CHR1S Posted September 5, 2011 Posted September 5, 2011 Ive brought a HP micro server and will be using it for home NAS and messing and what not. What server software should I stick on it.... I like the look for OSX Lion server, just to have a play but are there any good free alternatives out there I should also spend some time messing with?
somabc Posted September 5, 2011 Posted September 5, 2011 OS X Lion Server will only run on Mac's and as you are posting in *nix I would suggest Linux instead (Ubuntu Server?) 1
ZeroHour Posted September 5, 2011 Posted September 5, 2011 Ive brought a HP micro server and will be using it for home NAS and messing and what not. What server software should I stick on it.... I like the look for OSX Lion server, just to have a play but are there any good free alternatives out there I should also spend some time messing with? Tbh I dont know if Lion has been hackintoshed yet and even then its strictly against EULA. Its a pity you cant get red hat trials as I would be curious about Red Hat now (as well as w8 server when its out at build) 1
rbance Posted September 5, 2011 Posted September 5, 2011 Ive brought a HP micro server and will be using it for home NAS and messing and what not. What server software should I stick on it.... I like the look for OSX Lion server, just to have a play but are there any good free alternatives out there I should also spend some time messing with? FREENAS ..personally I would look at V7 not V8 for now. 1
danbuntu Posted September 5, 2011 Posted September 5, 2011 Its a pity you cant get red hat trials as I would be curious about Red Hat now (as well as w8 server when its out at build) you can use Centos or Scientific Linux which are both essentially re-branded RHEL As for the OP I would say best bets are Ubuntu Server or Centos if you want a full Linux distro FreeNas if you really want just nas functionality Zentyal if you want a free linux based server but want a simpler setup 1
computer_expert Posted September 5, 2011 Posted September 5, 2011 Although not released yet, OpenMediaVault looks promising and is based on my preferred Linux distro, Debian. I think OMV was created by one of the freenas devs. however my microserver currently runs VMware ESXi (4.1, haven't got around to upgrading to 5.0 yet) so that I can use it to test out stuff. 1
danielknox Posted September 5, 2011 Posted September 5, 2011 I would go with Debian on your Nas if you want the option to install a gui (if your not confident with the commandline of Ubuntu Server) and the ability to install a lot of extra packages as and when (webserver, dlna etc). If you are looking for a ready to go Nas solution freenas is one of the best (and has a lot of extras) and openfile if your looking for just storage sharing. Hackintoshs are alright, but can be a real pain to build and maintain (something you don't want on a setup and leave it server) 1
CHR1S Posted September 5, 2011 Author Posted September 5, 2011 I think I will try a few out and see where I end up... its purely hobby stuff with the idea of having it compliment my Synology NAS thats running out of space. Thanks all
featured_spectre Posted September 5, 2011 Posted September 5, 2011 @ZeroHour Redhat will send you a 90 day trial if there is interest in purchasing the product for your company (IE Schools, Businesses, and such like). For a free server based product, Ubuntu Server is a good one to go with. 1
cpjitservices Posted September 5, 2011 Posted September 5, 2011 CENTOS 5.6is a godsend for a free Server OS! very reliable and resilliant and it's builton redhat ad it's freeeee 1
CHR1S Posted September 5, 2011 Author Posted September 5, 2011 Ive decided to sell my 2tb Synology NAS and bang 4x2Tb drives in this raid 5. So, my needs have changed slightly, I now need RAID support, obviously, and the ability to download from newsgroups and torrents on the box itself. (for all my new linux ISOs of course ) So, have I reduced my options?
danielknox Posted September 5, 2011 Posted September 5, 2011 All the one's mentioned above have Raid support. Ubuntu, Centos, Debian etc do it through mdadm usually. FreeNas also has raid functionality built in (and do-able graphically through a web interface I might add!). The linux ones as well can also do your torrents & news feeds. I personally have a tiny ARM computer running Debian and it uses a combination of sickbeard, sabnzbd+, transmission to handle all my automatic downloading needs at night. You may find between the different distros it varies in complexity to install the services you require. I know ubuntu & debian have them (sabnzbd & transmission) available in the repository. I am not so sure about the redhat (and its derivitives such as centos), perhaps one of the others can shed light on this? I think FreeNas 7 has a torrent plugin from memory. 1
jamin100 Posted September 6, 2011 Posted September 6, 2011 Im thinking about getting one of these too as they are soo cheap. Take a look at unraid (youtube) as it seems to look pretty decent and you can mix the size of your drives 1
morganw Posted September 7, 2011 Posted September 7, 2011 I've had Debian running on a Microserver for a while now running Netatalk, mt-daapd, and Exim. Not had a problem so far, depends what you are looking to get out of it I guess. If you want to play around and learn things rather than just run stuff then it probably makes more sense to install a VM platform so you've got some rollback options. 1
CyberNerd Posted September 7, 2011 Posted September 7, 2011 If you want to play around and learn things rather than just run stuff then it probably makes more sense to install a VM platform so you've got some rollback options. keeping with a *nix theme cloudstack (particularly with KVM) is worth checking out
dhicks Posted September 7, 2011 Posted September 7, 2011 are there any good free alternatives out there I should also spend some time messing with? Yet another vote for Debian. I find it works well with Xen virtualisation (with or without a chip with hardware virtualisation support, so pretty much any processor should do), giving you a stable OS that lets you install each of your important services (email, DHCP, DNS, etc) in a separate VM. Around 256MB per VM seems to be a practical minimum, so a server with a couple of GB of RAM in should let your run half-a-dozen or so small VMs. Linux's mdadm RAID is excellent and very flexible whilest also being recoverable - if your processor dies you can plonk the hardrives in a new box and boot using any boot CD with mdadm support and the RAID array should just automatically appear, ready to go - no rushing around trying to find a matching hardware RAID controller that understands the particular RAID metadata on your disks. If you want a light-weight GUI to go on top of Debian, Xfce seems to be about the best I've found. No extanious bits and bobs all over the place - we're going to be using it at school for a ChromeOS-like OS that just loads up Firefox o startup and nothing else. 1
SHimmer45 Posted September 8, 2011 Posted September 8, 2011 using ubuntu server 11 at home with mdadm for a mirrored 320GB array, after swearing at the disk manager once it was working it has been spot on. found HOWTO: Linux Software Raid using mdadm - Ubuntu Forums helpful. there was another guide as well but i cant find the link oops. all running on a VIA C7 with a gig or so of ram, large data transfers see I/O CPU usage at around 50% (with just me using it) found Webmin a nice tool for managing it all as well 1
owen1978 Posted September 12, 2011 Posted September 12, 2011 do you require it to perfrom services such as dns,dhcp etc...? if not = unraid else ubuntu server 1
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now