   Home server advice?
  I've decided to dust off my old desktop pc and make it into a local server. The server will be used as a file and svn server, and will be running 24/7. I'm having trouble deciding on a few things....What operating system should I use? I think I have a spare copy of XP home lying around, or alternatively I could run ubuntu. I can use Visual SVN server to setup the server on windows, but does anyone have an experience setting up a svn server on linux? Did it go smoothly?Hardware or software RAID?I will be running the drives in RAID 1I'm tossing up between hardware and software raid, my motherboard (MSI MS-7060 661FM2) has a hardware raid controller (SiS964) but I'm pretty sure it's "fake" hardware raid. Hardware raid would be faster, but this isn't a concern for me. I know software raid can notify you when a drive fails, can hardware raid do the same? But as I understand it, when using software raid you must have the operating system on a seperate partition. Do the drives have to be identicle for hardware raid? What do you guys recommend?What kind of hard drive should I buy... I know this is a hotly debated topic and everyone has their own opinions and favorite brands, but I thought I'd get some input anyway. I'll be buying 2 1TB harddrives for this server. Are 1TB Hdds reliable? The brands I have to select from are (listed in personal preference): Samsung, WD, Seagate.Has anyone had any experience with the "Green" Western Digital Hdds?I'll probably pick up a lowish wattage PSU, probably something like this (5 year warranty)Right now, I'm thinking I'll go with:-Ubuntu desktop (not server)-1 Samsung TB Hdd and 1 WD TB Hdd (Something like this). This way there's less of a chance of them both failing around the same time.-Software raid-PSU mentioned aboveAny advice?Specs:Pentium 4, 3.0 Ghz1 gig of RamMSI MS-7060 661FM2 Mobo[Edited by - Weetbix on May 30, 2009 7:19:51 PM]
  Windows XP Home is only a viable option as long as you keep the number of connections to file shares below 5(ie, max. 5 clients). Anything above 5 gets rejected. I'd say, go for Ubuntu Server. I'm no linux fan, but for what you seem to want with it, it's probably more suitable than a desktop version of any OS.As for RAID: Implement a proper backup procedure and you don't need a RAID setup. I myself am running a Windows 2008 Server on an old machine. 4 GB of RAM, 160GB of disk space, single core machine and nightly back ups to an offsite location. Sure, HDDs are cheap these days, but do I really need to run RAID-1 for data protection? Not really. Saved me an extra disk.Software RAID works, but it's a bitch to set up(My past experience) and even worse when the array goes broke. Toolmaker   ;  Seagate used to be my favorite hard drive, but they have been slacking off lately and WD pretty much has them beat in every category. I'd personally go with WD at this point.As far as raid goes, avoid mobo raid like the plague! I've had nothing but problems with mobo raid. If you can't get a dedicated raid card, go with software raid. That's what I use on my fileserver and it's plenty fast since the CPU has little else to do but work on raid operations.As far as the OS goes, it's probably best to stick with what you know and are comfortable with. I'd never run an Ubuntu desktop os as a server, but I don't use Ubuntu and don't care for apt. I usually stick to the yum based distros for my servers, currently I'm running cent-os. But if you're familiar with Ubuntu and the way to update/configure/install things on it, then by all means go for Ubuntu. Same goes with windows if you're more comfortable with that (but I could never give up SSH access that a linux server provides, rdp be damned).   ;Quote:Original post by ToolmakerSoftware RAID works, but it's a bitch to set up(My past experience) and even worse when the array goes broke.I've never set it up for a windows server, but it's a breeze on most linux installs. My fileserver runs freenas and it was quite easy to setup on there as well.;Quote:Original post by ToolmakerWindows XP Home is only a viable option as long as you keep the number of connections to file shares below 5(ie, max. 5 clients). Anything above 5 gets rejected. I'd say, go for Ubuntu Server. I'm no linux fan, but for what you seem to want with it, it's probably more suitable than a desktop version of any OS.As for RAID: Implement a proper backup procedure and you don't need a RAID setup. I myself am running a Windows 2008 Server on an old machine. 4 GB of RAM, 160GB of disk space, single core machine and nightly back ups to an offsite location. Sure, HDDs are cheap these days, but do I really need to run RAID-1 for data protection? Not really. Saved me an extra disk.Software RAID works, but it's a bitch to set up(My past experience) and even worse when the array goes broke. ToolmakerThere won't be more than 5 connections, but I think i'll run ubuntu anyway. I want a GUI so that's why I'm going with the desktop version rather than the server version. I may decide to test some projects on it from time to time.Offsite backups arn't really an option for the amount of gigabytes that would be stored on the server. Quote:Original post by tstrimpI've never set it up for a windows server, but it's a breeze on most linux installs. My fileserver runs freenas and it was quite easy to setup on there as well.Does freenas support NTFS and svn?;  I would suggest going with the Linux server, which is optimally suited for these kind of applications. Software RAID is fine, and usually works very reliably. Installation can sometimes be a bitch, but once the RAID is up, failure cases are very well handled (I tried it by hot-unplugging drives, and such).Installing svnserve is mostly unproblematic. If you intend to run the thing on the internet and not only on a LAN, you'll need to keep a few things in mind to make it secure (running it under a restricted svn user, for example), but this is well explained in the docs. Also, I would suggest installing SASL and connecting it with svnserve. This allows for fully encrypted access to your repositories over the svn protocol, without messing around with SSH tunnels and such.   ;Quote:Original post by Yann LI would suggest going with the Linux server, which is optimally suited for these kind of applications. Software RAID is fine, and usually works very reliably. Installation can sometimes be a bitch, but once the RAID is up, failure cases are very well handled (I tried it by hot-unplugging drives, and such).Installing svnserve is mostly unproblematic. If you intend to run the thing on the internet and not only on a LAN, you'll need to keep a few things in mind to make it secure (running it under a restricted svn user, for example), but this is well explained in the docs. Also, I would suggest installing SASL and connecting it with svnserve. This allows for fully encrypted access to your repositories over the svn protocol, without messing around with SSH tunnels and such.I don't think I'll be accessing it from the internet any time soon. Although I am wondering if I can do weekly backups of the repository online somehow? Can I link it with my online repo at xp-dev.com?   ;Quote:Original post by WeetbixI don't think I'll be accessing it from the internet any time soon. Although I am wondering if I can do weekly backups of the repository online somehow? Sure. The easiest way is to write a little script that just hot backups the repository to a temporary location (using the hot-backup script that comes with svn), zips it up, and FTPs it to your server. Just create a cron job with that script and you're all set.Of course this requires your system to be connected to the internet, and thus you need to secure your svn server against malicious individuals.;  Here's the setup I have at home:Hardware:Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4ghz4GB RAM2x 640GB drives1x 1TB "Green Power" drive1x 300GB1x 120GB1x old 80GB used for system driveAll the hard drives are WD drives - we've had nothing but good experiences with WD in the past. All the drives except the old 80GB are set up as a single, large, JBOD span. RAID is too costly for us, and the different sized drives makes it difficult to set up a useful RAID. We don't really need the added reliability/speed anyway. The server used to be my old desktop machine before I upgraded. If someone in the household upgrades their HDD, the old one usually goes into the server and added to the span.The server runs Windows Server 2008 which works quite well. We use the server primarily to serve media to the Xbox 360, PS3, and the other computers in the LAN.As far as reliability goes, we just don't bother.We have an internal policy in the house that says, "if you put anything on the server, make sure you have a copy somewhere else". The server wasn't built for reliability, so if (and when) one of the drives dies and takes down the entire span with it, no data is lost.For Perforce, I just do regular backups. Every other night at 3AM, the server makes a complete backup of Perforce and saves it to the 2.5TB span. It then uploads the backup to an off-site FTP location. And every day at 5PM, my desktop workstation makes a copy of the Perforce backups to the local disk.So IMO, RAID isn't worth it. You lose a lot of HDD space, but the benefits aren't really that great. My Perforce data is stored in 4 different locations. If the server's main drive dies, a backup is stored on the span. If the entire server explodes, I have a copy of the backup on my home desktop. If my house burns down, I have one more copy, stored on my personal off-site FTP.   ;  Just a suggestion, I'm using a QNAP 209 Turbostation.It's a little box, with low power consumption - and you can put two 1 TB harddisks in it, runs under linux & you can install your own stuff on it (subversion). Also supports raid.Furthermore it acts as ftp-server, webserver, torrent-server, picture-server, ... more or less every ?server you can think of ^^Only annoying thing is the cheap fan (in a quiet room you can clearly hear it).