Crazy home server idea.

[RedXIIIKM]

So I had this idea to create a home server with Windows 10 having the "storage spaces" and its ability to share files on a local network. With not being super familiar with Windows 10 OS I wanted to know if it would even be possible to create a storage pool like that and share it across a network. I realise that there are a ton of excellent options out there like freenas etc. but i wanted it to retain super ease of use for everyone (mainly my signifigant other) who would be accessing it. I'm not overly worried about data loss in this case as I would keep important files on my pc, and create backups as needed. I would also need to be able to use it as a media center for netflix and hulu and light gaming. Let me know any suggestions you have! Thanks.

 

Tl;dr I want to create an HTPC and use Windows 10 to share files across a home network. Will it work? 

Here's a link to the parts:

I know the motherboard won't support 6 drives, if anyone has recommendations on a board or hardware combo let me know.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/ZhfnkL

[manikyath]

1: dont get the EVGA nex, not worth it.

2: try linux, with instead of a desktop enviroment, have it boot into kodi ready to be used as what a HTPC is supposed to be used as. (or steam big picture, if thats more your thing)

3: for anything else than raid 0 or 1 i suggest getting a decent raid card to do the job properly.

[RedWulf]

With freenas you can add cifs then just map the drive to a computer and it shows up like a flash drive

 

but on win10 you want homegroup or filesharing

[HPWebcamAble]

10 minutes ago, RedXIIIKM said:

I know the motherboard won't support 6 drives

Why not? It's got enough SATA ports

 

Though for that much storage, I'd get less, higher capacity drives.

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, RedWulf said:

With freenas you can add cifs then just map the drive to a computer and it shows up like a flash drive

 

but on win10 you want homegroup or filesharing

this. in fact, i've had more luck with samba sharing (windows file sharing) using a linux server than using a windows server.

 

windows is MUCH more keen on having that samba logged in to, and doesnt really like not requiring a password, if you tell linux no password, you'll get no password

[8uhbbhu8]

2 minutes ago, HPWebcamAble said:

Why not? It's got enough SATA ports

 

Though for that much storage, I'd get less, higher capacity drives.

Just because the board has 6 ports doesn't mean it supports using them all at once. Some ports are probably on shared resources so when one or the other resource is used the port is disabled

[manikyath]

Just now, 8uhbbhu8 said:

Just because the board has 6 ports doesn't mean it supports using them all at once. Some ports are probably on shared resources so when one or the other resource is used the port is disabled

theres nothing on that pcpp list that a motherboard manufacturer put on the same lane as sata ports.

[manikyath]

i just thought... if this is gonna be a htpc... you REALLY dont want that many drives, having all of those clunk away (which they will in a raid) while watching a movie may be the most immersion breaking thing you've ever had around during a movie. even with the most silent case, and the most silent drives, its gonna be a killer.

[RedXIIIKM]

My only thing is it would be sitting in our living room, and I wanted for her to be able to get on and already be familiar with the layout of things. She hates change and would not touch it if things looked different from windows. Me personally, I'd rather use something like freenas and forget it, but the main point is to make it user friendly for her, where she can sit on the couch and play the Sims or watch netflix. I just figured having it setup as a storage space with everyone on a home group would make things easy for her. 

[RedWulf]

4 minutes ago, manikyath said:

this. in fact, i've had more luck with samba sharing (windows file sharing) using a linux server than using a windows server.

 

windows is MUCH more keen on having that samba logged in to, and doesnt really like not requiring a password, if you tell linux no password, you'll get no password

I set up freenas to my windows group, android, and kodi without any trouble but windows had me watching howto guides

 

1 minute ago, RedXIIIKM said:

My only thing is it would be sitting in our living room, and I wanted for her to be able to get on and already be familiar with the layout of things. She hates change and would not touch it if things looked different from windows. Me personally, I'd rather use something like freenas and forget it, but the main point is to make it user friendly for her, where she can sit on the couch and play the Sims or watch netflix. I just figured having it setup as a storage space with everyone on a home group would make things easy for her. 

then use win10 and just allow file sharing/network access and maybe a home group 

[manikyath]

Just now, RedWulf said:

I set up freenas to my windows group, android, and kodi without any trouble but windows had me watching howto guides

strangely, going linux-linux, windows-linux, or within homegroup seems to go flawless for me... but whenever i try windows-windows outside of homegroup there's at least one machine thats like "AW HELL NAW"

[RedWulf]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

strangely, going linux-linux, windows-linux, or within homegroup seems to go flawless for me... but whenever i try windows-windows outside of homegroup there's at least one machine thats like "AW HELL NAW"

I was suprised how easily I could add android ftp and runeaudio nfs

 

If you can bump up the ram and cpu abit I think freenas can run as a vm

[RedXIIIKM]

@RedWulf @manikyath I figured if we were all on the same home group, with her laptop, mine, my pc, and this thing, it would allow her and I to for lack of better words, use it as a storage dump for general stuff. If I was going for just a pure storage device I'd go free nas, but with it being a multi purpose machine, this seemed to be the best route, as far as ease of use goes on her end. 

[spartaman64]

12 minutes ago, 8uhbbhu8 said:

Just because the board has 6 ports doesn't mean it supports using them all at once. Some ports are probably on shared resources so when one or the other resource is used the port is disabled

why would it have 6 sata ports then and you can get a pci sata adapter

[RedXIIIKM]

As far as motherboard goes it seems I misread the spec sheet. Pcpartpicker isn't freaking out about all the drives.

[RedXIIIKM]

10 minutes ago, manikyath said:

i just thought... if this is gonna be a htpc... you REALLY dont want that many drives, having all of those clunk away (which they will in a raid) while watching a movie may be the most immersion breaking thing you've ever had around during a movie. even with the most silent case, and the most silent drives, its gonna be a killer.

Yeah I thought about that too. I wanted to find larger drives that didn't kill the wallet, any reccomendations? If I could get 2 or even just 4 drives in there that would be even better. I could use an ssd as a boot drive and speed it up a little.

[RedWulf]

1 minute ago, RedXIIIKM said:

@RedWulf @manikyath I figured if we were all on the same home group, with her laptop, mine, my pc, and this thing, it would allow her and I to for lack of better words, use it as a storage dump for general stuff. If I was going for just a pure storage device I'd go free nas, but with it being a multi purpose machine, this seemed to be the best route, as far as ease of use goes on her end. 

theoretically it will, but its faulted and limited, long story short is try it and good luck, just set up win10 and set up the homegroup which is guided and then just enable file sharing as google can step-by-step you

 

3 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

why would it have 6 sata ports then

I can't speak for this board but some are just for backup, cable management, or to add 6 lower grade sata devices(basically a bandwidth limit lower than 6gbps x 6)

[RedWulf]

Just now, RedXIIIKM said:

Yeah I thought about that too. I wanted to find larger drives that didn't kill the wallet, any reccomendations? If I could get 2 or even just 4 drives in there that would be even better. I could use an ssd as a boot drive and speed it up a little.

actually some frives get cheaper per gig as you go up compared to multiple drives. reds or blacks are good for 3-4tb drives and seagate is cheaper. server based drives are also more ideal for multi users

[manikyath]

Just now, RedXIIIKM said:

Yeah I thought about that too. I wanted to find larger drives that didn't kill the wallet, any reccomendations? If I could get 2 or even just 4 drives in there that would be even better. I could use an ssd as a boot drive and speed it up a little.

well.. do you *need* all that storage?

 

theres the seagate archive drives you could look into if you dont expect speeds to blast your pants off.

they're roughly 4x the price of 2TB ones, at roughly 4x the price.

[RedXIIIKM]

Just now, RedWulf said:

actually some frives get cheaper per gig as you go up compared to multiple drives. reds or blacks are good for 3-4tb drives and seagate is cheaper. server based drives are also more ideal for multi users

Ahh. Anything you reccomend in this case? 

 

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

well.. do you *need* all that storage?

 

theres the seagate archive drives you could look into if you dont expect speeds to blast your pants off.

they're roughly 4x the price of 2TB ones, at roughly 4x the price.

I don't really, but this parts list is just a concept list, and if she wanted to really get into gaming, have enough room to throw whatever on it without worry. In reality 4 terabytes would be all I'd ever need, but you know, overkill.

 

Also, thank you everyone who's helping me out with this. 

[RedWulf]

Personally i'm a wd fanboy so i say some 3tb red but blue is cheap 

but I've seen some seagate archives upto 8tb 

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/seagate-internal-hard-drive-st8000as0002

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/western-digital-internal-hard-drive-wd60ezrz

 

[manikyath]

Just now, RedXIIIKM said:

Ahh. Anything you reccomend in this case? 

 

I don't really, but this parts list is just a concept list, and if she wanted to really get into gaming, have enough room to throw whatever on it without worry. In reality 4 terabytes would be all I'd ever need, but you know, overkill.

 

Also, thank you everyone who's helping me out with this. 

i'd say maybe two 2TB drives doing their thing (one games and media, perhaps?) and a single 4TB WD green as an overnight backup.

[RedWulf]

Just now, manikyath said:

i'd say maybe two 2TB drives doing their thing (one games and media, perhaps?) and a single 4TB WD green as an overnight backup.

on the cheap end this sounds good, maybe a seperate 500gb for the os and programs and such

[manikyath]

Just now, RedWulf said:

on the cheap end this sounds good, maybe a seperate 500gb for the os and programs and such

i'd say a "small" SSD, and have one of the drives be tied to the OS for all games, programs, etc. that doesnt need to be hooked into the network, and have the other drive hooked into the network.

[RedXIIIKM]

2 minutes ago, manikyath said:

i'd say maybe two 2TB drives doing their thing (one games and media, perhaps?) and a single 4TB WD green as an overnight backup.

I'm willing to change hardware around, I really like this case and it would fit into my entertainment center perfectly. 

I suppose I could go down to just 4TB, and I can always add if need be.

1 minute ago, RedWulf said:

on the cheap end this sounds good, maybe a seperate 500gb for the os and programs and such

If I drop some of the drives off I could throw in a 500gb ssd for the boot drive and throw a few games or movies on that that would be used frequently. She digs the Sims so this would be like a dream for her. She's been stuck with a HP laptop from the stone ages.