/hsg/ is about learning and expanding your horizons. Know all about NAS? Learn virtualization. Spun up some VMs? Learn about networking by standing up a OPNsense/pfsense box and configuring some VLANs. There's always more to learn and chances to grow. Think you’re god-tier already? Setup OpenStack and report back.
>What software should I run? Install Gentoo. Or whatever flavor of *nix is best for the job or most comfy for you. Jellyfin to replace Netflix, nextcloud to replace Googlel, ampache to replace spotify, the list goes on and on. Look at the awesome self-hosted list and ask.
>Why should I have a home server? Learn something new. De-botnet your life. Serving applications to yourself, your family, and your frens feels good. Put your Any Forums skills to good use for yourself and those close to you. Store their data with proper availability redundancy and backups and serve it back to them with a /comfy/ easy to use interface.
Interested in building a rack and currently looking at an empty server case. What exactly is a good deal for a 2U case with hotswap bays w/ shipping? The case supports standard ATX hardware so it would just be a matter of moving my hardware into it. pic related
Its a niche product don't expect to find a good price just be glad you can find it.
Jace Bennett
2U is almost always just too small for anything stuffed with consumer gear. youll have to shop around for a 2U** height CPU cooler too
Isaiah Flores
>youll have to shop around for a 2U** height CPU cooler too Thanks for pointing that out user. I know that the case supports ATX, so other than the CPU fan and the maybe PSU I should be good.
Christian Carter
You port forward 3389 and setup duckdns so you don't have to remember your IP address, it'll update whenever you home IP address changes When connecting remotely you just punch in your duckdns address in the RDP client, and if you changed your WAN side port from 3389 to something else punch that in too with a colon after the address I do the same thing with qbitorrent as well so I can remotely manage torrents without actually needing to remote into the computer Some people here setup a reverse proxy so they don't have to bother with the ports, but I'm lazy. I also whitelisted my remote IP and changed my WAN sides ports in router
Daniel Long
there's a lot more decently priced options if you're willing and able to get a 4U case, especially depth-wise. would also avoid the cpu cooler height issue user mentioned.
Kevin Powell
Just go 4U, you can actually fit stuff like CPU coolers, graphics cards, and fans that don't sound like banshees in them
Matthew White
Got an old PC lying around after building my new rig and I want to turn it into a Plex machine I can access via the internet as well as use to download new torrents for film and animo.
The way I understand it, I can basically accomplish this via running Windows Home Server on it as long as I put the components together.
My question is, I would be running an fifth-gen Intel i5 CPU on it, and in addition I have a GTX 970 lying around. Does it make any sense to plug in the GPU for a machine intended to only use Plex (Like maybe the GPU can help out with encoding/decoding or something while I stream) or is that just wasteful?
Old cards don't always do the specific encoding that you would want. Probably not worth it, you should Google the card you have and the video encoding it can do. My guess is that card might be "new" enough that it can do one type of encoding and then enable that hardware encoding in Plex. It probably won't be very good or better than software. Maybe worse.
Elijah Gonzalez
same goes for the iGPU. might just be easier (and a lot more power efficient) to sell the whole machine before gpu prices hit rock bottom now and buy a low-end 8th gen or newer and use the iGPU. but it really depends on what encoding your files have what hw you need.
Leo Morris
also, both iGPU and the GPU will be useless with plex unless you buy premium to unlock the HW acceleration, but might be worth it in the long run if you get it for like half off it's only like 100 bux for lifetime license and you'd save quite a bit in power costs.
Dominic Davis
I was considering that, but 4U cases - especially ones with hotswap bays - are more expensive to the point of being prohibitive, at least where I am at. I'd rather stay under budget and keep my hotswap bays since I don't have enough drives to populate the bays and I anticipate buying more in the future. Plus I still need to buy the rack itself and all of the other stuff. As for a graphics card, my server isn't doing anything that really requires one, so I cant get away with not having one.
William Price
if it has 5.25" bays you can buy separate hotswap bays instead of the overpriced cases.
Liam Ross
you can use a 15 bux IKEA Lack like OPs pic for a while with minor modification to hold a 4u.
how cool do you guys keep your drives? I'm hovering around 40C but can drop it about 3 degrees if I take the front panel off the case. no idea if that matters at all.
no point doing that for just 3C drop unless you're already too hot, which you arent. dont compare your consumer temps to datacenter temps, it's not realistic. just check max operating temps and keep well below that.
Angel Mitchell
Stupid question, wouldnt there be heating issues?
Alexander Barnes
average wattage?
Jaxson Peterson
why would there be any difference compared to a proper rack?
