Crazy home server idea.

[manikyath]

Just now, RedXIIIKM said:

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.

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.

how big is your current storage "pile"? i personally really like everything being on a single hard drive for hardware failure reasons.

[RedXIIIKM]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

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.

If I throw an ssd in it would be local. I'd use the hard drives on the network so she can transfer stuff to her laptop on the go. It doesn't have to be blazing fast. 

 

Also I really appreciate all the help, from everyone.

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, RedXIIIKM said:

If I throw an ssd in it would be local. I'd use the hard drives on the network so she can transfer stuff to her laptop on the go. It doesn't have to be blazing fast. 

 

Also I really appreciate all the help, from everyone.

will this rig be doing any gaming or graphically intensive tasks?

[RedXIIIKM]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

will this rig be doing any gaming or graphically intensive tasks?

Netflix and the sims. She's been branching out and playing more games so if she gets into other games I may need the headroom for a graphics card

[RedWulf]

The main reason i suggest a os drive isnt for speed reasons, its for traffic reasons and for easily manipulating the others without fear of messing up the os 

perhaps just 2 4tb drives in raid 1? or just a nightly cloning task

 

also, even with an ssd, wifi is the limiting factor for network transfer

 

[RedXIIIKM]

Just now, RedWulf said:

The main reason i suggest a os drive isnt for speed reasons, its for traffic reasons and for easily manipulating the others without fear of messing up the os 

perhaps just 2 4tb drives in raid 1? or just a nightly cloning task

 

also, even with an ssd, wifi is the limiting factor for network transfer

 

I meant speed for loading up her games and apps she uses frequently and making it feel a little snappier.

[manikyath]

2 minutes ago, RedXIIIKM said:

Netflix and the sims. She's been branching out and playing more games so if she gets into other games I may need the headroom for a graphics card

netflix isnt graphically intensive.

if you let out the dedicated GPU for now, this is what you could do for the storage:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/VnWzmG

boot ssd, two 4TB "pools" (one for media, one for documents, etc.) and a 8TB overnight backup drive.

[RedXIIIKM]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

netflix isnt graphically intensive.

if you let out the dedicated GPU for now, this is what you could do for the storage:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/VnWzmG

boot ssd, two 4TB "pools" (one for media, one for documents, etc.) and a 8TB overnight backup drive.

I know netflix isn't, I just meant for gaming if she wanted to play games that needed the resources

[RedWulf]

6 minutes ago, manikyath said:

netflix isnt graphically intensive.

if you let out the dedicated GPU for now, this is what you could do for the storage:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/VnWzmG

boot ssd, two 4TB "pools" (one for media, one for documents, etc.) and a 8TB overnight backup drive.

Isn't it recommend 1gb ram per tb storage plus 2gb, so maybe go 12 to be safe or 16 since thats common 

and even a cheap r5 or hd would be better than i3 graphics 

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/ngRYpg

[RedXIIIKM]

3 minutes ago, RedWulf said:

Isn't it recommend 1gb ram per tb storage plus 2gb, so maybe go 12 to be safe or 16 since thats common 

and even a cheap r5 or hd would be better than i3 graphics 

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/ngRYpg

I threw that evga card on there as a placeholder. I'd throw a 970 or 980 in there most likely if I ever needed it. And I thought the ram requirements were there for freenas. I don't think windows would require it.

[RedWulf]

1 minute ago, RedXIIIKM said:

I threw that evga card on there as a placeholder. I'd throw a 970 or 980 in there most likely if I ever needed it. And I thought the ram requirements were there for freenas. I don't think windows would require it.

eh, unless its legit gaming like csgo I think a light card will be fine for sims over the igpu atleast

As far as i know the ram is required for data hosting in general, such as windows server, and since you'll be doing a deal of file sharing and backup I would think it works the same way. With 18-24gb flowing (6gbps sata x 3 or 4) it makes sense you'd want more than 8gb of ram.

[Blake]

1 hour ago, RedXIIIKM said:

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

storage spaces is closer to software RAID then sharing.

other have recommended home sharing, don't do it, just change the share permissions for everyone to full access and then set ntfs permissions as needed. Then on the 'client' systems just right click computer in explorer and choose map drive. Tell it to use other credentials, and enter HTPC\username as the user.

 

1 hour ago, manikyath said:

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.

2. Why are people recommending Non-Windows based solutions? can't you guys read? He clearly stated he knows that there are options like freeNAS which are good, but is asking if windows 10 can do what he is after. to use an analogy: Q: I need a mode of transport that uses 4 wheels and costs under 50k. A: Have you seen this helicopter?

3. for this use case, storage spaces is fine. just don't to the parity storage space with that CPU.

1 hour 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

cifs is not used, hasn't been for a while. See http://blog.fosketts.net/2012/02/16/cifs-smb/

 

 

[manikyath]

9 hours ago, Blake said:

2. Why are people recommending Non-Windows based solutions? can't you guys read? He clearly stated he knows that there are options like freeNAS which are good, but is asking if windows 10 can do what he is after. to use an analogy: Q: I need a mode of transport that uses 4 wheels and costs under 50k. A: Have you seen this helicopter?

3. for this use case, storage spaces is fine. just don't to the parity storage space with that CPU.

2: because he said he wanted it to be user friendly. and in my eeys its a common misconception linux isnt user friendly, while in fact if set up correctly it very much is. besides i said try, i didnt say he should do it. a lot of people say "i wont do linux" before they tried it, i try to push people to taking that leap and just test it, a few of those are now primarily linux users. EDIT: oh, and thats $100 he can spend elsewhere.

3: this is a box that needs to not lose data, with a software (or mobo, look at barnacules) raid theres just too much that can go wrong, so i referred to a "bare metal copy overnight" approach. which would also be better noise wise, as this box will be a HTPC as well, which 6 clunking drives isnt a very good idea for.

[manikyath]

10 hours ago, RedWulf said:

Isn't it recommend 1gb ram per tb storage plus 2gb, so maybe go 12 to be safe or 16 since thats common 

and even a cheap r5 or hd would be better than i3 graphics 

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/ngRYpg

thats for freenas' whatever its using as file system.

[Blake]

11 hours ago, manikyath said:

2: because he said he wanted it to be user friendly. and in my eeys its a common misconception linux isnt user friendly, while in fact if set up correctly it very much is. besides i said try, i didnt say he should do it. a lot of people say "i wont do linux" before they tried it, i try to push people to taking that leap and just test it, a few of those are now primarily linux users. EDIT: oh, and thats $100 he can spend elsewhere.

3: this is a box that needs to not lose data, with a software (or mobo, look at barnacules) raid theres just too much that can go wrong, so i referred to a "bare metal copy overnight" approach. which would also be better noise wise, as this box will be a HTPC as well, which 6 clunking drives isnt a very good idea for.

 

Lets go back to the original question:

Quote

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.

To go back to that analogy:

Question asked: I need a mode of transport that uses 4 wheels and costs under 50k. I am aware that I can get X, however my wife dosen't know how to use a clutch.

Answer given: Here is an X you can only get it with a manual gearbox unless your a mechanic and can install an automatic gearbox...

 

Good work, you completely missed the point of the question. Given that he as already stated that freenas is out of the question.

 

Also FreeNAS is not a linux build. Also good luck getting the GUI up and running, sure it's possible, but good luck with that.

 

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, Blake said:

Good work, you completely missed the point of the question. Given that he as already stated that freenas is out of the question.

 

Also FreeNAS is not a linux build. Also good luck getting the GUI up and running, sure it's possible, but good luck with that.

 

he mentioned ease of use, when i mentioned linux i was of the idea it'd be a HTPC which would basicly be accessed TV-remote style, for which kodi is amazing, and what's driving the backend doesnt really matter in that case.

 

besides, i NEVER mentioned freenas, i'm not a fan of it at all, i use things other than windows for my servers because i have less hardware usage then, freenas is quite the oposite of that, with the required ram usually costing about as much as the hard drives...

 

as for GUI running, most linux based HTPC solutions are pretty much plug & play, and act as if they are a settop box once configured.