ProLiant Gen 8 Pre Purchase Questions

[JJ72UK]

Hi All,

 

I've trawled through this forum to try to find some definitive answers, while I was able to get some around RAM upgrading, CPU upgrading etc there are a few things I am still trying to work out.

 

As this isn't really an "out of the box" NAS drive with some ARM processor it requires a bit more work from me, what I was wondering is if the following is possible:

 

- Simple network storage for home usage (pictures, family videos, music etc) that my home desktop can access, but also maybe if I'm at a relatives I can access, for instance, some pictures to show them.

 

- Plex

 

- SVN Server

 

- Some sort of redundancy (hardware or software..pros/cons between them?)

 

- I've seen a lot of talk about ESXi, but can't seem to find the advantages of doing this?

 

Any guidance would be great.

 

 

[Trig0r]

What background do you have when it comes to OS, Windows, *nix etc. there are lots of options but any would require more info from you before people can give you a best suited, for you, answer as there are a fair few options, have you played with virtualisation before and so on...?!?

[JJ72UK]

I'm a .Net developer by trade and have built my own desktops for at least a decade, most experience is around windows but I have a dual boot to Ubuntu as well, though not used very often.

 

I'm pretty good when it comes to guides etc

[Drashna Jaelre]

Well, ESXi is for virtualization. If you're a developer, then it would allow you easy access to testing environments, that can be "saved" and rolled back very easily. Though, I think it supports HyperV as well, so if you're much more a Windows user, HyperV will let you use the OS as normal, and run a "bare metal hypervisor" (better performance than VMWare Workstation, virtualbox, or the like)

 

But Windows 7/8 would work for you very well, if you aren't inclined to use *NIX.

In fact, (sorry for the cross post but) We Got Served has a couple of nice ebooks describing how to setup Windows 8 as a file and media server. It may be worth looking into. 

 

That said, plex and SVN will also install on any version of Windows. so that may make things easy on you.

And if power management is important, check out "LightsOut" (http://homeserversoftware.com/low78.html).

 

As for data redundancy... this depends on what exactly you mean.

RAID is a decent option here. As is something like StableBit DrivePool and Drive Bender.

But regardless of what you choose, you should also backup the data, if it's important at all. Redundancy != backup.  

[JJ72UK]

Well, ESXi is for virtualization. If you're a developer, then it would allow you easy access to testing environments, that can be "saved" and rolled back very easily. Though, I think it supports HyperV as well, so if you're much more a Windows user, HyperV will let you use the OS as normal, and run a "bare metal hypervisor" (better performance than VMWare Workstation, virtualbox, or the like)

 

But Windows 7/8 would work for you very well, if you aren't inclined to use *NIX.

In fact, (sorry for the cross post but) We Got Served has a couple of nice ebooks describing how to setup Windows 8 as a file and media server. It may be worth looking into. 

 

That said, plex and SVN will also install on any version of Windows. so that may make things easy on you.

And if power management is important, check out "LightsOut" (http://homeserversoftware.com/low78.html).

 

As for data redundancy... this depends on what exactly you mean.

RAID is a decent option here. As is something like StableBit DrivePool and Drive Bender.

But regardless of what you choose, you should also backup the data, if it's important at all. Redundancy != backup.  

 

But with windows 7/8 I thought power settings weren't compromised? And how about wanting access to pictures/files from locations outside the local network?

[nrf]

outside access can be done with a cloud sync type service if you dare (dropbox, onedrive.... etc), if you are more of a roll-your-own and comfortable with setting up security you can do your own cloud 'service'.