I am getting ready to set up my server. OS questions

I am getting ready to setup my acer AC100 server. It has home server on it right now. 2011 I think. IS there a new version of home server available? I could not find anything on it or was 2011 the last year for server?

 

No, home server 2011 is the newest that was released. Too bad because it was a cool project. It depends on what you want to do OS wise, but even windows 10 would function for what you likely want/need. Unraid is also a fun option, but that's a little more of a learning curve.

 

I don't know what your requirements are but, I run a "server" with Ubuntu as it's more lightweight, secure, and stable. When looking at most enterprise setups you'll find them running *nix as the OS and then virtual instances of Windows in containers.

With Ubuntu it's user friendly w/ the desktop available as a GUI if you're visually needing it but, otherwise you can configure things through a terminal like Putty over the network. It consumes a whole lot less resources than any Windows version would and the only time you need a reboot is when you upgrade the kernel unlike windows with every update they release. Going w/ *nix based OS from a security standpoint is going to be more secure as well as it's much less susceptible to virus / ransomware.

Modularity with *nix is nice too. If you want to setup Raid for multiple disks it's able to do that. If you want to slap a card in for a DVR it can do that as well. If you want to use it as a "router" it can do that. If you want to do the "router' thing you can add your own Firewall to it for more control than your average off the shelf router w/o all of the bugs. If you want to do x y z it can probably do that too.

The drive size in *nix can be as big as you want it to be and they don't get corrupted as much as NTFS does. I'm running 4 * 8TB in a Raid 10 that nets me 400MB/s w/ redundancy + a 256GB NVME for the OS to live on. I've thought about some of the newer 14-20TB drives as a prestige option or single drive backup for the array but, I haven't had any issues with the drives beyond the initial purchase where 1 of them didn't boot up and got replaced. The system runs 24/7 for the past coupe of years now and the drives have been rock solid w/ no data errors or stability issues. I tried getting a HW Raid card but, couldn't get it to work no matter what I did with it and the speed from the MOBO ports works just as well. I just wanted to play around with a card to see if it would perform better by bypassing the DMI on the mobo / be more "portable" between different OS options rather than based on a configuration file in *nix. The mobo has the option of being the Raid host though outside of the OS but, being able to control / configure / monitor things from the OS is more convenient than going into the bios to make changes.

 

It should not have any issues running today correct? I just want it to act as a NAS solution for our businesses.

 

Went and looked this thing up https://static.acer.com/up/Resource...s/20110603/acerAC100_long_specs_v1-6-2-11.pdf

It's cute but, ancient in terms of tech as it was released in 2010. It should work fine for a file server though but, looking at the HW specs it might have some issues to work around if you use Windows on it.

DDR3 RAM @ this will cost more than DDR4 but, you're only looking at a max of 16GB w/ 2x8GB configuration. Doesn't take much for simple file operations but, the OS you pick will make a difference.

The 1GE network connection is a bit limiting though if you're looking for network speed / backups The good thing is it appears there's an expansion slot on the back that would allow for a faster card to be put in whether 2.5 / 5 / 10 GE. I would probably opt for a dual port 2.5GE just as a bump on the cheap for faster backups as they can be picked up for ~ $50 on ebay and then a dongle for whatever you're connecting to it for another ~ $20 on Amazon. If you want to go faster there are some 5GE options which would cover your top drive speeds card @ $200 / dongle @ $70 which will get you to 400MB/s with room for more.

It only has USB2 ports which will kill you on moving data @ 480mbps vs USB3 G2 which gets you up to 10gbps... could be an add on card but, is network or USB speed more important?

I find this a bit odd....





How can the #1 feature not be supported?

How much did you invest in this thing? I have some NAS options that might get you better performance / less headaches.

 

I purchased it brand new. So essentially it's free for my new purpose. I don't need speed. I need storage. Store files, documents and finished work. I have a 16tb drive in my computer for faster access to working files. I will off load them from there once the job is complete. that way I keep my drive open on my system, but still have access to old work if needed.

 

Ok..... to save some time on the bulk transfer I would suggest a USB-C / SATA adapter for ~ $50 otherwise it could take quite awhile to move data over. The fastest option though would be placing the 2nd drive into the existing PC to move things over. IIRC you went with an AIO setup that probably doesn't allow for that though. If it does have the space for a 2nd drive it would be optimal but, if you're setting up Raid it complicates things unless you setup Raid w/ a missing drive and then copy from the single drive to the array and then add the 2nd drive to the array after copying the files over.

It all depends on how much transfer / backup activity you'll want to do and how much your time is worth in waiting for it to complete. If you're waiting on backups and normally shutdown the PC faster is better. Either way I wouldn't use Windows on the box if you value your backups contents.

 

I am running my xps 8940 SE. Not an AIO. I have a 4tb main drive, a 512gb SSD and 1tb ssd for resovle scratch work, and a 16tb HDD for storage. I am planning to run 4 16tb HDD in raid 5 in the server via my network. Speed is not that important since once the main transfer from my PC is done, it's only going to be one file at a time moving either way. So speed is not essential for us. Storage space is the main issue. If we have to wait a min or two for a large file to move across it's fine.

 

Why R5?

When I was planning my setup I ended up with R10 for speed / redundancy.

 

Good question. I'm not up on what each raid setup entales besides 1 and 0. From reading 5 was supposedly good for what I was doing. Maybe 10 would be better.

 

10 gives you the speed of striping (doubling of speed combining 2 drives) / mirroring 9pair of drives copies from striped pair0.

so, if you go with 16TB's you'd have 32TB of usable data but, also a live backup of 32TB w/o the hit for calculating bits like R5.

I like it because it takes so little CPU and won't be corrupted in most cases. It's nice to have that piece of mind of a live backup as well. I have a 5th drive in place that I manually copy to periodically that's not in the raid for that 3rd copy practice.

with mdadm you can build the R10 with 3 drives + 1 ""missing", pop in your 4th to copy from and then add it to the set when the copy is done within the micro tower you're setting up. I did this method migrating from a standalone NAS that was 2 bays to my final cube w/ 12 bays w/ 4 for raid / 1 for the spare / room for expansion.

 

Sounds like a plan. I will set it up this way. 16tb in my computer plus 32 in my server will be enough for a while

 

Works well and your only bottleneck if you need network speed will be the onboard NIC @ 1gbps. The Raid should push 400MB/s or more depending on the controllers on the drives themselves.



If you need more speed you can pop in a dual port 2.5gbpss card or leap to 5gbps card. If you wan to go to the extreme then 10gps. Makes quick work for backup/restore over ethernet vs an enclosure or adapter.