Home file server

Plingen · April 7, 2013

Hi!

im going to make a home server to store files and backups on, and i want it cheapest possible.

this is what i have lying around:

AMD fx4100

asus m5a88 pro evo

320gb bootdrive

silverpower 620w

to make it a rig i need jus ram and a big hdd. im not planning any raid 6 and 10gbps speeds, just a gbps.

so im thinking of buying 2 gigs of kingston ram and a seagate barracuda 3tb and a 8 port gigabit switch so i get the gigabit speeds to my rigg, since our router is just 100mbps.

And i will be running windows home server 2011

what do you think guys ?

is this bether or should i just buy an exernal harddrive with gigabit connection like western digital mybook ?

Huntsman · April 9, 2013

It depends on what you use it for. If you're just going to use it as backup, then the WD solution or a good NAS box is cheaper and more reliable. Else, you could build yourself a home server and you could run all sorts of stuff on it such as minecraft server, voip server or maybe even fold abit on it.

Adamz946 · April 9, 2013

If you want to make use of the bits you got laying around then WHS is a great home solution for centralised storage. I've not tried any other solution so can't comment on which would suit you best.

Personally i run WHS2011 in a regular mid-tower case with old parts from my personal rig. Throw a couple of hard drives for storage and backup and you're away.

Plingen · April 13, 2013

i will be using the leftover hardware, but should i use barracudas if im going to upgrade to raid, or is the WD red disks much more reliable ? i will save everything from movies, pictures and music to importent documents

wpirobotbuilder · April 14, 2013

WD reds are designed for RAID environments. While Barracudas may work in RAID environments, they are not designed for it. No RAID is suitable as a backup, so if you are storing stuff you can't afford to lose, be sure to back up your data. For super important things, preferably in more than one place. A Dropbox would be a good secondary backup for important documents, as it's offsite, so you will be covered in case of fire/water damage.