Home server / NAS

[WkdPaul]

Home server project 

 

TLDR at the end!

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So, a few years ago I had a NAS built from an old Dell Optiplex, it died and then got revived, but it's an old thing (Core2Quad with DDR2). Fortunately, today I got my hands on a(nother) free workstation with a 3770 (an HP, full tower), and got to thinking that it might be time for me to rebuild my NAS !!

 

So, I got the workstation sorted (i7-3770, 8GB of DDR3, 1TB drive, no GPU), and for storage, I'm guessing a few 4TB would do (will wait for Black Friday deals). But that's not the real issue.

 

 

Now, my biggest blankspot on this is the OS. I could always put Server 2012R2 as I got a licence for that (it's a legit licence) ! But I'm wondering if that would be the right move. I know there are different flavours of Linux out there that would be a perfect fit for a NAS build, but one thing is bothering me : security cameras.

 

See, I have a few cameras around the house, and I have my old Optiplex running iSpy for monitoring and recording (the recordings are saved on a 2TB drive and then it's backed up (moved) to my gaming rig where I have a few drives in RAID5 and a regular backup to the cloud. (The whole backup solution would have to be redone if I switched to Linux, but it wouldn't be much work if I stayed on Windows)

 

Also, there's no Linux version of iSpy, so what would be a good alternative? I'm currently reading about ZoneMiner, but I'm open to suggestions!

 

 

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TLDR ;

 

New home server ;

• Windows server 2012R2 or Linux ?
• If I go Linux, I need a security camera monitoring and recording software (currently using iSpy)
• No need for new hardware ... well, I'm getting new drives, but I don't need help on that front !  

[Electronics Wizardy]

You can always run linux or some other hypervisor on the hardware, then run a windows vm. Id personally run a linux distro like proxmox here. Or any other distro should work fine.

 

For drives, id shuck those 8tb externals, there about the best deals in drives you can get now.

 

 

[Spotty]

32 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

Also, there's no Linux version of iSpy, so what would be a good alternative? I'm currently reading about ZoneMiner, but I'm open to suggestions!
 

New home server ;

• Windows server 2012R2 or Linux ?

Just to complicate things further, if you're running a NAS you also want to double for CCTV then FreeNAS also runs Zoneminder. I've looked in to Zoneminder rather recently and I saw some good things about it, but I haven't used it myself yet. No idea how well it runs on FreeNAS vs Linux vs Windows

[WkdPaul]

On 11/12/2019 at 5:30 PM, Electronics Wizardy said:

You can always run linux or some other hypervisor on the hardware, then run a windows vm. Id personally run a linux distro like proxmox here. Or any other distro should work fine.

Not sure I'll run an hypervisor or not, for now I'm just debating between Server 2012R2 and some linux distro. Having an hypervisor would simplify the OS backup and recovery though, so I might check what I could use. I'm used to vmware, and I know they have a free version, so I would have to check if that version is enough for my needs. If not, there's always Hyper-V (I do have a licence for that one!), I'm just not that familiar with it compared to vmware!

 

On 11/12/2019 at 5:30 PM, Electronics Wizardy said:

For drives, id shuck those 8tb externals, there about the best deals in drives you can get now.

Nah, I already have 4TB internal drives I'm looking at, it's going to mainly be short term storage for the recording of the security cameras (on my bank of old 1TB), and then long term storage (important documents and family photos and videos) will be local mirrored drives (the 4TB ones) + a cloud copy.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 hour ago, wkdpaul said:

Not sure I'll run an hypervisor or not, for now I'm just debating between Server 2012R2 and some linux distro. Having an hypervisor would simplify the OS backup and recovery though, so I might check what I could use. I'm used to vmware, and I know they have a free version, so I would have to check if that version is enough for my needs. If not, there's always Hyper-V (I do have a licence for that one!), I'm just not that familiar with it compared to vmware!

Hyper-v server is free, so might as well run hyper-v server 2019 if your gonna run hyper-v.

 

ESXI free should do all you need as well.

 

I find that hypervisors are pretty easy to learn once you know one of them, esp for the basic drive.

[WkdPaul]

@Electronics Wizardy

 

I was looking at Proxmox and that looks interesting, but like you said, even though I have a licence for the Hyper-V Server 2012R2, at that point, I should just get the free 2019 version!

 

But since I'm used to deal with vmware, I think I should just get the free ESXi version and be done with it! After that it will be a breeze to install the VMs I need and go from there. I'll probably go with my Server 2012R2 since I can run a few other things on that and use it as a lab for a few things.

Edited November 14, 2019 by wkdpaul

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

I was looking at Proxmox and that looks interesting, but like you said, even though I have a licence for the Hyper-V Server 2012R2, at that point, I should just get the free 2019 version!

I like proxmox more as Im more of a linux guy.

 

Also hyper-v server is free, but all you can do is run vms. no windows apps or any other services.

 

But if you don't really care about licensing, windows saerver 2019 has a 3 years trial( 180 day that can be renewed 5 times)

 

3 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

But since I'm used to deal with vmware, I think I should just get the free ESXi version and be done with it! After that it will be a breeze to install the VMs I need and go from there. I'll probably go with my Server 2012R2 since I can run a few other things on that and use it as a lab for a few things.

I like to spread out vms per task so no reason to use vms if you make a big one for everything.

 

server 2012r2 standard lets you install 2 copys within the license, and datacenter allows unlimited vms.

[WkdPaul]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

I like to spread out vms per task so no reason to use vms if you make a big one for everything.

yeah, sorry if I wasn't clear, I meant to say I'm going to use my 2012R2 licence to run my security software and a few minor things, then have another 2012R2 VM as a home lab and I'll use something else for the NAS part (probably FreeNAS since I used that previously)  

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, wkdpaul said:

yeah, sorry if I wasn't clear, I meant to say I'm going to use my 2012R2 licence to run my security software and a few minor things, then have another 2012R2 VM as a home lab and I'll use something else for the NAS part (probably FreeNAS since I used that previously)  

If your running esxi or  hyper-v or proxmox id stay away from freenas unless you doing passthrough of a storage HBA. Freenas has zfs that like to have direct access to the drives. If you aren't giving it access to the drives, id just use a simple linux distro for sharing.

 

 

Or run proxmox so you can have zfs on the hardware.