Need advice on a reasonably secure server

[Sinisterface]

Im looking to set up a reasonably secure file server to make it easier to do work at home (involves primary school but no names or children information will be on it, the schools server only lets so many people on at once and its such a pain), files are only word excel power point... etc and i don't know whether im better buying a cheap nas unit or building one. I dont currently have any spare hardware lying around and i haven't really got a clue about servers. Advice on hardware and software would be appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance

 

[ProjectBox153]

If it's just used for file storage, an older Dell OptiPlex can be had for free and would make a perfectly fine NAS. 

[JakeNTech]

8 minutes ago, StewartN93 said:

Im looking to set up a reasonably secure file server to make it easier to do work at home (involves primary school but no names or children information will be on it, the schools server only lets so many people on at once and its such a pain), files are only word excel power point... etc and i don't know whether im better buying a cheap nas unit or building one. I dont currently have any spare hardware lying around and i haven't really got a clue about servers. Advice on hardware and software would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

If it's at home and the only person that will use it is you ... I would just get a big capacity USB drive or USB HDD/SSD.

If you really want a NAS then the simple solution is to buy one, it won't have all the advanced features but it will do the job. having said that though a old computer with a big enough drive in will do. Or you could try using a raspberry pi, it's good fun. 

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, StewartN93 said:

Im looking to set up a reasonably secure file server to make it easier to do work at home (involves primary school but no names or children information will be on it, the schools server only lets so many people on at once and its such a pain), files are only word excel power point... etc and i don't know whether im better buying a cheap nas unit or building one. I dont currently have any spare hardware lying around and i haven't really got a clue about servers. Advice on hardware and software would be appreciated.

 

Thanks in advance

 

That's kind of an interesting setup.

 

When you're at work, do you have any problems accessing the file servers locally there? Or do they limit the "number of people" accessing it locally too?

 

Ideally, you'd just use a secure VPN connection to work directly from their servers. But if they won't allow that, or are limiting the number of active VPN connections, that might not work.

 

If you're gonna store work files locally at home, make sure the drive is fully encrypted. Most NAS software support this, and you can buy many external HDD's that support it as well. Furthermore, you can use a third party encryption program such as VeraCrypt (open source fork of ye ole TrueCrypt, but it's been audited for NSA backdoors, etc). VeraCrypt, and software like it, can work on any drive or volume.

[Sinisterface]

only remote access is limited, i think its because there is a limited number of logins to access the server remotely, so we all use different usernames and passwords but for some reason three to four people share a login as it were.

[ImpulseRez]

What do you actually need to use it for? What sort of work? Reason I ask is because I can't think of workloads related to a primary school that would require a server