On 20/12/17 12:25, John Cohen wrote:
On 19 December 2017 at 16:03, steve-ALUG@hst.me.uk wrote: [] I've been running four servers for the last 3 years at home.
My main work server has a raid10 with WD 4tb drives, and is a lenovo thinkserver similar to this: https://www.ebuyer.com/770312-lenovo-thinkserver-ts150-70lv-pentium-g4400-3-... The power usage won't be that of a mini-server but that doesn't mean you're consuming hoards of electricity. I find my bills pretty low considering I'm working from home and have these powered up 24/7. This machine has proven to be extremely robust, and haven't had any issues. A UPS has made sure it's stayed on for over 45 min whenever there were any power outages when doing work on the house. One not so great feature is the HDD slots are pretty basic. I've got 5 drives in mine, and some are more difficult than others to install. As I've only changed 1 faulty drive from the raid in 3 years, this hasn't been much of an issue. The price on thinkservers are incredibly competitive, so you can spend more on drives.
Thanks. I had spotted that at another supplier and have asked them if it'd run ubuntu but as yet no reply. I think that it's gone up my list now! :-)
My other machine is an old Asus eeebox, which is only 32bit and yes, I agree you'll be limited with software compatibility and isn't that futureproof if you want mainstream OS/software. It does consume very little power and is also *very robust*. Had it running for over 5 years without issues.
The other two are Pis. (a 2 and a 3) Yes, they're super cheap, and consume very little power. However they do crash occasionally, especially when under strain, so I only use them for file shares, media playback and other non-critical functions. The asus kicks ass compared to these. Also they are not usb3 or gigabit ethernet. When dealing with hoards of data for backups etc, it's not a great option. For simple NAS setups, they're great.
Thanks!
Steve