File Server

One of the things that has been on my mind is the establishment of some kind of file server. I knew I would have to do this by the end of the year, so there is still a fair bit of time left. I love the ReadyNAS its small low power, plug and play, lots of plug-ins and third party support (note the bad grammar). The only problem is the price ($1k), for the same amount of money I can build a DIY server with 4xHDD. It would not be as energy efficient and take up significantly more space. I do have some spare parts from my old ‘puter that I can use to reduce the cost. The trade off seems to be $ vs Efficiency (Where efficiency = space, energy, ease of use). It may be possible to build an efficient computer, but that would increase costs.

The ReadyNas is what I should aim to build it as.

· Hot Swap Drive Bays
· Low Power usage
· Quiet
· Easy to maintain
· Easy to add HDD
· Easy to use
· Easy to upgrade
· Easy to backup

What OS to use?

· Windows XP
· Windows 7
· MS Home Server
· Small Business Server
· Server 2008 + hypervisor…
· Ubuntu
· VM Server

Using the windows server would be good as I can use hypervisor and load windows software that I am familiar with. On the other hand Linux is going to be more efficient and I can run VM server to over come the lack of native windows program support. Being able to play with Hypervisor would be cool though, and windows homeserver has lots of cool backup features and media server to record and distribute media. But what do I need it to do?

· Slimserver
· File Server
· TV Recording
· Virtual Desktop/RDP/remote login
· Cloud Computing – remote login

If I can run virtual server then all of the above problems are solved. The TV recording is the biggest problem but also the least necessary. It would be a neat feature but not essential.

The box it self will sit on top of the bookshelf