Linux or Windows For Storage/Backup Server

[knknif]

I know both will do the job just fine so at the end of the day it doesn't really matter, but that's why I am asking you guys. There might be something I'm not thinking of that would influence my decision.

FWIW - I will be putting 6 2TB drives into my PowerEdge 2950 and using raid 5 to create a large volume to store my movies, music, documents, etc...

The only reason right now that I am leaning towards windows in because I can then use Hyper-V to play around with other OS's on the server.

The only reason I am considering linux is that I expect it would jive better with my Raspberry pi that I have in place connected to my TV to play the movies from the server. It was a real bitch to figure out how to get the pi connected to the server and have everything work right.

Lets try and keep the fanboy stuff out of this too.

 

[C4PPY]

I use Windows server 2012 Essentials for my home backup, its easy but it cost more then an linux solution. And I'm streaming to two RPI's in my apartment - just using shares to the XBMC client on the RPI's .

 

[sotech]

One of the appealing things about a Linux-based server is ZFS... if you don't care about checksummed data and the other benefits and are happier in a Windows environment you'll probably find it easier to stick with what you know.

As a point... you can use ESXi or similar and have a storage VM inside that, so you can in a lot of ways have the best of both worlds - Gea pushes this idea with his all-in-one napp-it ZFS idea.

 

[knknif]

Update on this build with a question.

Since I'm poor I was only able to justify buying 4 new 2TB HDD's. However I have a couple other 2TB's that I will be using to fill the six bays in my server.

Given that the other two HDD's have different cache sizes and rotation speeds, I figure its not best practice to use them long term in my RAID array, though it is my understanding that it will do the job. In a couple months when I can comfortably afford the other two drives of the same type, would I be able to just swap out one drive at a time and let the array rebuild itself onto the new drive?