So I’m rebuilding my home-server for the third time and now I want to get it right. So I’m asking you guys for help and feedback in general /documenting my journey for all that may walk this path after me.
The PC is an old Dell Optiplex 360 with an Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 @ 2.93GHz and one 2gb stick of memory (shouldn’t be hard to upgrade if needed)
I have 3 drives in the system:
one 350gb hdd for the OS
one 500gb hdd for the owncloud and plex/kodi databases.
one 1tb laptop hdd as the backup location.
(they were lying around and are for testing purposes only. I will definitely switch to some kind of NAS drive before its final deployment.)
1st time was just to mess around and try stuff out. I really enjoyed its functionality (OwnCluod, SAMBA) and so I decided to rebuild It more permanently and professionally and configure it to automatically handle my family’s backup needs. Which brings me to the
2nd time: this time I decided to jump into the deep end and used Ubuntu-Server. (no gui) I kinda got it working but now my goals have changed substantially that I’m gonna start again from scratch.
At this point I wanna thank everybody who posted his knowledge into the lets talk Backups thread and in particular @SgtAwesomesauce, who really widened my perspective on Btrfs and zfs. (again)
3rd time’s the charm right? ;P
What I want to use the server for:
- Backups, using it as a Crashplan host
- OwnCloud, for hosting/syncing my/our contacts and calendars along with file syncronization (keepass)
- Remote storage (samba) for not frequently needed stuff like steam games…
- I also wanna run either plex or kodi primarily to manage, stream and sync musig between my/our devices.
- If I have the time, I would like to set up some kind of DVR satellite TV recording.
OS wise i’m currently leaning towards Ubuntu Server because of its flexibility and the amount of documentation/community support. I’m hesitant to go with freenas because of its more specialized nature. For example the owncloud installation sounds really complicated. And I really don’t need the advanced storage stuff.
Debian would probably also be a good choice although I don’t really know much about it. Only that its very similar and a bit less noob-friendly. But I kinda would like to try it out if you guys don’t think that it would make things considerably more difficult.
Now for storage:
Im considering switching to a small OS ssd to eliminate one constantly spinning platter and lower the systems idle power consumption. Does this make sense???
Putting the Databases and the Backup location on different drives seemed like an good idea because it physically separates the two. Is it a good idea? Is it worth the extra power consumption?
I dont need more than one drive worth of storage. 4-6tb should be plenty. (for now) I don’t consider redundancy worth it in my case because 100% uptime isn’t important and the drive/money would be better used as an offsite backup by mirroring the system to it once a month and storing it at my mum’s work.
The next big question is what file system to use: @SgtAwesomesauce has taught me the merits of using btrfs/zfs even in non “raid” environments. Now the question is which one? And if I have to upgrade my ram (currently 2gb) (I can’t find any information about using btrfs/zfs on a single drive. Links would be greatly appreciated!)
Buying advice on a 4-6tb harddrive would also be greatly appreciated. Again my usecase is somewhat specific since I need 24/7 rated drives but don’t care about raid-specific features.
There will be many more obstacles and questions when installing/setting up the system but this is where i’m at right now.
To summarize my main questions:
- What OS should I use? Ubuntu-server, Debian, Freenas?
- ssd vs hdd as os drive and what 4-6tb drive to buy for data storage?
- what filesystem? ZFS vs BTRFS?