This is Part 1 of a series of blog posts on building a Home NAS & Server using Linux. For the full index and other details, please see the Index
As may be apparent from the index, one key feature of this new build is that it needs to be a bit of a Swiss Army Knife. Whilst I’m well aware I could quite easily build a lower power, (probably) cheaper and quieter machine that would fulfil the primary requirement of providing more storage space, it wouldn’t be as capable of some of the other tasks I’d ultimately like this unit to do. For what it’s worth, if it was just about storage, I’d probably seriously consider another QNAP if I was going to go for a pre-bought option, I really have liked my TS-219P
Let’s start by covering what I currently use the QNAP for and what benefits it provides, so the bare minimum that this new build has to offer:
- Video storage – My own DVD rips and the like, centrally stored for access by XBMC installs
- Photo storage – Finally, I shifted them off my aging USB hard drive. Hopefully, the number will begin to increase again before too long
- Music storage – Accessed by various means, including a Subsonic server
- Miscellaneous files – a pretty lax (if I’m honest) and ad hoc approach towards backing up what I consider to be my “important” stuff
- Interoperability with *nix and Windows clients (feasibly this should stretch to Mac, although I have no immediate need for that. Pedants, hush)
- Decent (local) backup and resilience – alright, it’s just mirrored disks in a little box, but it’s been sufficient so far
- A stable platform – It’s been up almost a full year now and shows no sign of causing any stability issues. It gives me my files when I want them, and writes what I want to write when I want to write it (until recently, see “space consumption”)
But enough of that, what do I want this build to do and what do I need it to do?
| Need | Want |
|---|---|
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And that is just about that.