Wanting to build a home server

[SilverZ06]

Hi guys. I want to build a home server to store all of my media (mainly pictures as I am an amateur photographer and have thousands upon thousands of photos on my pc). Right now I have a 4tb (2 by  2 tb drives in Raid 1 so 2tb usable ) NAS that I was trying to use but at only 2Gb it filled up quickly. I have qty3 1TB wd black drives and qty1 2TB wd black drive in my pc and my wife's pc. I'd like to build a server to house all of these drives so my pc and my wife's pc will only have a 250GB SSD for OS and programs but will access all media via the server. Where do I go to find information on building a server? I have some (but not much) linux experience so that will likely be the OS for the server but where do I learn about server chassis and requirements. Basically is there a go to site to lean what I need to do to build a home server? Since my NAS has only 2 drive bays I was going to steal the 2 2tb drives out of it as well for the server. Any help pointing me in the right direction is much appreciated. Thanks.

[Chalenge]

The easy one to use:

http://www.wegotserved.com/

[Bino]

Since all client machines (your two PCs) will be Windows-based, it probably makes sense to run a simple Windows file server. That will be the most familiar kind of machine to the System Admin (you) for all the usual system tasks, and it will be able to handle whatever small load you two could impose on it.

You *could* run a Linux machine with a Samba-based file server on it, but that's targeted more at a mixed Linux/Windows environment. I'd only take that on if you want a reason to get more experience with Linux and Samba.

YMMV

[Skuzzy]

If it is just a file server, use Linux with Samba and it will work well.  At least Samba will afford some security Windows lacks.  And best of all, its free!  It is what I have used for years.

For a media server, there are several alternatives for Linux.  It will depend on what your local network hardware is capable of.  If you need transcoding or not is the big question.  I have used Mediatomb, but will be looking to replace it in the near future.

[Bizman]

IMO the NAS idea would be the best solution for you, also the use of RAID 1 is highly recommended. As for the OS, I believe your current NAS is using some flavour of Linux.

WD black drives are way too expensive for storage, plus they use way too much power for that kind of a task. Reliability is the key, not speed. This might be of interest: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/best-hard-drive/

I have a couple of ideas:

The most obvious one is to change the 2 GB hdd's into bigger ones, but having a pair of 2 TB disks just gathering dust would be a waste of resources. So:

Can you add more hdd's into your current NAS? Some of them can take four or six hard disks, paired in RAID 1 for security and hot-swappable for easy maintenance. If there's no room for that, look at the motherboard of your NAS to see if there's extra connectors and simply change the mobo into a larger case, adding a pair of the biggest disks you can find/afford.

The third alternative has already been discussed, something like Skuzzy uses might be the closest to your needs since both of you seem to have truckloads of stuff.

[SilverZ06]

It will be mostly a file server as I do not stream movies or tv or even much music at all. Mostly pictures. I'd like to be able to access them on the road though. Here is similar to my current NAS (Mine is ethernet not usb3): http://www.amazon.com/LaCie-Quadra-External-Drive-9000316/dp/B0097C4WQU/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1443494576&sr=8-4&keywords=lacie+nas

I realize the black drives are not ideal server drives but they are what I have so I might as well put them to use. I think the drives in the NAS are wd green or red.

[Bizman]

Check this: http://lifehacker.com/turn-an-old-computer-into-a-do-anything-home-server-wit-510023147

Also, there's NAS enclosures without hard disks, but they seem to be quite expensive. http://lifehacker.com/5968677/five-best-nas-enclosures

[Skuzzy]

If you want to access the files over the Internet via a mapped drive, then forget anything I said.

[SilverZ06]

This may be a stupid question, But could I buy something like this:http://tampa.craigslist.org/pnl/sys/5212528247.html and just load my hard drives into it and install a linux server OS? 

The accessing on the net isn't a requirement, more of a bonus. I'd be okay with not being about to access it remotely if need be.

[artik]

I have such a setup at home using Debian. 2x1TB drives organized
into raid 1 using md quite straightforward,
tested also with disconnected drives.

I'd also recommend not to put OS on the drives but rather at separate disk so you first load into OS
and than mount RAID

NAS trivial with Samba.

I suggest using distro with long period between releases
Debian stable, Ubuntu LTS or CentOS and never stuff that got upgraded every half year like regular Ubuntu or Fedora

[Bizman]

This may be a stupid question, But could I buy something like this:http://tampa.craigslist.org/pnl/sys/5212528247.html and just load my hard drives into it and install a linux server OS? 

The accessing on the net isn't a requirement, more of a bonus. I'd be okay with not being about to access it remotely if need be.

That might require a different type of hard drives, SCSI (pronounced 'skuzzy') if I remember correctly. The ad says there's 16 250 GB drives, but they're probably at the end of their life cycle by now. But basically you should be able to do what you thought about. Find one that can use regular SATA disks and you're good to go.

[TequilaChaser]

Heya Silver, long time bro!

I've been following your thread here, just now finding time to reply.....

I have a home server that also has an attached NAS with 4 HD setup, both are Linux based and both I'm able to connect to while I am out anywhere from home via secured login

I was going to post this link:  http://www.freenas.org/  for you to go check out

my server setup lets me to allow my Daughters, Sister and her daughters to login remotely ( from Hawaii, Florida, Tenn, Kentucky, etc...) and access all my music and movies, etc... and stream them...even do back ups of their own computer systems, etc...) ... maybe similar to what people call a "Cloud" type thing...

whether you go the home Server route or the NAS route ( or even combine the 2 ).... I recommend using Linux for your OS for either or both....

hope this helps

TC  /  Johnny