I'm thinking about re-building the server on my home network. Right now it's running Gentoo Linux (though it has been OpenBSD in the past). I'm thinking about going back to OpenBSD for the *simplicity* (which hopefully implies better robustness and reliability) of the system (install, configure and forget about it (except for security patches)).
However, I have slowly been expanding this computer's role: it's always been a firewall/gateway/NAT box. But I also want it to be a massive data store (to house files for a video-on-demand system) using nfs/samba, a backup server (rsync) and house some relatively light-weight subversion (svn) repositories. So my question is, what hardware is recommended for this box? I can't afford "enterprise grade" hardware, but I do want the most reliable equipment I can afford. I read the supported hardware page; my main concern is with the hard drive controller. What driver+device combinations are generally considered the most robust? This is getting to be more than I want to spend, but I was thinking of getting something like this LSI Logic Megaraid SATA Controller Card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816118011 And running RAID5 with several high-capacity SATA drives. The other (much cheaper) route I'm considering is to just get a couple high-capacity PATA drives and use the on-board controller (currently an nforce2-based system). Basically just looking for ideas/suggestions/success or horror stories/etc. Thanks! Matt -- Matt Garman email at: http://raw-sewage.net/index.php?file=email
