We Are Here To Serve

I've gotta say; I'm a little obsessed with servers. It probably has something to do with age as well, as actual functionality. I've talked a few times about growing up during the time of mainframes and mini-computers before PCs came to rule the land. When, "getting on" a computer, meant logging on to a "terminal". 

For us old fogies, the concept of a server was these mysterious inner sanctums filled with racks, wires and blinking lights. If I lived in another part of the country where basements were a reality vs. a pipe-dream, I'd have done it myself. So instead, I routinely watch videos made by these guys who have created a little underground domain where they take cast-off corporate gear and turn it into their dreams. 

 

As for me, my dreams have to be small and smaller. Our primary server is built in a Silverstone Precision PS-07 case. It's really a micro-ATX case for the motherboard of the same form-factor. It really isn't just the lack of space that has forced these decisions, but as much or more the low draw of the equipment that I've picked. For me it's been a very fine line. The desire to keep everything "low draw" is balanced by performance and flexibility. Of course the low-draw side always keeps me looking at the simple NAS (network attached storage) boxes out there on the market. In fact, that very attraction has kept me in an ongoing flirtation with an eBay auction for a Buffalo LinkStation Mini for the last three plus weeks. Somebody out in California has had one of them listed three times. They started at a BIN of $110 which was a good price for these things with an original list price over $200, but it failed to sell, then they dropped it to $95, then to $85 at which it finally sold today. If it had dropped to $75, that was going to be the "breakpoint" for me! What it is is a very small (as you can see) NAS designed around space for 2, 2.5" laptop drives. In addition to that, there was even an additional USB port to allow for expansion. I don't know what I was going to do with it, but the idea is just too cool for me not to contemplate.

What I really need though, was some way to implement cloud computing for my wife's and my own classroom needs. It would also be useful for the kids to stream to, on their tablets vs. setting up FTP. I've looked into this in two different directions. 

One is the commercially available Corsair Voyager Air. It's a really interesting concept that marries a portable hard drive of either 500Gb or 1Tb to a WiFi access point, inside a case with a battery. The result is a portable cloud that allows use anywhere from conference room to vehicle. It's also $200 and brand new.... meaning that there's virtually none on the used market. End of discussion for a frugal propellerhead.

Another is the PogoPlug, which is also commercially available, but a little less mainstream. If you haven't heard of it, that not surprising. They haven't exactly been overwhelming the media with advertising, but it's never-the-less a very interesting concept as well. Basically, this is how it works: instead of having your files hosted in "the cloud" on someone else's random server and paying for that priviledge on a monthly or yearly basis, you buy this box from PogoPlug, attach your storage to it, then it is funneled through PogoPlug's servers where you (or whoever you give permission to) access it, but the files themselves stay on your drive. This is very attractive to most people since, you have far greater control. However there is clearly puts you into a situation of having to deal with upload bandwidth and speed as related to your individual ISP. Still, it's an interesting idea and worth looking into, especially considering the current Series 4 device as depicted above has not only a SATA connector, an SD card reader, but the ability to connect 1 USB 2.0, and 2 USB 3.0 devices ranging from flash drives to external hard drives. 

All this navel examination happened due to my freeing up one of my boxes and moving some of the old Blackbird parts over there. The situation is that I have an unused computer with my choice of 2 socket 775; one a relatively high-end Gigabyte GA-EP45, and the other a decidedly low-end GA-G41M board. It's not a particularly relevant issue since they both take the same processors and have the basic features I need, such a several SATA connectors, PCI and PCIe slots. My original though was to take my stack of old PATA drives, load FreeNAS onto a USB flash drive and "play". This was right around the time that my wife's and my brain synchronized onto the concept of "Cloud Computing". If you've spent much time looking at what it takes to get FreeNAS out there on the internet as a cloud server, you have probably realized that it's not really for novices playing around with it for the first time. 

  .....Which brings me back to......PogoPlug! While I was reading about it and thinking; "hey, that's cool and not really relevant to me", since I couldn't figure out a way to connect my big box to their device, I came across a reference to their some software that they sell for $29.95...... which, when loaded, allows that computer to behave like their device! TaDa! I don't even need to do anything special, just load up Windows 7 on the box, download the PopoPlug applications and hello Cloud Computing! I'm sure it won't be as simple as that, but I'll keep you updated as I progress into this new world servers.