Re: [libreplanet-discuss] home / small office servers with free hardware

[Julien Kyou]

On April 6, 2016 4:08:44 AM AST, Daniel Pocock <daniel@pocock.pro> wrote:
>
>
>Can anybody comment on strategies for building a home or small office
>server using entirely free hardware?

If your willing to surrender Libreboot you could run a real desktop/server. In 
my Vast experience anything Intel/ASUS or SulerMicro (before the UEFI plague) 
just stay away from onboard WiFi.

By that definition I have two Libre servers in my home one on a 2011 and one 
1366 well technically its a server rack but close right?

>The earlier thread (here[1] and on the FSFE list[2]) about Intel and
>AMD
>never being truly free identifies platforms like ARM and other low
>power
>chips as alternatives that can be 100% free.  For home and small office
>servers where people typically want low power consumption and low noise
>levels rather than raw performance, using ARM is probably quite
>agreeable, a compromise they may already have been willing to make for
>other reasons.
>
>Are there any particularly good examples of off-the-shelf solutions  or
>how to make such servers from components?
>
>Even if CPU power is limited, can such solutions be designed for
>IO-intensive workloads, such as hosting NFS home directories or
>Maildirs?  These tend to do lots of small writes, just putting them on
>SSDs helps a lot.
>
>Another thing that people tend to look for these days is the ability to
>have lots of storage for photos and movies.  This type of storage
>doesn't need fast IO but it does generally need multiple disks for
>redundancy.
>
>A combined solution to both of those storage problems typically needs a
>pair of SSDs (for home directories) and a pair of large disks (for
>media
>collections) and if there is going to be a spare disk bay for
>migrations
>and standby disks, it means having a box with 5 or more bays.
>
>
>1.
>https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libreplanet-discuss/2016-04/msg00020.html
>2.
>http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/discussion/2016-April/010912.html


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