Basic home-server system

[sycc90]

Hello everyone!

I'm half-building a new home-server and would like some advice, I hope you can help me =)

 

I've got an old unused PC and would like to use it to set up a home-server. I plan on upgrading the storage and nic (onboard one only goes up to 100Mbps) and I'm not sure what scheme I should plan for.

The mobo is a M2N-68AM SE2, it's important that I mention it because it only has 2 SATA + 1 IDE ports and that will pretty much limit whatever I can do. I can add extra ports through a PCI expansion card but would really like to *not* do that.

My idea is to use this server to store media files and to host my personal projects, as well as handle backups from my main working pc. I'm not sure what I should do about that. It already has a 320GB HDD, which I'd probably use for the OS and applications, then I was planning on getting a new 2TB HDD for storage. However, I'm not sure if this is the best solution.

If I only have that one 2TB drive how will I handle backups of the server itself? Should I get a second 2TB drive, run those two and remove entirely the 320GB one?

 

On the other hand, what file system would be best for this? I'd like to try btrfs but doesn't seem stable enough yet for my needs... should I go for zfs, xfs, etx4? This is the part I'm most indecisive of actually, any recommendations?

 

Thank you all for you help.

-- Sycc

[Streetguru]

Hello everyone

You usually want to use ECC memory if your data is important

 

FreeNAS doesn't need an OS drive, just a flash drive to boot from, freeNAS uses ZFS

Might wanna just use new hardware man, if nothing else then for the power savings in even something like a low end AM1 PC

[sycc90]

You usually want to use ECC memory if your data is important

 

FreeNAS doesn't need an OS drive, just a flash drive to boot from, freeNAS uses ZFS

Might wanna just use new hardware man, if nothing else then for the power savings in even something like a low end AM1 PC

 

Hi there!

 

Well, the whole point of it is setting up the server using my old hardware... otherwise I might as well just get a new HDD for my working pc and save costs.

I haven't considered ECC memory because, even though data is very import, losing a couple of hours or so of work doesn't matter so RAM isn't a top priority for me. What I need is hard storage stability and integrity, that's why I'm unsure of which file system to chose.

 

I won't be using the server just for data storage though, also for hosting projects and some other custom tasks. Because of this freeNAS isn't a very good choice for me... and, to be fair, I personally don't really like it, I prefer an actual OS which I can fully customize and set up to my liking. I'm going to use CentOS for the server.

 

Thank you for your comments!

-- Sycc

[Streetguru]

Hi there!

You can just run a virtual machine from within freeNAS and use any OS with it I believe, not sure on the details there

 

otherwise I think btrfs is still relatively new as far as file systems go

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/32cu9w/zfs_vs_btrfs/

https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:822493/FULLTEXT01.pdf

"

The stability of Btrfs at the time of writing this thesis is debatable. The file system on-disk format is

considered stable and is not expected to change. However, the Btrfs code base is still under “heavy

development” (Sterba, 2014). The frequently asked questions section of the Btrfs wiki gives the

following advise regarding the stability: “If you are concerned about stability in commercial

production use, you should test btrfs on a testbed system under production workloads to see if it will

do what you want of it.” (Mills, 2012"

[sycc90]

But then if I'd run a VM in there, what's the point of using freeNAS to begin with? Isn't it just easier to run the other OS natively? I'm sorry, I hope I'm not being too hard-headed about this, it's just that I don't see the point of using freeNAS at all...

 

Yeah, that's exactly why I'd like to try btrfs but am unsure whether it would fit my needs. I was hoping maybe any of you have had any kind of experience in this area... would using zfs be a better idea? What about just plain ol' ext4? Or anything else for that matter.

 

Thank you!

-- Sycc

[Streetguru]

But then if I'd run a VM in there, what's the point of using freeNAS to begin with? Isn't it just easier to run the other OS natively? I'm sorry, I hope I'm not being too hard-headed about this, it's just

Mostly because freeNAS works pretty well

https://www.reddit.com/r/freenas/comments/1upwj4/why_freenas/

[sycc90]

Mostly because freeNAS works pretty well

https://www.reddit.com/r/freenas/comments/1upwj4/why_freenas/

 

That link doesn't help freeNAS much though, some of the posts were about people just migrating from it to Ubuntu or something else.

But you've insisted so much I thought I'd give it a try... it really isn't what I'm looking for. I can't believe the sheer amount of resources it needs, and I mean RAM for the actual system, not for the disk cache and database. It doesn't really give me the flexibility I want either.

I've searched around on the internet a little about this, I can see the main points are just zfs and simplicity (oversimplifying things a bit of course). I don't need the advantages of zfs, although the few I could use I can get with btrfs (still worried about stability though) or maybe setting up an lvm. The simplicity just doesn't do it for me, I hate when an OS tries to take control away from me and I end up having to work my way around it, I prefer installing a bare system with *just* the components I need and embrace the added flexibility and customization.

All in all, I'm still going to use CentOS for my server.

 

My original concerns were about storage and backup though, these still apply. In particular keeping in mind the old'ish pc I'm going to use for this. FreeNAS barely runs while I can get a linux server with just a couple of hundred megs of ram.

Do you have any recommendations about the storage and backup scheme?

 

In spite of my negative towards freeNAS, it's always good checking out other options. Thank you for your time =)

-- Sycc

[Streetguru]

That link doesn't help freeNAS much though, some of the posts were about people just migrating from it to Ubuntu or something else.

Aside from at least new cheap hardware, like the AM1 platform

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/9BKy6h

Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/9BKy6h/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD 3850 1.3GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($28.99 @ NCIX US)

Motherboard: MSI AM1I Mini ITX AM1 Motherboard  ($33.89 @ OutletPC)

Memory: Kingston 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($17.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Power Supply: EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply  ($29.99 @ Amazon)

Total: $110.86

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-22 21:41 EST-0500

Not really, just buy decent storage drives and hook them up, that's about it, WD red 2TB drives seem alright for the money

https://pcpartpicker.com/part/western-digital-internal-hard-drive-wd20efrx

normally you might go for hitachi/hgst drives, but all the ones in that price range are probably used.