Looking to build a file system server/video editing footage storage server...

[poshi]

Budget (including currency): <$1,000USD

Country: US

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Remote access server to push .pdf files to various users' tablets (~30 users on Android and iPadOS) in a user friendly solution while also storing raw footage for editing and being able to store/stream finalized video projects to be accessed either remotely or on the same local network. Specifically, 1.) I want my band to have a digital library of sheet music (in .pdf format) that they can pull from as long as they have internet or are on the same local network and 2.) for the amateur production team to be able to pull the raw video footage of our concerts, edit on DaVinci Resolve, and export back onto the server.

Other details: I might pull parts from my current PC (for when I upgrade) like the motherboard, CPU, and RAM but I would like to build a network rack and be able to remotely access the server via RDP. Current PC is listed here: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/BXtvBc. I plan to have this server at the rehearsal studio our band practices in but if that isn't a viable option, I will keep it at home. Windows preferred!

 

I more or less have an idea of the parts for the server but unsure as to what a good network rack would be and all the ways to set up the specific configuration I'm looking for. Something like a Plex server but for .pdf files and a remote access NAS for the editing footage? This will also be my first server so noobspeak is very much appreciated.

[adm0n]

Just a few ideas, that come to mind:

 

For local file sharing, you could just use normal network shares. If you aren't 100% sure of what you are doing, exposing your server to the Internet isn't that good of an idea, but if you want to do it anyway, you can use Nextcloud with two-factor authentication. But any security vulnerability in Nextcloud will make it possible for others to infiltrate your system, so maybe you should encapsulate it into a VM or something with limited access to the servers resources.

 

For anyone else, the local network shares can be access by just using a VPN to join your local network. This makes it pretty fool proof as far as security goes. If you use a VPN, RDP is also no longer a problem, but I'm not quite sure why you would need it.

 

You could also require anyone wanting to access Nextcloud to use the VPN, but that would be kinda annoying.

 

As far as the operating system is concerned, I'd strongly advise you to use something like unraid or truenas. They will handle most of the annoying things for you and also make sure your data is secure (if you set it up correctly). What windows features are you interested in? You could always have a windows VM hosted by your server, that has access to the data. You could connect to it via RDP, but I'm not quite sure why you would want to do that.

 

As for the specs, it depends on how much storage and bandwidth it is supposed to supply. If you just want it to store your data and don't mind waiting a bit, while pulling of some video files, any CPU from the last decade and some HDD's will do. But if you want to edit high bitrate videos straight on the server, you'll probably want something faster. Also if you want to host multiple VMs.

 

If you aren't looking forward to configuring everything yourself and just want something that works easily, you could also always look into some of the off the shelf solutions from Synology for example. They cost a bit extra, but the software seems to be very easy to use.

[poshi]

@adm0nActually, I think I'm gonna try to stick with the .pdf library half of the project for now. Something like a WAP on an HDD. The only problem I can think of with this is would there be a limit to the number of users connected to the WAP at once? Is there something like an app and/or hardware that already does this? I appreciate the reply thus far, thank you.

[adm0n]

I don't really know much about windows server, if that is what your are asking about. The simplest server, that could enable file transfers would be an ftp or sftp server. You could just host that on whatever computer and give it access to whatever directory you want. If you open this up to the internet, you'll have security vulnerabilities again, so you should at least use a strong password for authentication and forward it to a non standard port.

 

A VPN would again be preferred and much safer. Something else that could help, is if you can geo-restrict IP addresses that try to access your server. So only request coming from your country would be valid. All others would be denied by default. (This could be a problem while traveling though).

 

But if your plan is to actually open your files up to the internet, you have to be aware of all the security problems. If you want a very easy to use alternative, you can just use a cloud provider like google drive, dropbox, etc. It will be safer for you and your files. You could still sync that cloud drive with a local server, if you want to have your files locally.

[brob]

Consider a commercially available NAS appliance. Not an inexpensive solution but has the advantage of plug and play. Brands offering solutions include Asustor, Synology, and QNAP.