A 'Server Newbie' needing guidance with Server Build(s)

[MCarrollz]

Hey Wonderful People!

I'm currently looking to see if someone here might be able to assist or point me in the right direction. Apologies in advance for any stupid questions or mistakes on my end etc.

I'm an indie game designer and I'm looking at solutions for a few issues.

Network Attached Storage - But using various "Raid Arrays" (using this as not sure of technical term) within the same NAS (So Drives #1-3 in RAID5 for H Drive etc).

I'm looking to have one encrypted "array" for User Data (Back up of things like emails, log-in details, order transactions, CSM/CRM Ticket Info etc),

An other "encrypted array" as a network attached project drive, access to a GitHub style without having to use a service from a 3rd party would be great but even to have this just as a back up other than cloud storage and the PC/Mac systems themselves.

Private array (for my personal files etc)

Intranet
Not sure what I'd really need for this, I assume another "array" of storage and the processing power/connectivity etc.

I'd like to use this for personal hosted Game Design Wikis (used for creating and sharing with team members when I need to (currently just me as I've been off work for 2.5 years due to injury and have gone back to university to further my skills as I look to return to the workforce.) other than that it'd be used for normal business stuff with memos, forms etc.

Then finally I'm 99% sure this is going to be a future project (if the above is already 2-5 different ones) I would be interested in learning about what I would need as a local test server for games I'm working on... not sure what kinda stats you'd need to know about what it COULD be used for as I'm studying I'm not currently working on a specific project but using this year to test and get myself ready for next year/the future.

Again, I know this might come off as "pie in the sky" kind of thing, and I can 100% understand that but I want to figure out what I would need to get everything I'd like done, why I can/can't do X and what I can do to learn more/get closer to my goals.

ONE NOTE: Data protection is going to be really important to me (as it's not just my data, and what is mine includes unreleased IP etc). So in my initial research I have been drawn to the lure of the Epyc encryption between the CPU and RAM etc but with my head fairly well around how PC's my server knowledge is purely hypothetical/software based so I really need a good nudge in the right direction. Thanks I advance.

 

[WANg]

Eh, how much money do you have, how many drives are you planning to use to build these arrays, and where are you planning to put all this?

 

[vl1969]

Agree with WANg,
Anything can be done if money is no object. But if you don't know what you doing it can qukly become a nightmare.

 

[WANg]

It's more a reflection on the vagueness of the requirements...

A RAID array is just a fancier way of saying "a box where we put the bits of zeros and ones where we put enough duct tape in there to give us a chance to survive and to thrive".

Technically we can setup 2 fast hard drives on a 300 dollar HP Microserver Gen 8, set up raid1 across the drives, divvy that array up with multiple shares (with encryption) via FreeNAS (or whatever), and set them up using SMB, host github/mercurial and run MariaDB off the share, and you can unfurl the Dubya "mission accomplished" banner at your leisure.

Then the question becomes:

"what will the performance be like now"?
"how much resiliency do I have to survive a drive failure or 2, or if the power supply blows out"?
"how much more room do I have to grow if I need more space down the line, or if I need more performance out of the disks"?

That's when you start talking about hardware, RAID types, software stacks, and whatnot. Just remember that to cross the Atlantic you can do it on a canoe, a Concorde or a bulk carrier. It's all a question of risk management, speed and scale.