making a home sever question
What it system requirements for a home sever? I downloaded ubuntu server. I just want to use it for saving files on it. I have few types of computer. I have a pentium 1,2,3 and 4. I like to set it up and just have it running and take the monitor off if i can. Thanks for the help.
Comments
for what its worth, i always recommend FreeBSD. a lot of the configuration is condensed into one file, so its easier to understand and manage what services are running.
If it was me I would:
* Use either the P3 or P4.
* Possibly replace the ATX power supply with a newer decent quality one (for reliability and power efficiency) - I personally run 2 desktops all the time and the power consumption isn't much anyway.
* Max out the RAM or at least 256 MB (not required, but doesn't hurt and should be cheap).
* Buy a PCI SATA adapter card or two - that way you can grab say a couple of 500 GB or 1 TB drives on the cheap to plug into
* Buy a couple of those cheap 4-pin to SATA power adapters to power the SATA drives
* Any OS of your choice (not familiar with Ubuntu Server personally, but I don't believe it's a bad choice). If it had been Windows prior to Vista or Server 2008, I'd recommend blocking the MAC address of the server's network card at the router, to remove Internet connectivity but retain the connection to the home network for sharing files.
* Use a static IP address.
* Again not sure with Linux, but set up and allow RDP connections to the server to access the machine remotely.
If you want decent throughput, I'd recommend a Pentium III or 4 as well, but you're going to need at least a 486 to get decent performance with ~20MB files I'd say.
However, it is your decision on what system to use, and if you can find a network adaptor for it, even an 8088 can serve your purpose (or at the very least try it's best) to some degree.
Depending on your expenses, a nice Pentium II or III will get the job done well enough, and if it's just small things like locally stored MP3s and Amiga MODules and such, you should be fine with a simple Pentium.
The faster the better.
For sharing files, you'll be looking at setting up Samba. If I recall, it's even an option during the install... make sure to select OpenSSH server as well so you can have remote access to the server. Since Ubuntu is one of the more popular distros, you'll have no problem finding tutorials to get you up and running.
Windows is definitely easier... right click the folder, share it... but less fun
Definitely do not cheap out on these. I've recently learned of a phrase that's becoming common among data hoarders, "Molex to SATA, Lose All Your Data"
Apparently some of the cheap adapters have a tendency to catch on fire.
https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupportgor ... _adapters/
Were those made by Samsung?
Anyway that's news to me - maybe I've just been lucky with the ones I have.
This is feasible on the OP's Dell PC since it should be from when they used standard ATX, Although he may need to case mod the back to make room for the I/O switch depending on what PSU he plans on using.
This was sent on an iPad since my main internet is out so I apologize if this didn't come out right.
It was news to me as well. I used them for years and never had any issues... but maybe I just got a good one. These days, I'll only use them as a last resort... like for my file server and backup server, I used the adapters temporarily until a new modular cable arrived for my PSU so I could add more SATA power connectors.
It's pretty rare to see a SATA hard drive with a molex power connector these days. I do remember seeing these during the early years of SATA, but anything remotely modern will have dropped it by now. So it's much better to use a PSU that has SATA power connectors...
Of course, don't cheap out on the PSU either.