Good evening,
I'm new to the forums, and brand new to servers in general. I recently purchased a used T620 and hope to have win10 installed with a raid 6 array of 5 8TB drives expandable to 8 as required. This machine will be the backbone of a network set up for our squadron for personal use (file sharing, media streaming, etc.). I've mulled over a lot of ideas on how to properly set up the network, but being so new to it all I'm afraid I've fallen short. Here are some of the ideas/requirements I'm hoping for:
1. NAS and file sharing
2. Controlling/limiting who is logged in, and how many instances of the same login can access the network simultaneously (trying to limit user name and password sharing
3. Plex or Kodi media server with streaming
4. Gaming server for games like WoW or Minecraft
5. Continuous video recording (security cam for my state room)
6. Chat client
7. Console server for xBox, PS4, etc (probably as simple as a LAN thing but worth asking)
8. Accessing my NAS from the internet one home from deployment like a personal cloud
- For the NAS (1), I would really prefer to be in control of the file structure. Having a directory where others can drop files and folders, but the bulk of the file file structure would be read only for the users and I can place new content accordingly. Additionally, if each person could have their own small (20-50gb) amount of space for personal storage only they could access?
- Controlling user login - I will be providing most of the hardware, including the server, for the squadron so it would be great to recoup a little bit of that up front cost. My idea was to provide permanent access to the network for $20 (for a 7 month deployment). with an expected 50-70 users, it's not a lot but it can help cover a bit of a multi-thousand machine. To do so, I am interested in limiting each user to one login and it ca only be used one at a time. I know this won't prevent everyone from sharing but hopefully it will encourage individual use.
- Plex or Kodi would be a great feature to help with #2 on the list. Plex might get a bit resource intensive but it does look nicer than Kodi IMO.
- I like to play Minecraft and thought my friends might enjoy exploring a world together. This one shouldn't be too hard on Win10 to set up. Other games might be more of a challenge but again, just throwing out some possible ideas
- Personal security camera should also be pretty easy to set up on Win10
- A chat client would be great because our rooms will probably be pretty far away. Might just be a simple program? I really liked how NextCloud has it built right into their OS, but seeing as how I'm going to be using this as a personal machine as well as a server, I am trying to avoid running a dedicated OS for that reason.
-I believe the console server can be handled by the individual consoles. 2 or 3 xBox's on the same LAN should see each other without any other hardware?
-Once we return from deployment, I would like to be able to access my NAS like a cloud server.
The machine that I got is a professional grade server, but hopefully Windows 10 wiill be adequate and robust enough to handle these tasks however. I see advantages to using software like Synology DiskStation Manager, FreeNAS, or NextCloud, but none of these seem perfect for the job, and I still need a windows machine for deployment. Unfortunately, I also don't have the IT background or experience necessary to run a Windows Server 2008 for example, so relying on Windows 10 seems most logical to me.
I'm looking forward to your suggestions and help!
Thank you for your time.
I'm new to the forums, and brand new to servers in general. I recently purchased a used T620 and hope to have win10 installed with a raid 6 array of 5 8TB drives expandable to 8 as required. This machine will be the backbone of a network set up for our squadron for personal use (file sharing, media streaming, etc.). I've mulled over a lot of ideas on how to properly set up the network, but being so new to it all I'm afraid I've fallen short. Here are some of the ideas/requirements I'm hoping for:
1. NAS and file sharing
2. Controlling/limiting who is logged in, and how many instances of the same login can access the network simultaneously (trying to limit user name and password sharing
3. Plex or Kodi media server with streaming
4. Gaming server for games like WoW or Minecraft
5. Continuous video recording (security cam for my state room)
6. Chat client
7. Console server for xBox, PS4, etc (probably as simple as a LAN thing but worth asking)
8. Accessing my NAS from the internet one home from deployment like a personal cloud
- For the NAS (1), I would really prefer to be in control of the file structure. Having a directory where others can drop files and folders, but the bulk of the file file structure would be read only for the users and I can place new content accordingly. Additionally, if each person could have their own small (20-50gb) amount of space for personal storage only they could access?
- Controlling user login - I will be providing most of the hardware, including the server, for the squadron so it would be great to recoup a little bit of that up front cost. My idea was to provide permanent access to the network for $20 (for a 7 month deployment). with an expected 50-70 users, it's not a lot but it can help cover a bit of a multi-thousand machine. To do so, I am interested in limiting each user to one login and it ca only be used one at a time. I know this won't prevent everyone from sharing but hopefully it will encourage individual use.
- Plex or Kodi would be a great feature to help with #2 on the list. Plex might get a bit resource intensive but it does look nicer than Kodi IMO.
- I like to play Minecraft and thought my friends might enjoy exploring a world together. This one shouldn't be too hard on Win10 to set up. Other games might be more of a challenge but again, just throwing out some possible ideas
- Personal security camera should also be pretty easy to set up on Win10
- A chat client would be great because our rooms will probably be pretty far away. Might just be a simple program? I really liked how NextCloud has it built right into their OS, but seeing as how I'm going to be using this as a personal machine as well as a server, I am trying to avoid running a dedicated OS for that reason.
-I believe the console server can be handled by the individual consoles. 2 or 3 xBox's on the same LAN should see each other without any other hardware?
-Once we return from deployment, I would like to be able to access my NAS like a cloud server.
The machine that I got is a professional grade server, but hopefully Windows 10 wiill be adequate and robust enough to handle these tasks however. I see advantages to using software like Synology DiskStation Manager, FreeNAS, or NextCloud, but none of these seem perfect for the job, and I still need a windows machine for deployment. Unfortunately, I also don't have the IT background or experience necessary to run a Windows Server 2008 for example, so relying on Windows 10 seems most logical to me.
I'm looking forward to your suggestions and help!
Thank you for your time.