Hello , as the title states Im new to setting up a home server and wish to consolidate existing hardware if viable and wish to know your thoughts and or opinions.
Currently I have 2 socket 775 era desktops , one used mostly for web surfing and torrents and the other sits idle mostly and is a spare for downtime on my regular desktop but holds a couple of 2TB drives of data being mostly movies and tv shows on one drive and Hyperspin emulation on the other.
My regular desktop has a celeron e3300 on a G41M-ES2L motherboard , 4gb ram , 500gb green and 1TB data with a earthwatts psu ,nice low power setup and currently my first option for converting to a server with the added 2TB drives from my other desktop.
My second desktop has a e6300 pentium on a G41MT-ES2L motherboard , 4gb ram ,500gb green and 2 x 2TB samsung eco drives , mostly sits idle and thinking of making this my main machine for web surfing and general desktop duties.
Other machines in the house include a Pentium M era latop , currently used by a novice for web browsing and a i7 Inspiron laptop ( with windows 8 ) used by myself when I dont want to be trapped at a desk in my room.
So now comes the consolidation , current thoughts are for the celeron to become a home server to stream movies to loungeroom and bedroom to an astone AP-300 for decoding ( if its up to it ) in the loungeroom , and similar stream to bedroom to a Lennox PVR . Im hoping these will be able to carry the load for any transcoding to keep overhead for the celeron down otherwise I may end up with a new server setup and lose the consolidation .
All my main data drives would be used in the server with backups to 2 x 2TB seagate externals so to keep the drives in the system for current data and space and not lose any with a reduntant hard drive so up to me to keep my backups up to date.
Current OS on both desktops is Windows 7 Ultimate and Windows XP on one laptop ( not worried about backups for this) and Windows 8 on the other laptop. I like the idea of having the systems backed up to the server for added security for data on those systems which makes me think with what Ive read that I would need server 2012 over 2011 for the Windows 8 machine and later upgrades.
So choice of server OS is open between WHS 2011 and 2012 Essentials , with either running lights out for low power consumption , torrenting and streaming and backups.
Other cpu's I have available include an e8400 to upgrade my desktop so could drop the e6300 into the server or leave the celeron as is if its up to the job and keeps power usage down.
I have a range of other HDD available with my current thoughts being 500gb Green for OS , 2 X 2TB eco drives for movies , hyperspin and Samsung 1.5TB eco drive currently used for backups to be used in server instead with a range of externals for all backups needed.
I also have an AMD system laying about which might be capable as a frontend for htpc with a Sempron LE-1100 and HD5570 video card or I could sell this for a future server upgrade fund.
I hope thats a bit clearer than mud 
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Are the components still valid for a low power home server capable of meeting my needs or should I upgrade and sell this lot off or use them for other projects like a HTPC or emulation frontends.
Thanks for any and all input .