So you want a (file) server on your Home LAN

Nov 2024

Update 16 Nov – Woking Document subject to change

Having a “File” server on your Home Network (LAN) can offer several advantages, If you do it right but get it wrong and it can become a headache.  You need to do some planning. see setting up a ,Home LAN to give you some pointers. Lets Network will give you more info. File & Printer Sharing will help. This article gives you things to think about and pointers to what you need to learn. Some things might take a while to get your head round but there are plenty of Computer related forums on the WWW. Work things through, think logically and you will be fine. I’ve been building, breaking, fixing, using and playing with computers for 45 years and I can promise, they don’t have a mind of their own 🙂 Over the years I’ve had to fix problems – some created by me and I’ve been convinced that the PC was evil LOL. If you’re trying to do something and it’s “teasing” you, walk away and take your mind off it. Come back to it when you’re feeling more relaxed. Computers are just a box of electronic circuits and completly dumb – you have to tell them what to do and sometimes they do something that is unexpected because you haven’t told them what to correctly!

Things to Think about and maybe learn.

Location. This might be your most difficult decision.

  1. “Server Class” Computers are not “PCs”, they are “work Horses” usually designed to do one or more specific jobs. The most common jobs are :-
    a. Document / File storage.
    b. DNS Servers
    c. Domain Controllers
    d. DHCP Servers

    Servers are not normally quiet and need to be powered up 24/7. The Garage or loft is a good place but a cupboard where it can be placed and easy to get to would be better.

  2. Ideally they should be connected to the router using Ethernet cables – to get the best performance.
  3. Homeplug (Ethernet over mains) is possible but it won’t be as good when shovelling large data files around the LAN.
  4. Homeplug might be a lower cost than cabling to each room / device.

Ethernet or WiFi.

  1. Ethernet – most reliable and robust. Data Transfer speeds (Theoretical)
  2. WiFi – Not always the best choice but no cabling to do. Data Transfer Speeds (Theoretical)
  3. Cost of cabling vs reliability of WiFi (radio signal) vs cost of Homeplug. Needs a good think about along with your budget.
  4. If you are going to be sharing large data files to other PCs on the network Data Transfer Speeds will be important.

Switch (better than a Hub)

  1. You might need an additional Switch. The ISP router will be supplied with either a 2 or 4 LAN port Switch.
  2. You could purchase an extra router and this would have either a 2 or 4 port switch built-in and give you the opportunity to create a 2nd LAN.
  3. A stand-alone Ethernet Switch allows muliple PCs / devices to be “networked”, ideally you want a minimum of 1Gb a.k.a Gigabit Switch. See port speed and bandwidth for info but a home setup should be ok with a Gigabit.
  4. If you are using WiFi the WAP (Wireless Access Point) built-in to the ISP supplied router (Internet Gateway) or 2nd router can replace the Ethernet Switch – If you are using Ethernet, it depends on the number (LAN) ports on the router.

Type of Server / Hardware.

  1. Ideally you will need a “Tower” PC capable of installing several HDDs / SSDs and a built-in RAID controller along with the ability to mirror the system drive. A device with hot swapable HDDs and Redundant power supplies would be ideal.
  2. You could use an old PC that allows 2 x HDDs / SSDs with no RAID capabilty.
  3. You could use several Rasberry PIs and create a cluster that is load balanced.
  4. You could use an old PC to run VM ware (or similar) this allows you to create one or more “Virtual Servers” on one machine.

Base OS (Operating System).

  1. Ideally use an Open Source OS (free) such a Rocky Linux (current v 9.4)
  2. You also need to install and use Samba to make your server a “File Server”.
  3. You could also use the server as a “caching” DNS server.
  4. You could also use the server for grabbing Torrent content.

Broadband Connection.

The server should only be connecting to the Internet to get updates so you only need a standard connection (maybe up to 80Mb) but if you are going to use it for grabbing files from the WWW using Torrent, the faster the better – see FTTP (Fibre To The Premises) DTS of up to 1GB!

Options / Scenarios.

Option 1. (Recommended)

  1. Purchase a second Gigabit router with built-in WiFi along with 4 Ethernet (RJ45) ports and built-in firewall.
  2. Connect the WAN port on second router to a LAN port on the ISP supplied router using Ethernet cable.
  3. Connect “server” to a LAN port on the second router using Ethernet.
  4. Connect other PCs to the remaining LAN ports of the second router using Ethernet or use WiFi.

This would give a robust and reliable network and separate “Home LAN“, accessed by authorised people. The LAN created by the ISP supplied router would just be used for guests that need an Internet connection. Any device connected to the 2nd router either by Ethernet or WiFi would be able to access any other device connected to the 2nd router, including the file shares on the server. You would only give the WiFi password for the 2nd router to trusted people.

Option 2

  1. Purchase a second Gigabit router with built-in WiFi along with 4 Ethernet (RJ45) ports and built-in firewall.
  2. Connect the WAN port of second router to a LAN port on the ISP supplied router using Homeplug and Ethernet cables.
  3. Connect the Server to a LAN port of the 2nd router using Ethernet or WiFi.
  4. All connections to the LAN ports of the 2nd router can be Ethernet or WiFi, use Homeplug and Ethernet cable where needed.

Those are the 2 basic options which can be chopped and changed to suit your pocket and the situation. Where possible use Ethernet cables especially to connect the 2nd router to the ISP router and to connect the server to the 2nd router. Running Ethernet cables to other rooms in the house can be expensive if you are paying someone to do it so Homeplug (Ethernet over Mains) could work out a lot lower cost.

Cat 5E Ethernet cable can be bought for about £36 for 100 Metres and a Crimp tool for less than £20, the RJ45 connectors pack of 100 £13. If you want to terminate the cables in a “Data / Network point”, you will also need a Krone tool. So if you are handy with DIY, running the cables could be very satisfying. Learning how to crimp the RJ45 connectors on the ends of the cable might take a bit of practice but it isn’t difficult – more fiddly! There are probably “how to” videos on Youtube.

The siting / placement of the ISP supplied router will probably be a decision maker. You could connect a server to a LAN port on the ISP router using Ethernet and use WiFi for all other connections. If you are using WiFi 6 or even WiFi 7, WiFi could be better with regards Data Transfer Speeds but WiFi is a Radio signal and can be less reliable because it is susceptible to interference

Having a 2nd router gives you an extra “Firewall” and creates a separate LAN from the one created by the ISP router.

Note about routers and IP Addresses

These are usually setup to act as DHCP servers in home and SOHO setups to automatically assign a unique IP Address see Lets Network to each connected device. The DHCP server provides the IP Address (Network & Host), Default Gateway (usually LAN IP of router) and Subnet Mask.

  1. IP Addresses using IPv4 use 32 bits in dotted quad notation and is written like xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx each “octet” is a number from 0 to 255.
  2. The Subnet Mask (SNM) determines the number of bits used for the “Network Address” and “Host(device) Address”.

Note. All network devices are “hard coded” with a 48 bit MAC address a.k.a Hardware address and this NEVER changes but can be spoofed. The IP Address is usually Dynamic and can often change. With devices such as routers and printers, it better to give the device a “Static IP” outside of the DHCP scope.

All network devices have a unique “footprint / fingerprint”, this is made up from the MAC address + IP Address + other info like CPU identity etc. The IP Address is like a postal address showing current address.

The ISP supplied router a.k.a Internet Gateway will usually be supplied with an IP Address of 192.168.0.1 / 24, which means the SNM is 24 bits. This means the Network Address is 192.168.0 and the Host address is xxx.xxx.xxx.1. 24 bit SNM will allow 253 hosts / devices.

The DHCP server is usually configured to allocate about 30 IP Addresss e.g 192.168.0.100 – 192.168.0.130. (This can be changed) Any devices connected to the router using either Ethernet or WiFi will become part of a LAN. Virgin & Sky allow you to change the 3rd octet so you can choose any number between 0 and 254 so you could change the LAN IP of the router to say 192.168.200.100.

Using an extra router. (recommended).

If you have your own file server, creating an extra LAN will be more secure. The 2nd router will need to be on a different network.

Note 192.168.0.1 and 192.168.1.1 are on different networks. You could use 172.16.0. or 10.10.0 with 24 bit SNM, see private IP Address.

  1. The WAN port of the 2nd router would ideally have an Ethernet connection to a LAN port of the ISP router to obtain an IP of 192.168.0.x Best option is to give the 2nd router a Static WAN IP of 192.168.0. a number outside of the DHCP scope – e.g 250 (192.168.0.250)
  2. The LAN IP of the 2nd router can be 10.10.x.x or 172.16.x.x or 192.168.x.x (different to ISP router).
  3. All devices connected to 2nd router via Ethernet or WiFi would get an IP Address relative to the LAN IP of the 2nd router and within the scope of the DHCP range of the 2nd router.