Which OS would you recommend for home server?

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hairy1

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#1069069 19-Jun-2014 09:44

I am running Windows Server 2012 with Plex and Playon. Works well but has random reboots. Haven't had time to get to the bottom of it. It only seems to reboot in the middle of the night which is a pain. Haven't had time to sit down and troubleshoot it.

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gehenna

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#1069071 19-Jun-2014 09:50

I have a Windows 7 box with a RAID that serves up basic shared folders, those are accessed by my computers and XBMC. It sits headless in my hall cupboard connected to the LAN with a length of ethernet running under the floor.

Works fine, have been using it for about 2.5 years with no issues.

Also have a Server 2012 R2 box next to it which is my lab for work.

chevrolux

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#1069156 19-Jun-2014 11:55

I run a VMware ESXi host. On that I have a FreeNAS machine for storage and sharing of everything. Then I have a Ubuntu server (12.04 LTS) machine to run mySQL database, utorrent server, etc. Then I just have my raspberry pi's running raspbmc and getting the content from the NAS and using the database running on the Ubuntu box. Tool me a bit of doing because I don't understand mySQL at all but once it was running it is so perfect.

I had Plex with Roku's for a little while but just got a bit annoyed with Plex every now and again so switched back to xbmc.

TwoSeven

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#1069471 19-Jun-2014 18:21

billgates: Even if you can get hold of Windows Server 2012 R2, you can now add the essentials roles to it which makes it behave exactly like Windows Server 2012 Essentials R2. Only bit of difference is EULA and licensing. You can run Hyper-V on Server 2012 R2 install and have as many VM's as you want inside it but on Server 2012 Essentials R2, as per the EULA you cannot install any VM's on Hyper-V. Server 2012 Essentials R2 also comes with 25 User CAL's.

I'd be interested in seeing a link to that EULA for server essentials and VMs.

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billgates

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#1069494 19-Jun-2014 18:49

TwoSeven:
I'd be interested in seeing a link to that EULA for server essentials and VMs.

Only VM you are allowed to run on a Windows Server 2012 Essentials R2 host under Hyper-V is the Essentials R2 VM.

http://titlerequired.com/2013/09/17/essentials-2012-r2-the-role-licensing/

http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2013/09/03/understanding-licensing-for-windows-server-2012-r2-essentials-and-the-windows-server-essentials-experience-role.aspx

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hio77

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#1069499 19-Jun-2014 19:03

driller2000: gidday,

i went with unraid for my media server (nas)

it is not a true raid setup (no sh&t!) but does provide a degree of data loss protection through the use of a parity drive

but for non critical data e.g. media it meets my requirements - it does however provide maximum usable storage ie. I currently have 27 TB total capacity - with 24TB available for storage

if you dont have a dire need to go windows, ild also go with unraid, runs great for my needs.

their software raid solution is what attracts me, while i dont have much concern about the data stored on it, it is helpful to be able to recover from disaster, say a disk failure. - loosing a media drive is actually what made me start this in the first place.

its even girlfriend friendly at this point!

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TwoSeven

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#1071229 20-Jun-2014 18:39

billgates:
TwoSeven:
I'd be interested in seeing a link to that EULA for server essentials and VMs.

Only VM you are allowed to run on a Windows Server 2012 Essentials R2 host under Hyper-V is the Essentials R2 VM.

http://titlerequired.com/2013/09/17/essentials-2012-r2-the-role-licensing/

http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2013/09/03/understanding-licensing-for-windows-server-2012-r2-essentials-and-the-windows-server-essentials-experience-role.aspx

Buying a server standard edition and then downgrading it is rather an expensive way to do things, especially just to then run a copy of essentials in a VM guest.

What the articles don't fully cover is that its cheaper to just buy server essentials and if there is a need to virtualise it, use the free hyper-v server - in which case one can also run other virtual machines (although I suspect the management of them is a little bit more trying). I am also not sure what licensing there is around buying an essentials license and then upgrading it to a standard edition - which is a reverse of the downgrading scenario.

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