What would I do with a server?

Psittac · July 4, 2016

For some reason I am rather intrigued with having a server, but at the same time I'm not sure what use I would have with it. Really all I do is game and browse FB and youtube. I don't have any files to keep backed up, but perhaps that's because I have the mentality of simply wiping all data when needed. One thing I would love to do is offer backup to my family members, as every so often their computers become unfixable and need to be wiped and a fresh install, so something they could easily access to backup files would be nice. Or perhaps I can sit down with them and find out where they keep their files and have an auto backup to those folders? I would like to get into folding at home and plan on running both of my desktops with cpu and gpu, but I don't think a xeon chip would add all that much to the results as gpu's stomp all over a cpu. Maybe I could make it a solid firewall? Again I don't know anything about networking but maybe it could be a new hobby. I'm not sure what I would do with a server, but the idea is awesome. I have a home theater which will have a desktop on it as well.

My machines:

x99 gaming/VR rig

z77 gaming HTPC

dual core laptop

tablet

smartphone

I found a Dell PowerEdge C6100 for $300 with two nodes (that's 4x cpu's 4core each) Thoughts on things I can research what to do with this machine

Lurick · July 4, 2016

You could setup a server as a CrashPlan headend. They can backup all their files to the crashplan server you host locally for free and then you can have that server either backup to the CrashPlan main storage or just be the backup server and that's it. You can host files and stream them with something like Plex or even use the server to do some Folding@Home work. You can turn it into a Pfsense router/firewall like you suggest. You can install a Linux box and do everything I mentioned earlier and also do DNS, web hosting, and a bunch of other things as well.