My File Server

Background

I have talked about my initial set up of Windows Home Server 2011 (WHS2011) onto my file server PC, I thought I would give you a quick outline of it (read about my overview of WHS2011 here)

What I want it to do for me.

I have quite literally dozens of PCs in various states of repair and holding various files and useful information. I’m sick of using a pen drive to move stuff about and forever wondering, “which machine has that file again?”. So I want a central file store that I can access from any PC. Ultimately, I would love to be able to use something like FTP (File Transfer Protocol) so that I can access my data anywhere in the world. Why? Because I can!

So what is my server?

Well I should admit that I am a hoarder / slow upgrader. For one reason or another, I never seem to have much money to invest (ha is that really the right word to use?!) in computers. So I tend to get a lot second hand and a few generations old. So my server is quite literally old pieces that I had laying around from previous upgrades.

• CPU : E6700 Core2Duo
• RAM : 4 GB DDR2 800 MHz
• Motherboard : TBD
• OS Drive : Seagate 160 GB
• Data Drives : 4 off Samsung 500GB HDD
• PSU : Corsair
• GPU : 8800GTX

It is mounted in a 4U rack mount case (read about that here), I have a 42U rack in my garage (why? Because I could and it was cheap off eBay!) I want to get the rack populated with rack mount cases on sliding rails so that I can easily work on a PC.

The four 500 GB drives are set up in a RAID-5 array so that I have a good balance of fault tolerance (I can have a single drive fail and still not lose data) and capacity. The idea of a RAID array is also quite appealing – just one uber drive that is arguably of higher performance than any single one. Whats not to love? Its also a good convenience!

My file server chassis

The Gutz

Well thats me off for now!