home server setup

[FarmerPalmer]

I use this:

http://www.freenas.org/

 

[NoddY]

These cheap ML110/ML115 series are excellent.

My recommendation is get VMWare ESXi installed and running from a USB stick.

http://www.techhead.co.uk/installing-vmware-esx-and-esxi-35-on-an-hp-proliant-ml115-g5-quad-core


You can then run as many different OS's as you please. I have two of these machines one is running FreeBSD 7-STABLE (as a file and print server) and the second (with 8Gb) runs ESXi with FreeBSD7amd64, Ubuntu 8.10 64, Windows XP SP2 32, Windows Vista 64 and various other bits and bobs. Connect to the VM's via SSH, NX Client and RDP

 

[Durbs]

Why the change of mind?
I am currently considering building a windows home server....

Because i've now got a Mac that i wanted to use on the network. It seems that the way Windows Home Server client works is firmly tied to NTFS so have had problems such as inability to create new folders within the server shares from the Mac. Try and create a new folder on the server from the Mac and it appears and then winks out of existence yet Windows clients will see loads of 'unnamed folders' appearing.

This is only an issue if you've got a Mac though and i havent yet done any extensive Googling to see if theres a way round it.

Next problem is really annoying - its main purpose is as a backup system and that originally worked great, it automatically backs up 3 other PC's each day. When i say automatically, it does it fine until one of the PC's isn't switched on at the time it wants to back it up. It then gives up on that PC and doesn't bother running a backup again. It'll nag you that it hasn't been backed up up for x days, but to fix it, i need to login to the console and manually run a backup. It'll then carry on happily auto-backing up this PC until the next time it finds it not switched on. Find myself forever having to kick off these manual backups to sort out one PC or another - you'd assume it'd be clever enough to just start the backup the next time that PC appeared.

Its not a "bad" system by any means but its got enough niggles (there's a few other issues that escape me at the moment) to make me think there's something better out there.

 

[Durbs]

Just Googled the Mac thing and it looks possible: http://www.redmondpie.com/how-to-access-windows-home-server-from-mac-os-x/

Now just gotta sort the backups and i can withdraw my de-recommendation

 

[blacjac]

Hmmm, that backup issue would be very annoying though....

 

[Durbs]

Hmmm, that backup issue would be very annoying though....

Yup.

Have updated the clients with the latest version and re-set up the backups tonight so i'll see if that sorts it. Wierd as it used to work fine.

As a media server i cant complain though as its great for streaming stuff to the PS3 and has the bonus i can remote access all my PC's from anywhere using it. But the backup is a biggie as its the main thing i set it up for.

 

[dinker]

Tried the Windows 7 Beta yesterday, it didn`t recognise the Atheros ethernet chipset on my Asus motherboard (XP does)! Mucking about with Ubuntu 8.04 at the moment, all I can say is it`s very brown.