I am studying computer science, so I always felt I should be using Linux. I tried, I really did. But the fact is that not only is it much harder to set up, many things are out-right impossible to accomplish (like proper fan control, look at my post back from '08: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=948674). In the end I even had a friend who works as Linux admin at the university advise me to stick to Windows, as I also had plenty of weird issues that I could never resolve. I keep going back to it (e.g. I just downloaded and installed Mint 16 on a 32GB USB stick), but find that the hurdle is too high and I have to sacrifice too much. I love the idea of Linux and many aspects of it, but when it comes down to it, I just want something that works fairly well.
The main server is the one up 24/7, running SABnzbd, ÎĽTorrent, eMule, as well as my development web and FTP server. It is located in a corner somewhere and remote-controlled with VNC (which works from everywhere around the world, which is nice).
Since I have A LOT of data, having everything on one PC has been a pipe dream until very recently (as it would just require soo many HDs to have all of it, which also means quite some energy (plus money for buying all the hard drives). To get 20TB in RAID5 already requires 6 4TB drives, and that is pushing the limit already, as more hard drives will require another controller. I had hoped we would be further along in the hard drive storage era, but sadly the progress has pretty much come to a halt ever since the earthquake (combined with some other factors like Seagate buying Samsungs HDD department). I already have a case ready for the time when it all goes into one nice machine, but this will take a while (especially now that we shoot more and more HD movies with our Canon 70D).
Instead, the T60 uses far less than 10W (sure, 6-8W doesn’t sound like something special nowadays for a PC but I have been running this for years) and I just move the downloaded content to the appropriate PC (e.g. movies to the file server, TV shows on the HTPC).
That is why I would be so happy if NzbDrone would at least support setting the download quality manually! I just cannot believe the majority keeps all their shows in one directory or doesn’t mind showing the status incorrectly.
I wouldn’t call the HTPC a server, since it only runs when we watch something. And I really need to do something about it soon, the 1080p issue is becoming more and more of a problem, especially when watching stuff online. In theory the PC should be fast enough, but whatever OS I try, 1080 video playback is always a bit off (especially the audio).
Oh, and btw, I also remember the datasette drives in my Commodore C64/128…those were the times!