Home Server

[AndyW99]

First time posting and very new to PC building (only ever built one PC with hand me down parts). I am moving to a new house soon and from research I am thinking of building a home server. This will be to store local security footage, backup files for myself and my partner as well as running home automation. I am looking for help in what sort of setup I will be looking for in terms of hardware and best way to set it up. I am not sure on my exact budget but happy to spend a reasonable amount!

[dogwitch]

4 minutes ago, AndyW99 said:

First time posting and very new to PC building (only ever built one PC with hand me down parts). I am moving to a new house soon and from research I am thinking of building a home server. This will be to store local security footage, backup files for myself and my partner as well as running home automation. I am looking for help in what sort of setup I will be looking for in terms of hardware and best way to set it up. I am not sure on my exact budget but happy to spend a reasonable amount!

Honest answer.

home labs sub on reddit.

 

[Sjaakie]

If you're up for tinkering / settings stuff up yourself you can use any half decent pc to start up a home server with said capabilities. It's usually also both the cheaper and more powerfull option (better hardware to run more stuff / programs).

 

For more ready made solutions look into Synology. It's more expensive but also more accessible to set up.

[manikyath]

just an old desktop, as long as it's haswell or newer it's gonna be just fine for some basic home server workloads.

[AndyW99]

Would I need to run any particular software? and would you recommend using Windows as an OS or say Linux? 

[jeo]

2 minutes ago, AndyW99 said:

Would I need to run any particular software? and would you recommend using Windows as an OS or say Linux? 

In my opinion you would be best of using an old desktop computer and install install TrueNAS Core. In terms of hardware and specs all you really need is:

- 8GB of ram

- a least 2 large HDD (+4TB)

- cheap boot drive (~a 120GB ssd )

 

TrueNAS will let you do most home lab things, and it is free.