home file server

[Joshua Ondangan]

Hi guys.

 

I'm thinking of building a home server I can easily access to using 3 pc.

 

a HTPC to access some movies, my gaming pc so I can store backup stuff there, and my work pc so I can trasfer stuff etc.

 

I'm still searching around for more info and I saw a lot of these stuff @ the 10tb+ storage section and I decided to make my own small one.

 

I have an old c2d I can pretty much use with 2gb ram. I have x3 2TB green drives available. for a chassis I'll just pick up something and mod it a bit.

 

I want to keep them like in all 1 partition (like D: drive something like that.) do I need to use a raid card? I'm thinking of something like raid 10. 

 

How about those wd red drives? are they good for these kind of setup since if they are I'm planning to buy some whenever I need more space.

 

I would like to be able to just slap in new drives there and be golden.

 

if I started having a lot of hdd's do I need a multi rail psu?

 

how do I set up stuff like it's own cache or something? I remember seeing a vid with linus about a 10gbp net something.

 

btw thanks for the help in advance. sorry if I'm missing a lot of stuff but it's 4:15am I'm just about to sleep been looking through the net about more information on these things.

 

note: If I don't need a raid card. what else will I need so I can connect to it through my other pc's? I need it to be like a backup and something like that and not sure about raid.

[Vitalius]

I'll respond to each thing in order:

 

I have an old c2d I can pretty much use with 2gb ram.

Then you'll want to use FreeNAS with UFS. You need 8GB minimum for ZFS, but you don't need ZFS. UFS is fine.

 

I have x3 2TB green drives available. for a chassis I'll just pick up something and mod it a bit.

Sounds good. Just don't do Parity RAID. Green Drives + Parity RAID = Huge potential Failure.

 

I want to keep them like in all 1 partition (like D: drive something like that.) do I need to use a raid card? I'm thinking of something like raid 10.

You won't need a RAID card if you use FreeNAS.

 

You can't do that. You have 3 drives. RAID 10 requires 4 at the minimum. You can either do RAID 1 between all 3, or RAID 0 between all 3. All other forms of RAID need 4 drives or more. I wouldn't bother with RAID with only 3 drives.

 

How about those wd red drives? are they good for these kind of setup since if they are I'm planning to buy some whenever I need more space.

Yes, they are very good for storage servers. Upgrading to them would be a good move. 

 

Do not use Parity RAID with the Green Hard Drives. Bad things will come of it. Just don't. Parity RAID is RAID 5, 6, and 7. Or RAID Z1, Z2, and Z3 in FreeNAS.

 

I would like to be able to just slap in new drives there and be golden.

Then don't use RAID at all. That's the only way you can do that in a safe manner without rebuilding your setup every time you add new drives.

 

if I started having a lot of hdd's do I need a multi rail psu?

Multi-rail? Probably not. HDD's only need a lot of Amps when they spin up. They don't need much at all to keep spinning. Most normal PSU's would be fine under 8 drives. After 8, you might want to consider actually checking how many Amps minimum you need to start the machine. You can cross that bridge later though.

 

how do I set up stuff like it's own cache or something? I remember seeing a vid with linus about a 10gbp net something.

Yeah, you aren't going to be using 10Gbps network. Unless you want to spend $2,000 for the equipment alone. 

I would buy a 32GB or 64GB SSD to use as cache for the volumes personally.

 

If I don't need a raid card. what else will I need so I can connect to it through my other pc's? I need it to be like a backup and something like that and not sure about raid.

You just need a network connection. That's it. Then set up shares on FreeNAS and mount them on your home network. There are tons of guides for FreeNAS. It's simple enough with the GUI.

[Joshua Ondangan]

btw thanks there brother lol had difficulties finding this topic . I'll go look through those stuff and hope you guys don't mind if I got more questions to ask next time hehehe.