Wouldn't it also be better to just host the site on something like AWS? The downside is you have to pay the hosting fee but if I were running a site, I'd rather have it outside of my network. I'm still very inexperienced but that's my thinking
__ToneBone__
joined 10 months ago
That's true I suppose. Maybe I'm just not comfortable with it
Or just don't have external facing services. Easiest way to not get hacked
I'd put more RAM in it but it would be a good start
Windows has a lot of overhead. It also doesn't have the capability to run common NAS filesystems like ZFS (to my knowledge) which adds good redundancy and performance increases. If you really wanted to run a Windows file server, you could look at Windows server as it's built more for the task but you'd run the risk of running an unlicensed Windows Server product which Microsoft doesn't like.
My advice would be to keep what you have currently and build something, probably virtually, that runs on a common Linux NAS OS like TrueNAS and see how you like it. Once you install TrueNAS, you don't have to manage it from a shell if you don't want to. It has a very nice web GUI.
uBlock origin + Pihole. uBlock covers just about everything on your PC but I mainly use Pihole for mobile devices and as a "catch all net"
I wouldn't build a NAS in one of these unless it's like an older server or something. Mainly because these machines aren't meant for always on use and usually won't handle very well under random IO of something like ZFS. But if it's something like a one off Linx box or seed box like you said where you don't really care if it dies, that would be good. I know a lot of people in this sub also run a handful of these office machines for a Proxmox cluster or something like that where if one craps out, the others could take over