First server

You can do RAID over USB but it's a bad idea and most single boards have slow ethernet. You'd be better off searching fleabay for old server hardware. You don't really need a super fast CPU. 8GB+ RAM is a good idea if you want to use ZFS file system. Software RAID is probably good enough, but if you can find hardware built into a motherboard or a cheap controller card that would be the best. You could access the machine via ssh. Most NAS distributions have super easy to set up media streaming.

>>45378641
tl;dr more mhz = more throughput
protip: get everything set up and ready in a virtual machine first before you let the chinese botnets rape your shit

Thanks. I'd figured I'd want a box over anything tiny or old.

It sounds like other than old server hardware, this project would be basically a logical increments minus the graphics card, and maybe with diminishing returns getting heavy somewhere between the Good and Superb builds.

I haven't decided on RAID vs ZFS yet, or which distro to set it up with.

That will be fun to learn on the security side too. Or maybe stupid to go to the effort of redundant storage and then possibly expose it like that. I've seen fail2ban mentioned too.

Does anyone have anything to add?

>>45378925
Expose what? If one drive is exposed they're both exposed. Also ZFS is RAID unless for some reason you would like to stripe 1 disk.

>>45379273
do not go cheap as you will quickly want to upgrade. For compromising, get a dell precision off of ebay. most have xeons and can upgrade to about 64 gb ram. i have a dual quad core xeon running with (4) 4 tb sata drives and 32 gb ram. running freenas and do not regret a thing.

500 MHz is more than enough.

A basic desktop will do you fine.

>>45378641
A server will be able to run software RAID, or more taxing (but much better and reliable) filesystems, like zfs, and their raid modes.

Also, it'll be able to run more servers (services), like say a plex server to stream media, an iTunes server for music, or a DLNA server for your TV, in addition to the basic file servers like FTP.
Oh, and torrent clients.

Also, a server is better at handling multiple connections, but I doubt you care about that, especially for slow home uplinks.

Lastly, a server can do re-encodes for you, since it'll be running 24/7.

>>45379475
>>45379511
what.
Haha I believe the basics can be done without a lot of hardware, but I'm most interested in the differences that would come from putting more into it.
>>45379475
What types of things do you say I'd be facing? I can picture 8 or 16gb and a decent processor, but I can't picture going to 32 or 64 not being diminishing returns for me. What types of things do you do where you notice that difference?

>>45379566
I'm starting to see how many benefits there can be to choosing this project over just building a desktop. The high amounts of RAM the other anon mentioned is also starting to make more sense.

I hadn't thought of torrenting in the op but to be able to choose torrents from the laptop and pass them off to the server would be really nice too, as would streaming videos and especially having access to all the music, and the redundancy.

Yes, I don't know if I'd share access very much, especially before having a much better understanding. By reencodes you mean video and music? For example, flac archives but smaller files for use, and something comparable for video too?

>>45378800
ZFS works it's magic by reading sectors on disks directly. RAID controllers aren't recommended in the FreeNAS docs. But you're right. He's not running ZFS on a laptop.

Want to build a server made of old ass thinkpads. Is it possible?

>>45379675
Of course it is.

>>45379634
Imagine this.

You're out and about, maybe with friends for coffee.

You log in your torrent client's web interface (running on the server) from your mobile or tablet or laptop.
You add a torrent and it starts downloading.

By the time you're home, you can enjoy the movie, streamed either to your laptop or you TV.

Heck, you could even go to a friend's home and stream the movie from you server to his PC/TV.

With a server, you have an always accessible storage pool, to which you can add stuff (like torrents) and access them from wherever you are.

>Yes, I don't know if I'd share access very much, especially before having a much better understanding.
You don't have to share anything, everything will be password protected.

>By reencodes you mean video and music? For example, flac archives but smaller files for use, and something comparable for video too?
Yeah, exactly.

The most common use would be smaller size movies for your tablet or phone.
After you downloaded the movie, you can reencode it. This takes time, the more quality you want to keep (while reducing filesize), the more time it takes.
But since the server is running 24/7, you add stuff to the queue, and they're done by the next day.

You could even configure it, to produce a small reencode of every movie you download, automatically, so you can always have a tablet/phone version.

(movies on phones btw are only for emergencies, like long travel etc., it's always better to watch them on big screens).

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Can't find a questions thread so I'll ask here.

I just got done setting up a seafile server on my raspberry pi but the server shows up as an untrusted connection everywhere. Is this something normal because its my bootleg ass server, or did I fuck up somewhere and this shouldn't be happening?

>>45379634
Also, check FreeNAS:
>http://www.freenas.org/for-home/

It's an OS, based on FreeBSD, with GUI and all, designed for fileservers.

It has ready plugins for torrents (transmission), dlna streaming, iTunes streaminf, and I think Plex (general media streaming).

And being a full OS, you can install any other software you want, as long as it's available for freeBSD.

>>45379884
bump for FreeNAS, even on non-server hardware it's a monster. iSCSI drives on the same dataset as your Windows share is a magical thing.

>>45379814
Assuming that most of these functions could be done with basic hardware, except for streaming. And then having it doing work in the background could use a lot of resources too.

Is there a floor of specs for streaming quality? For example, 8gb and x cpu, you're better off downloading files locally first instead of trying to stream, but 16 or 32gb and y cpu, all of these functions should have no issues?

>>45379847
If you used a self signed certificate, yes. It is normal.
If you don't want that to happen, you have to get it signed by a Certificate Authority.

>>45379884
I've heard this mentioned as a good option before but didn't realize how straightforward each of the functions would be. It sounds like everything is covered. And I assume it must be very stable to be designed for servers.

Thanks anons this has been very helpful. FreeNAS will have priority as I look into different BSD and Linux options.

It sounds like there isn't really overkill for specs with these different possibilities. I guess if I can't swing an extremely powerful setup it will give me a sense of what I'm missing too.

I didn't know if I would receive so much information although /g/ can be very helpful at this time of day. Does anyone have thoughts about the different options for RAID and ZFS?

>>45379847
yes that's normal. ssl certificates have to be bought by trusted certificate authorities. I think there is some group that started handing them out for free lately but can't remember the name. but you won't need that for home use

>>45379976
>>45380055

Phew, thanks for the info. Still new to all this stuff so I'm glad I didn't royally fuck up.

>>45380045
I much prefer NAS4free myself.

>>45380045
See my post earlier. Both are viable options. But heavily dependent on what OS you want to run. ZFS is magical. But restricted if a hardware RAID card is involved. FreeNAS is an excellent way to go.
>45379652

>>45378805

more mhz != more throughput you autistic fuckwhit.

I'm not going to waste my time expalining why, but TL;DR:Ghz = Nothing. MIPS = Important

>>45379952
No, no hardware requirements.

Streaming is just another service, like you have an ftp server, you can have a streaming server (plex, dlna, iTunes, anything).

Decoding doesn't happen on the server, it happens on your viewing device. The server just sends the data in a way the device expects them.


The only reason you might need something like 8GB is ZFS + raid with double redundancy, or something similar, and huge amount of disks and storage (like 20TB).

Otherwise, you're fine with entry level hardware.

>>45380045
>the different options for RAID and ZFS?
ZFS is amazing.

It prevents against bit-rot, offers snapshots (like incremental backups, kinda like Time Machine, that get discarded when there's lack of space).
And the raid-z offers redundancy (any single drive can fail) and speed (all the drives except one are working like raid0), while sacrificing only one disk.

Read about the zfs filesystem, it's amazing.
The only con is that it's taxing on CPU and RAM.
But that's not an issue for a server, cause that's almost all the hardware needs to do, you won't be running Solidworks and CATIA on your server.

>>45380522
>MIPS = Important
the fuck are you smoking