Setting Up a Safe, Reliable Home Server

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, home-based businesses have been on the rise since the economic downturn of 2007. With so few jobs available, resourceful Americans, like you, have taken the initiative to getting along on their own steam.


Successfully running a business from home requires a number of things. You need discipline, you need a great business idea, and you also need a reliable way to host your website and house your important business information. Increasingly, installing a home server rack and setting up your own IT solution is seen as the way to go.


However, for every benefit to managing your IT, there are drawbacks. Large server setups are known to use as much electricity as a small town, producing significant amounts of air pollution in the process. Your setup will undoubtedly have less of an impact, but you still need to consider how to keep energy costs low. Choosing the wrong rack enclosures can lead to air conditioning issues and fire hazards, two of the biggest issues any business has to contend with when building a server. You should absolutely set up your own server, but you need to be smart about it.


Three Things to Consider when Setting up Your Home Server

1.Safeguard Your Data

According to The Wall Street Journal, cybercrime costs U.S. businesses an estimated $100 billion per year. Just because you run a home-based business, that doesn't mean you're safe from hostile entities on the web. You'll want to ensure that, regardless of the operating system or server rack enclosures you choose, you install proper firewalls, and further password any sensitive files hosted on your machines. Better to be overly secure than not secure enough.

2.Research Home Server Cases

With the exception of your server itself, there are few things more important to a reliable, safe server setup than the home server rack you choose. As TechRadar suggests, using a server rack with a power-rating lower than your servers require to run properly can affect their functionality and lead to a fire. Likewise, those with ratings higher than you need will send your utility bill through the roof. Many racks now come with extra security features, helping you to avoid fires and data loss. You just need to do your research to find what best fits your needs.

3.What OS and Hardware is Best for You?

Depending on your knowledge of computers and what you're going to do with your server, you'll need to consider different operating systems and hardware, as ARSTechnica, a well known tech website, writes. If you're only using your server to host documents, photos, and other static data, you can get away with using a Linux-based system with only 1gb of RAM and 50gb of hard drive space. On the other hand, if you're going to be tweaking your server settings, hosting a website, or streaming audio and video, you should be looking at Windows Server systems with considerable RAM, storage, and processing speed.

Making the decision to install home server racks for your business can give you complete control over your IT needs, whether you're talking about tweaking your website or protecting your data. So long as you keep these tips in mind, you can help ensure you only ever reap the rewards of in-house IT, instead of suffering the risks.