Home Server Advice

beanhubbleday · December 10, 2016

Hey all,

I want to build a quiet, low powered and low cost but reliable server.

It will run AD in the hope to get all of my PC's onto a domain and also to act as a file server.

As of yet, i don't think I will run VM's on it, but I would need a lot of storage as we will be storing many photos and videos on it.

As mentioned before it needs to be low powered and quiet and free standing with not a big price tag attached to it but also reliable

Thanks In Advance,

Jack

(P.S. In £ pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeee)

Electronics Wizardy · December 10, 2016

How much do you want to spend?

Id buy this(base model will be fine) http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=pe_t130_1022&model_id=poweredge-t130&c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04

And then put windows server on it and a few more drives.

Use storage spaces for the drives.

Also you can only get windows server essentials from oem's like dell, and its much cheaper and has all the features you need.

porina · December 10, 2016

Some suggestions:

HPE Microserver Gen8 £126 after cashback

http://www.ebuyer.com/722189-hpe-proliant-gen8-4gb-ram-microserver-ebuyer-com-819185-421

I've used one of these as a file server running unraid for a while. It has 4 removable drive bays. The basic spec is basic, with a dual core Celeron and not a lot of ram. Choose your own hard disks and OS. This is more of a proper server as it has the management stuff which confuses the hell out of a consumer like me, but I have ran Windows 10 on it before. It will probably do better with a server version if you were to go that route.

HPE ML10 gen9 £145 after cashback

http://www.ebuyer.com/758894-hpe-proliant-ml10-gen9-pentium-g4400-v5-2-3-4ghz-4gb-tower-server-837826-421

I recently got one of these to replace the microserver as I needed more than 4 storage drives. Here you get a dual core Pentium and the mobo has 6 SATA connectors. The case as you get it only holds 4 3.5" drives but can be modified to take 6 (or rehouse into a different case like I did, micro-ATX mobo and takes standard PSU). Unlike the microserver, this doesn't have the additional management stuff to get in the way or help, depending on your use case. Again I run this with unraid, but it also ran Windows 10 while I tested it.

Dell T20 £130

http://www.ebuyer.com/738065-dell-poweredge-t20-pentium-g3220-3ghz-4gb-ram-500gb-hdd-mini-tower-t20-3692

No experience of this, but pricing is not so different to the HPE ones earlier and you don't have to bother with applying for the cashback. Dual core Pentium again but they do throw in a small hard disk.

Dell T20 £240 after cashback

http://www.ebuyer.com/714837-dell-poweredge-t20-3708-xeon-e3-1225v3-3-2-ghz-4gb-ram-1tb-hdd-tower-t20-3708

No experience of this, but the spec starts to get more interesting as you get a quad core Xeon. For the price, that's a fair bit of CPU although they still don't give you much ram.

beanhubbleday · December 10, 2016

1 hour ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

How much do you want to spend?

Id buy this(base model will be fine) http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=pe_t130_1022&model_id=poweredge-t130&c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04

And then put windows server on it and a few more drives.

Use storage spaces for the drives.

Also you can only get windows server essentials from oem's like dell, and its much cheaper and has all the features you need.

Thanks for that I'll take a look

1 hour ago, porina said:

Some suggestions:

HPE Microserver Gen8 £126 after cashback

http://www.ebuyer.com/722189-hpe-proliant-gen8-4gb-ram-microserver-ebuyer-com-819185-421

I've used one of these as a file server running unraid for a while. It has 4 removable drive bays. The basic spec is basic, with a dual core Celeron and not a lot of ram. Choose your own hard disks and OS. This is more of a proper server as it has the management stuff which confuses the hell out of a consumer like me, but I have ran Windows 10 on it before. It will probably do better with a server version if you were to go that route.

HPE ML10 gen9 £145 after cashback

http://www.ebuyer.com/758894-hpe-proliant-ml10-gen9-pentium-g4400-v5-2-3-4ghz-4gb-tower-server-837826-421

I recently got one of these to replace the microserver as I needed more than 4 storage drives. Here you get a dual core Pentium and the mobo has 6 SATA connectors. The case as you get it only holds 4 3.5" drives but can be modified to take 6 (or rehouse into a different case like I did, micro-ATX mobo and takes standard PSU). Unlike the microserver, this doesn't have the additional management stuff to get in the way or help, depending on your use case. Again I run this with unraid, but it also ran Windows 10 while I tested it.

Dell T20 £130

http://www.ebuyer.com/738065-dell-poweredge-t20-pentium-g3220-3ghz-4gb-ram-500gb-hdd-mini-tower-t20-3692

No experience of this, but pricing is not so different to the HPE ones earlier and you don't have to bother with applying for the cashback. Dual core Pentium again but they do throw in a small hard disk.

Dell T20 £240 after cashback

http://www.ebuyer.com/714837-dell-poweredge-t20-3708-xeon-e3-1225v3-3-2-ghz-4gb-ram-1tb-hdd-tower-t20-3708

No experience of this, but the spec starts to get more interesting as you get a quad core Xeon. For the price, that's a fair bit of CPU although they still don't give you much ram.

Wow! Loads of options, love it. Thanks - I'll take a look now <3

ssfdre38 · December 12, 2016

I am doing what you are doing and the way i did it is with a old laptop that has a broken screen. I would say if you have a laptop or a desktop that you are not using and willing to use it with windows server do it. Now Windows Server 2012 and 2016 would be best but i would say use windows server 2016 Standard would be best and does offer low level vm setup