Gaming PC or home server?

[XANADV]

Hello e'rrbody. I got something that I need help with, particularly from people that have dealt with servers and the like. I just put together all of my spare parts and made something from them. They're mostly pedestrian mainstream parts, but I need to know if they will work for a home server. Here is what I have:

• Mainboard: MSI Z77A-GD65 GAMING
• CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K
• Memory: 8 GB G.Skill TridentX 2400 MHz
• SSD: Samsung 840 Pro 128 GB
• PSU: Corsair AX860
• Case: CM Cosmos II

If these parts look familiar to some of you that's because they have been in and out of my other build. I still use that as my primary rig and now I have this one as well. The only new thing I have had to buy is the motherboard. I had the spare i7 but no motherboard to pair with it so I had to get one. Hell of a search as Z77 boards are hard to come by nowadays, but I got lucky and found this one refurbished. Color matched with my RAM sticks as a bonus. The PSU is overkill i know but I have it already so I might as well use it right?

But anyway will these work for a home server and what OS would be best? My use for it would be more like a NAS for backing up my main rig and serving my media collection for the time being. I have a lot of CD's and Blu-Ray movies that I'd like to rip and store on it. I'd much rather have a server than a NAS as I surely can find more uses for it in the future.

If I can't use as a server I'll just sell this as a whole computer minus OS and GPU. I know next to nothing about servers so any input will help a great deal. Many thanks in advance!

 

[MrKambo]

My home servers uses a Asus Maximus Formula.

Use it as a server, not a NAS as it will restrict to what you can do.

I use Windows Server 2008 R2, but you can use any OS, depending on what you want to do with you could use Linux

I use mine for my media storage and a plex server, it also backs up my phone everynight and few tiny things like that, i been reading into home automation as well, and ill be using that to control all my lights and stuff at some point

 

[XANADV]

My home servers uses a Asus Maximus Formula.

Use it as a server, not a NAS as it will restrict to what you can do.

I use Windows Server 2008 R2, but you can use any OS, depending on what you want to do with you could use Linux

I use mine for my media storage and a plex server, it also backs up my phone everynight and few tiny things like that, i been reading into home automation as well, and ill be using that to control all my lights and stuff at some point

Home automation? That's something that's been swirling in my mind too. Just curious why Windows Server 08?

 

[MrKambo]

Home automation? That's something that's been swirling in my mind too. Just curious why Windows Server 08?

i did start messing around with my Raspberry PI and light switches, and it worked well, but i really wanna control my entire house from the pc

Why Windows Server, well its very light weight compared to Windows 7 and because my server runs headless in console mode, only Windows Server offers that functionality.

 

[Mr. Smith]

i did start messing around with my Raspberry PI and light switches, and it worked well, but i really wanna control my entire house from the pc

Why Windows Server, well its very light weight compared to Windows 7 and because my server runs headless in console mode, only Windows Server offers that functionality.

Hi, sorry to hijack, but I was thinking about sticking freenas on my current htpc once my new build is done... Sounds to me like I'd be better off with WS8?

If you have it configured headless, I take it you don't need a GPU of any description?

Cheers