207-8i running FlexRAID however it struggled thermally due to a lack of airflow. This was then migrated to a Supermicro 3U however due to noise and power, I sold that off and moved to the QNAP. From the QNAP I then expanded due to a lack of performance to Hyperion and then added Calix shortly thereafter due to good pricing. 

 

If I do end up going ahead with the upgrade, I'll be looking at introducing a 10gig switch into the network and migrating all of the server equipment out of the office to the garage due to noise. This will be an expensive exercise due to the need to run fibre between the switch cabinet (Lack Rack :D) in the office and a rack that would be in the garage.

 

 

Sounds very cool, I like how you have everything so perfectly laid out and planned out. Is "Hyperion" and the other one's names of your server but that's very cool and they all sound very servery names if that's a word :D.

8 hours ago, kirashi said:

• What server is it, make and model (e.g. HP DL380 G5)?
  • Apple 2004 Mac Mini, complete with the original PowerPC CPU and a maximum of 1GB DDR RAM.
• What do you use it for mainly (NAS, DNS, Router, etc)?
  • Transmission-BT Download station serving the downloaded files over HTTP with Apache2
• What do you run on it (ESXi, windows server, etc)
  • Debian 8 (Jessie), because there's basically no other good PPC-compatible OS still being compiled
• What is the power consumption of your server?
  • Probably way more than it should be, but according to spec: max power is 85W under full load.
• How long do you run it for (24/7, 2 hours a day, etc)?
  • 24/7 baby, something has to maintain my private tracker ratio
• Suggest me ideas that I could do with my server, want to mess around with it but have no idea what to do.
  • Install a variant of Linux such as Ubuntu or Debian and start self-teaching the ins and outs of BASH command line
• Anything else you have to say?
  • I'd love to implement my Dell Optiplex 780 USFF as a server, but that requires effort, so nope

 

 

 

Very nice, I don't understand why most people run Transmission on a server is it to just take the weight of your computer because a P2P Client isn't exactly that heavy on your CPU or RAM. What is a private tracker ratio and how/why do you have to maintain it? As for what I should thank you for the suggestion. I will definitely try and learn some Linux, what BASH command line is it different to normal terminal/command line?

6 hours ago, Geralt said:

Just curious, anyone here a sysadmin? It seems like I'm the only one using my server for Active Directory and stuff >.<

I'm not a sysadmin but I really do playing around with Active Directory at home but with only 1 VLAN, and only like 2 computers that I can join to the domain it is kind of pointless and I can't really try out everything. I've tried to play with DNS and DHCP but then it all interferes with my router and I can't turn it off on my router because I don't run the server 24/7 so any new clients joining won't have a DHCP server if the server is off and it's off on the router as well. I can't be bothered to constantly switch between DHCP on the router and Server.

1 hour ago, unijab said:

If you weren't lying.... just post a picture of all the parts to build your server.

 

Surely, a google hardware engineer that makes 150k+  /yr has a camera.

 

 

 

Stop asking, leave it. Pm him if your that bothered.

[Geralt]

1 hour ago, lukesterboy said:

I'm not a sysadmin but I really do playing around with Active Directory at home but with only 1 VLAN, and only like 2 computers that I can join to the domain it is kind of pointless and I can't really try out everything. I've tried to play with DNS and DHCP but then it all interferes with my router and I can't turn it off on my router because I don't run the server 24/7 so any new clients joining won't have a DHCP server if the server is off and it's off on the router as well. I can't be bothered to constantly switch between DHCP on the router and Server.

Nice! Have you try configuring your router to authenticate users with the active directory for the wifi access?

[leadeater]

8 hours ago, Geralt said:

Just curious, anyone here a sysadmin? It seems like I'm the only one using my server for Active Directory and stuff >.<

Yes my network is AD controlled. In fact I have 3 forests, 1 for running all the base infrastructure (vCenter/System Center/Azure Pack/Puppet etc), 1 for for my home network and 1 for my friend's VMs I let him run on my servers. Got a one-way forest trust setup so we can AD auth using our local domain credentials to vCenter etc.

 

I've also got multiple VDOMs setup on my FortiGate firewall for each network for better isolation/administration and currently working on setting up private VLANs and Q-in-Q.

 

The network also spans across the city to my friend's house via a L3 site-to-site VPN where my other server is, the servers replicate to each other. Currently waiting on new fibre install at my house so I can setup a better connection and also see if I can wrangle my new ISP in to letting me do a multi-homed connection with their or my own IP block.

[Bigun]

I have two servers.  One is my media storage/backup server.  The other is my webserver/occasional minecraft server.

[Guest]

3 hours ago, lukesterboy said:

Sounds very cool, I like how you have everything so perfectly laid out and planned out. Is "Hyperion" and the other one's names of your server but that's very cool and they all sound very servery names if that's a word :D.

Yeah - most environments name their servers as you'll have them as VM hosts. You can't really just say the Exchange or AD box. Common ones I see usually are the Greek gods - Zeus, Hades, Apollo, Ares etc.

[Geralt]

2 hours ago, leadeater said:

Yes my network is AD controlled. In fact I have 3 forests, 1 for running all the base infrastructure (vCenter/System Center/Azure Pack/Puppet etc), 1 for for my home network and 1 for my friend's VMs I let him run on my servers. Got a one-way forest trust setup so we can AD auth using our local domain credentials to vCenter etc.

 

I've also got multiple VDOMs setup on my FortiGate firewall for each network for better isolation/administration and currently working on setting up private VLANs and Q-in-Q.

 

The network also spans across the city to my friend's house via a L3 site-to-site VPN where my other server is, the servers replicate to each other. Currently waiting on new fibre install at my house so I can setup a better connection and also see if I can wrangle my new ISP in to letting me do a multi-homed connection with their or my own IP block.

With that setup, your house sounds more like an enterprise server than a home server.

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, Geralt said:

With that setup, your house sounds more like an enterprise server than a home server.

Yea, funnily enough that is the point . I find it rather useful to have a lab where I can do any kind of testing for things I would do in my job or preparation for certification exams.

 

It can be tough to try new technologies when there is no true separate test lab so you can be still bound to certain facets of the existing environment or have to go through a change control process to do it which can be hard to justify the changes when there is no clear benefit and potential risks.

[Sunshine1868]

On August 16, 2016 at 6:47 PM, lukesterboy said:

~snip~

I own an HP DL360 G5

SFTP File Server, F@H, and Minecraft

Ubuntu 16.04 (its ~1000 miles away, so next time I get to it physically I'll install ESXi)

No idea. Dual 750W PSUs pumping full-bore due to F@H

24/7/365

DEFINITELY install a Hypervisor. it gives you SO much more freedom than just a single OS