Home server

[Duke of Nada]

I'm wanting to build a home server to store pictures, music, video, and other important files on. I'd like to be able to access the music, pictures and play the video files with other computers and laptops. I'm planning on using ubuntu server 10.04 OS.
I'm confused as to what kind of sever would meet my needs, and the hardware that I need other than I think a 1T hard drive should be enough to get me started.

 

[smitbret]

It doesn't sound like you really need the expense or headache of a dedicated server. Just get a router with USB network support and plug your external drive into it. My D-Link DIR-825 does this like a champion.

 

[Knavish]

Ubuntu Server running the Samba service for filesharing would meet most of your needs. If you want to share media to something like an Xbox360 you can run the Ushare service, a UPnP / DLNA media server.

You might want to think about backups and/or redundancy (drive mirroring or raid). Perhaps an external USB drive would be a sufficient backup for your system.

Also, think about where you'll put the server -- do you want it to be nearly silent? Do you want to leave it on 24/7 and consume the minimum amount of power?

As far as hardware specs, you could get by with a single core CPU, 2GB of ram, and a 1TB hard drive. Given current prices you might as well go with a dual core and 4GB ram plus whatever disk space you need.

 

[Duke of Nada]

smitbret, I was more wanting to do it this was just to see if I could, but I'll keep the external hard drive thing in mind.

Knavish, The server would be placed in an area were the sound won't bother any one, and left on 24/7.

 

[smitbret]

smitbret, I was more wanting to do it this was just to see if I could, but I'll keep the external hard drive thing in mind.

Knavish, The server would be placed in an area were the sound won't bother any one, and left on 24/7.

I totally get and appreciate that. Seriously, you could probably build a server out of spare parts from old computers laying around the garage like I do. The specks that Knavish gave would be pretty good guidelines. Servers aren't resource hogs unless there is media encoding or transcoding involved (Video) and that's usually reserved for DLNA servers for televisions.

 

[cmetz]

Duke of Nada, take a look at the HP MicroServer. It's a great modest-cost way to get started.

 

[Jimmah]

A good way to save money is see what you have kicking around and build off that. For a storage server you need very little oomph to make it work. If you don't have any gear leftover, cheap stuff on craigslist might work, just needs a SATA port or space for a pci card with the ports.

Or, something like
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16856101096
would work. USB storage for adding drives, comes with a 320gb drive to get you running, add your favorite flavour of OS, done and done.

If you're into Linux, have to mention Amahi as a good server OS addon, like WHS but much better.

Good luck!

 

[Duke of Nada]

I have an old Pentium 4 pc I've been tinkering with, but it's about dead. Took all day to load ubuntu server 10.04. Now I'm getting the monitor out of frequency thing. Tryed loading to grub and it still does it. I don't think that old pc is worth the truoble. I've been looking on craigslist, but nothing good has showed up yet. People are wanting $300 to $400 for a 4 year old pc.

 

[Jimmah]

I have an old Pentium 4 pc I've been tinkering with, but it's about dead. Took all day to load ubuntu server 10.04. Now I'm getting the monitor out of frequency thing. Tryed loading to grub and it still does it. I don't think that old pc is worth the truoble. I've been looking on craigslist, but nothing good has showed up yet. People are wanting $300 to $400 for a 4 year old pc.

Ew, time to chuck it in the bin. By old PC, I was kind of hoping it would be in good shape lol.

Oh, almost forgot, try the FS subforum here, usually someone has old gear. Or just buy the whole dealy local/online and save yourself the hassle.

This thread makes me want to finiah up an old server project, going to go do that now.

 

[JackMDS]

I've been looking on craigslist, but nothing good has showed up yet. People are wanting $300 to $400 for a 4 year old pc.

Craig list is good for a lot of things, but not good for old working computers.

It is a psychological matter, None Enthusiasts people find it hard to let go of a computer that they bought few years ago for much more money.

Many of my neighbors when told that a new system that will work better than their old None functional system, and will cost less than Fixing the old system. Go ahead and pay more for repairing the old system.

This is a good place for old computers.

http://webe.emv3.com/surpluscomputers/newsletter/may29.html