Software for a Home server

[Apalermo41]

I am building a home server with a xeon e3-1230 v5, 16gb of ram, and over 5tb of storage. I plan to use my server for Plex for the time being, but I am certainly going to be wanting to explore many options in the future. My question is what software to use. I am currently planning on using unraid, but I'm free to many options. Any advice would be greatly appreciated 

[Mark77]

If you have decent Linux admin background, why not use a real distribution of Linux? 

 

If you don't, well, then you're probably best off using the pre-built stuff. 

[BOT Edward]

Maybe try something like ClearOS?

It's linux but very GUI friendly and can be good to manage remotely using the web interface

[Lehti]

I suggest you experiment a bit with the various offerings you have available before you settle on something more or less definitive.

If you want and can afford to pay for UnRAID, go for it, but before you do, check out some Linux distributions, Windows Server itself (if you're a college student, chances are you can have as many copies of Windows Server 2008 and 2012 as you want) or, if you have a copy laying around, even Windows 10 (or 7, or 8) Home or Pro.

There's also the various *BSD distributions, but these have very skinny user bases and, as a rule of thumb, whenever you want to go hipster with computers, try to be as mainstream as possible, meaning that if a certain piece of software has a considerable user base, chances are you're more likely to find help, either in the form of someone willing to help you out on the forums, or in the form of articles in websites, blogs and whatnot.

[Eniqmatic]

FreeNAS get's my vote!

[Apalermo41]

What exactly could I do with Ubuntu server compared to unraid

[Lehti]

1 hour ago, Apalermo41 said:

What exactly could I do with Ubuntu server compared to unraid

Ubuntu server doesn't come preinstalled with a GUI of any kind, so it's geared toward more advanced users. Nothing prevents you, however, from installing one from the command line, but this is strongly discouraged in servers that are exposed to the Internet because any GUI is an attack surface that hackers may exploit, which is why even Microsoft nowadays suggests uninstalling the GUI after the initial configuration and switching to a command line interface (they call it a "Server Core Installation").

If you don't feel like dealing with more advanced stuff and just want something that "just works", you should avoid Linux and *BSD distributions, FreeNAS and Windows Server altogether, IMHO.

[Apalermo41]

7 hours ago, Lehti said:

Ubuntu server doesn't come preinstalled with a GUI of any kind, so it's geared toward more advanced users. Nothing prevents you, however, from installing one from the command line, but this is strongly discouraged in servers that are exposed to the Internet because any GUI is an attack surface that hackers may exploit, which is why even Microsoft nowadays suggests uninstalling the GUI after the initial configuration and switching to a command line interface (they call it a "Server Core Installation").

If you don't feel like dealing with more advanced stuff and just want something that "just works", you should avoid Linux and *BSD distributions, FreeNAS and Windows Server altogether, IMHO.

So I should stick to unraid for a first system and then later dabble into the other systems 

[Lehti]

7 minutes ago, Apalermo41 said:

So I should stick to unraid for a first system and then later dabble into the other systems 

Preferrably, yeah. Apply for Linux systems only if you don't mind spending a lot of time learning how to properly configure them.

[Mikensan]

Think about what you want to learn, linux / freebsd / windows. If you have an interest in learning more of any of those then go that route. Only when you start getting in to specific use cases or environments does one or the other start becoming the better choice. But for an at home solution, all three will equally serve you.

 

Each have turn key solutions (for the most part) but each can be more of a manual setup. If you really don't care which one you chose but want to experiment then just for a change (if you're a windows guy), free license, and turn-key I would go with FreeNAS. If you want a pure-turn key then unRaid or Windows. Windows Hyper-V core is free but you'll need to know some powershell to get anywhere.

[Lehti]

9 hours ago, Mikensan said:

Each have turn key solutions (for the most part) but each can be more of a manual setup. If you really don't care which one you chose but want to experiment then just for a change (if you're a windows guy), free license, and turn-key I would go with FreeNAS. If you want a pure-turn key then unRaid or Windows. Windows Hyper-V core is free but you'll need to know some powershell to get anywhere.

I think it's only included in Windows 10 Pro & Server editions. Windows 10 Home users can take advantage of Virtualbox if they want to virtualize, but maybe for a home server it's a tad overkill.