Need Help Picking Server/NAS OS

[thegingertator]

Hi,

 

I just built a server with a Celeron G530, 8GB of DDR3 and two 1TB HDDs along with a 500GB. I also have a 250GB as the boot drive. I plan to run the first 3 in JBOD to get as much storage as possible. Don't worry, I have a plan for backup and nothing on there is mission critical, mostly music and movies. Anyway, I need help deciding on what operating system I should put on the server. I have minimal Linux experience but I am open to learning. I was going to use Windows Server 2012 R2 but then I looked at the price tag and died a little inside. Besides being a local file server I want to be able to use this server as an FTP and possibly some other light server duties like possibly running a game server (not sure though). Would really appreciate any input you guys have!
 

Thanks,
Kellen

[InitializingDev]

Could try FreeNas. I have heard its pretty good. Since being a student I get Windows Server for free but yah. And if you really need to have a os like Windows you could probably try Plex on Windows or you could try what Linus did and use unRAID and visualize FreeNas and windows however I think you should really chose one or the other to maximize performance 

http://www.freenas.org/

[dvdmuckle]

If you have minimal Linux experience, I'd build off that and pick a Linux OS for your server. You could use Debian or Ubuntu server, or if you have slightly more experience Arch. A lot of software is compatible with Debian and Ubuntu, though Arch also has the Arch User Repository, which has a lot of software. Personally I use "Ubuntu server" (Ubuntu desktop made headless), and it works well as a media server and storage server, though if you run Windows you might need to do some extra configuration for storing files, either on the server or desktop side.

[thegingertator]

21 hours ago, InitializingDev said:

Could try FreeNas. I have heard its pretty good. Since being a student I get Windows Server for free but yah. And if you really need to have a os like Windows you could probably try Plex on Windows or you could try what Linus did and use unRAID and visualize FreeNas and windows however I think you should really chose one or the other to maximize performance 

http://www.freenas.org/

This may sound like a silly question but I have heard some really cool things like running VMs can be used in FreeNas using jails and other things like that. Is that true? Could I have a FreeNas storage system that also has VM of Windows that runs my VPN or something?

[dvdmuckle]

FreeNAS can't run VMs, no.

[thegingertator]

7 minutes ago, dvdmuckle said:

FreeNAS can't run VMs, no.

http://www.freenas.org/blog/yes-you-can-virtualize-freenas/

[dvdmuckle]

Oh, well, FreeNAS can be run using other tools like VMware or unRAID (I think), but it itself cannot run a VM. Not to my knowledge at least, which consists of a quick google.

[thegingertator]

1 minute ago, dvdmuckle said:

Oh, well, FreeNAS can be run using other tools like VMware or unRAID (I think), but it itself cannot run a VM. Not to my knowledge at least, which consists of a quick google.

OHHHHHHH!!! I get it so you could Run like A Windows Server and use Hyper-V to run FreeNas as a VM in windows. I get it.

[gamerking]

41 minutes ago, thegingertator said:

OHHHHHHH!!! I get it so you could Run like A Windows Server and use Hyper-V to run FreeNas as a VM in windows. I get it.

i say go fro linux centos 7 is what im useing now for my file server/for plex . i ran freenas at first was simple to setup but as time went on issues started to crop up , plex refusing to start on reboot , refusing to restart after a update , and random console spam that made 0 sense . but going windows server and running freenas on a vm will ( work  or should ) but at that point you can just run plex on windows which is the simplest for the server side , then you have linux which i went with when i made my server . for the game server part windows or linux i would use freenas cant really run much in that only minecraft really

[alex75871]

Ubuntu is a good place to start if you want to learn Linux. I would suggest FreeNAS but your hardware does not meet the minimum recommended requirements.

[thegingertator]

Guyssss! I got free nas to work with all my drives and got my shares configured! Yay!

[Deathfean]

FreeNAS is pretty user friendly. unraid is really user friendly too but cost money.