Updating after 8 years advice on software/hardware

[antispam246]

Hi, been 8 years since I last posted here, looking for some advice on updating my homeserver. (Hopefully this is appropriate forum).

Running an HP Proliant N40 micro server on windows server 2008 R2 and WHS 2011 in Hyper-V (yeh I know, ancient).

It's been 5 years since I powered down my home server which acted primarily for backups and media storage, the requirements are roughly the same, the hardware is still functional except two of 4 HDD's have died which leaves the WHS pool drive dead.

Basically I'm looking at (software wise) changing it all up. I'm very much out of the loop these days but would like to remain on windows platform for familiarity. I believe windows 10 is actually deemed very appropriate for most of my requirements these days, versus the server specific path.

Hardware Specs:

OS (Current): Win Server 2008 R2/WHS 2011 (Hyper-V)
CPU: AMD Turion II Neo N40L Dual-Core Processor 64 bit
RAM: 8GB (2x4GB) Kingston DDR3 PC3-10600 Ram ECC
HDD: 4 x 3TB HDD's (Now 2x 3tb and 2 x 4tb)
SSD: OCZ 120GB (running win 2k8)
SSD: OCZ 240GB (running WHS 2011)

All disks minus the 2 that died are in perfect health

If there's any specific and founded guides please point me in the right direction, I will take a closer look myself it's nice to get some current and direct advice.

Appreciated!

 

[sfx2000]

Look at QNAP and Synology - they've kind of taken over that sector of the market...

Linux based, but good app support... an alt choice is AsusStor - which is a QNAP clone, and there are others - but QNAP and Syno have the best market position and support teams, IMHO...

With WHS/Server2008 - not going to be able to migrate drives, so back them up and restore on to the new NAS...

 

[hedly]

if you want to stay with a windows machine, then I'd say look at one of the online computer retailers (Newegg, TigerDirect, CDWG, etc.) and see if you can find a refurbished or off/lease machine.

I found a HP computer (i7 processor, 8GB ram, 2TB Hard Drive) with Win10 Pro and added another 8GB ram all for $448 (April 2017 price). The one thing that would limit you with this machine would be that there's not enough SATA ports. Of course you could always add in a PCI SATA card.

You could look for a higher-end computer or server than what I chose. but really, if you're not processing stuff an i5 or even i3 processor would likely do you fine. I would recommend having at least 16GB of ram. I also had a SSD lying around and I mirrored over my OS to that drive to speed up boot times. the 2TB hard drive became my storage drive.

You could probably get by with your current hardware. boot times might be slower; but once up and running you'd likely be fine. Win10 really runs well. I would, though, try to increase your ram to 16GB either by adding or replacing entirely (i.e. 2x 8GB sticks).

If you're going to pool/RAID the hard drives, then I'd recommend a real PCI RAID card. I looked into that a while ago and most recommend not using the RAID capabilities built into motherboards. You'd likely be served finding a forum focused on RAID/backups for that recommendation.

regards,

 

[antispam246]

Thanks for replies. Having been looking around I've noted that QNAP and Synology come highly recommended these days, I recall looking at them back in the day but they were just too expensive and for the most part, atleast comparatively to what I have and what I'd be willing to spend, still are.

Hardware wise I'd ideally like to use/re-use what I have. I also have an unboxed N54 to tinker with.

Along with your advice I actually ended up trying something new (for me). I now have FreeNAS up and running on the N40, currently it's just acting as a plex server. Completely new to me so taking my time absorbing all the options. This is actually the problem, too many bloody options, with the only limitations being hardware.

The N40 has a long running history of being "iffy" with 16GB ram, I don't think anythings changed here, basically it's hit and miss whether it will work as officially it's limited to 8GB, the N54 maybe 16GB. I will look into it as I'm certain I used a modded BIOS to install extra SATA controllers. I believe there's hardware assisted RAID 5/6 unsure on the other.

Thanks again for input, got a lot too look into now and plenty of tinkering.