With all my problems with my server, you’d think I’d give up and just host my server somewhere else and make it someone else’s problem. After a little thinking, I’ve come up with the pros and cons of running my own server.Pros————–Physical security of serverMusic server – I need a server to run my SqueezeboxesUnlimited bandwidth (at 1 MBps upstream, but unlimited)Full backups – I backup the server to an external drive and take it offsiteLots of storage (currently at 300 GB, but only about 15% used)It’s a learning experience5 static IP addressesFull control over serverAbility to run my own PBX and have good voice qualityCons————Electricity usageI have to keep it runningLimited upstream bandwidthPotentially more costly (it costs about $50 per month for me to host my own server); however for the hardware I have, a hosting service might charge more for RAID 1 and backupsWhile there are more items I’m missing here, it’s pretty clear to me that running my own server is the right way to go. My issues last week appeared to stem from drives that were failing; it just happened that when I was putting in the new drives, the drive I left running was failing causing some issues. I’m now up and running on my 2 new drives and have been for about 5 days now. Lesson for the future…replace drives about once a year if they need it or not as the drives are relatively cheap ($150 for both drives) and run 24/7 which puts a lot of wear and tear on the drives. Now the question is, what do I do with the old drives? Would a reformat on the drives do the trick and keep them running? What less mission critical role can I put them in?