Network re-jigging
Pretty in Pink
Yesterday, I re-installed my dual G4 server with Tiger Client – it’s working just fine as a server – and I figured out how to get DHCP running on Tiger Client, so all is good. But, I have some older hard drives in there (two Samsung 120GB ATA drives) which I don’t really trust (they are about 3 or 4 years old now). The discs/AFP combo isn’t as fast as my local G5 disks (35MB/sec vs 45MB/sec), but they are pretty zippy none the less. So it’s fine as a NAS-like server. And I’m using VNC to remotely control the server, so I can run it headless.
So, it got me to thinking…
Instead of picking up the 1TB NAS (for around $1K), I think I may just update the hard drives to be big drives (maybe 320GB @ $180 each for a total of 0.6TB), and I get the added bonus of having a “real” computer (with sshd, apache, DHCP/DNS, CUPS, etc.) as a server. With another disc controller, there is space to add an additional drive, bringing it to almost 1TB. Or, splurge, and get 500GB drives to go to 1TB immediately, and possibly 1.5TB later (but I think the price point is a bit high for that).
Anyway, this might do me just fine in the short term (i.e. a year or two), and then pick up a NAS to either supplement or replace the server later when I need it.
Yay! Problem solved. I’ll pick up a couple of drives later this week, and get ‘er all tricked up.
Once that is done, I’ll figure out what backup strategy to use. At the moment, I’ve been playing with Apple’s Backup software, which is really quite nice, but I’ll mess about with a few other options before deciding what software to use (the unfortunate thing regarding Apple’s Backup software is that it requires a .Mac account, which has a yearly subscription cost of over $100).
Oh, and then there is the matter of off-site backups… Not sure what to do there yet. Maybe burn DVDs? That is such an unattractive option, though. And, I’m sure to get in the same bind I was in earlier (i.e. do a full backup once, and then never get around to any incremental backups). Let alone the reliability concerns I have of recordable DVDs. Eh… I’ll figure something out.