Home server related stuff
Discussion
Looking at setting up a home server mostly for file sharing/much more space for storage, my pc already had 4 drives inside of it alone. Having had a drive s
t a brick and die on me taking 3tb of movies I thought it might be time to move to a home server with raid as to prevent these type of issues in future.
But why limit it to just my pc when the whole house could get onto it via the ethernet and wireless connections? Same goes for the stupid printer which is plugged into the slower computer.
I was doing some basic research to start me off as not sure the best way to go about this as servers arent really my thing, building and setting up a computer, running ethernet and access points is more what I have done so far with my IT skills. I found that some people have started to set up a single monster PC running VM's to each computer (well just monitor/peripherals now) using things like 16 core epyc cpu's, 64gb ram and a graphics card per VM as the VM doesnt let you split up the gpu the same as a cpu lets you.
Currently there are 2 computers with 2 more laptops (these would just want wireless access into the file storage system and printer). The older computer is using a i5 2500k with a gtx 570 and something like 8gb of RAM. The better one has a i7 6700k, gtx 1080 (soon to be a 3080 for that lovely rtx) and 32gb of ram. Then you start thinking about setting up some weaker 2 core old gpu VM purely on the TV's with wireless keyboard/mouse for watching movies off the server.
Basically what I am asking is what do we think are the best options for moving forward?
Cost is obviously going to be larger to set up a VM server but when replacing one slow computer and wanting a storage server anyway...
This feels like man maths with a car where you start off with a £3000 focus and end with a £19000 focus rs.
t a brick and die on me taking 3tb of movies I thought it might be time to move to a home server with raid as to prevent these type of issues in future. But why limit it to just my pc when the whole house could get onto it via the ethernet and wireless connections? Same goes for the stupid printer which is plugged into the slower computer.
I was doing some basic research to start me off as not sure the best way to go about this as servers arent really my thing, building and setting up a computer, running ethernet and access points is more what I have done so far with my IT skills. I found that some people have started to set up a single monster PC running VM's to each computer (well just monitor/peripherals now) using things like 16 core epyc cpu's, 64gb ram and a graphics card per VM as the VM doesnt let you split up the gpu the same as a cpu lets you.
Currently there are 2 computers with 2 more laptops (these would just want wireless access into the file storage system and printer). The older computer is using a i5 2500k with a gtx 570 and something like 8gb of RAM. The better one has a i7 6700k, gtx 1080 (soon to be a 3080 for that lovely rtx) and 32gb of ram. Then you start thinking about setting up some weaker 2 core old gpu VM purely on the TV's with wireless keyboard/mouse for watching movies off the server.
Basically what I am asking is what do we think are the best options for moving forward?
Cost is obviously going to be larger to set up a VM server but when replacing one slow computer and wanting a storage server anyway...
This feels like man maths with a car where you start off with a £3000 focus and end with a £19000 focus rs.
I did think as much but between wanting in excess of 20tb of data spread over multiple drives to keep costs down upon disc deaths - I’ve had a few die so it’s my biggest fear.
Ideally would be looking at 10 drives of 3tb each to account for raid 5 losses while staying above 20tb and having it not fail upon 1 dead drive?
When I learnt about raid it was only 0 and 1 where you had 2 drive both die together or halved your storage space basically by having duplicate drives.
As I say a bit new to this but when I looked at nas they looked to suit less drives much better.
Ideally would be looking at 10 drives of 3tb each to account for raid 5 losses while staying above 20tb and having it not fail upon 1 dead drive?
When I learnt about raid it was only 0 and 1 where you had 2 drive both die together or halved your storage space basically by having duplicate drives.
As I say a bit new to this but when I looked at nas they looked to suit less drives much better.
ash73 said:
I wouldn't use RAID for this, I'd have 2 sets of storage, the primary backing up regularly to the secondary.
The backup should be off-site, or in an outbuilding.
It's not a transactional system, media content isn't updated frequently so a periodic backup is adequate.
RAID doesn't protect against fire or theft, so you STILL need an external backup, i.e. you need triple the storage!
It also doesn't protect against cryptolocker viruses, which can infect all network drives.
And it doesn't protect against accidental deletion.
You'll probably want to do it anyway... I'm just pointing out it doesn't really achieve much.
I am not that worried about the data that theft/fire worries me overly. It’s rather the hassle of redownloading and losing currently worked on projects having only a 30mb connection due to location.The backup should be off-site, or in an outbuilding.
It's not a transactional system, media content isn't updated frequently so a periodic backup is adequate.
RAID doesn't protect against fire or theft, so you STILL need an external backup, i.e. you need triple the storage!
It also doesn't protect against cryptolocker viruses, which can infect all network drives.
And it doesn't protect against accidental deletion.
You'll probably want to do it anyway... I'm just pointing out it doesn't really achieve much.
Currently have 8tb basically full and before the 3tb death was closer to 10. Figure 20 is what I should aim for to give me spare space without worry and in the future I could either add drives or upgrade drive capacity. It is not all movies, it’s just the main use the other machines would be getting out of it.
I am open to all suggestions but from my googling a server set up of some sort seemed the logical choice but was unsure the best way to go about in regards to going overkill with the VM for replacing the old machine and movies onto the tv’s.
As the house stands there are 3 WiFi routers, 2 computers, 2 laptops, a printer and 2 main tv which it would be nice to be able to play things on.
As I say, not my area of expertise but would be nice to get everything linked into one main storage with the printer attached.
Gassing Station | Computers, Gadgets & Stuff | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff