- Sep 14, 2015
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My current home server was built in late 2015 with the following specs:
Fractal Design Node 304 case
Corsair RM450W ATX Modular power supply
ASRock E3C226D2I LGA1150 mini-ITX motherboard
Intel Core i3-4330 CPU (stock cooler + integrated graphics)
8 GB Kingston DDR3-1600 ECC RAM
256GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD primary drive
3x 3TB Western Digital Red NAS storage drives in a RAID 5 configuration
Windows Home Server 2011 64-bit OS
I've stretched out the WHS2011 OS for as long as I can, but its continued usage is no longer tenable. The server's primary purposes are local file sharing on my home network, cloud backup to Amazon AWS, and Plex hosting (as a service) and transcoding - unfortunately, cloud backup has been broken ever since I turned off TLS 1.0/1.1 in response to a change at Amazon (with the third-party software I used for the backup function no longer available or supported), and Plex just announced in the past week they're ending support this month for any Windows OS older than Windows 10. So it's time for a change.
What I'm struggling with is, do I proceed with a completely new server build, or do I just re-image the primary drive and try to proceed with a newer OS? The existing hardware seems in good shape, and I'm not anxious to drop at least a grand (if not more) on new hardware, but it is over 7 years old at this point and I don't want to be working on this again a year from now because something failed. And regardless of how that question is answered, I have no idea what to select for a new OS. Part of the reason I stuck with WHS2011 well past its sell-by date was because it was cost-effective and easily compatible with the other machines in my environment - I don't want to spend an exorbitant amount on a commercial level Windows Server OS, but I'm dubious/unaware of how well alternative products would co-exist with my machines and provide the cloud backup and Plex functionality I need.
Would greatly appreciate some advice on what to do.
Fractal Design Node 304 case
Corsair RM450W ATX Modular power supply
ASRock E3C226D2I LGA1150 mini-ITX motherboard
Intel Core i3-4330 CPU (stock cooler + integrated graphics)
8 GB Kingston DDR3-1600 ECC RAM
256GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD primary drive
3x 3TB Western Digital Red NAS storage drives in a RAID 5 configuration
Windows Home Server 2011 64-bit OS
I've stretched out the WHS2011 OS for as long as I can, but its continued usage is no longer tenable. The server's primary purposes are local file sharing on my home network, cloud backup to Amazon AWS, and Plex hosting (as a service) and transcoding - unfortunately, cloud backup has been broken ever since I turned off TLS 1.0/1.1 in response to a change at Amazon (with the third-party software I used for the backup function no longer available or supported), and Plex just announced in the past week they're ending support this month for any Windows OS older than Windows 10. So it's time for a change.
What I'm struggling with is, do I proceed with a completely new server build, or do I just re-image the primary drive and try to proceed with a newer OS? The existing hardware seems in good shape, and I'm not anxious to drop at least a grand (if not more) on new hardware, but it is over 7 years old at this point and I don't want to be working on this again a year from now because something failed. And regardless of how that question is answered, I have no idea what to select for a new OS. Part of the reason I stuck with WHS2011 well past its sell-by date was because it was cost-effective and easily compatible with the other machines in my environment - I don't want to spend an exorbitant amount on a commercial level Windows Server OS, but I'm dubious/unaware of how well alternative products would co-exist with my machines and provide the cloud backup and Plex functionality I need.
Would greatly appreciate some advice on what to do.
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