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I'm a web developer looking to purchase a server to do development on. I have chosen http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816101364 as there are many positive reviews.

I've never setup my own "server" before, but a few people recommend CentOS to setup my Lamp stack. Also, I want to include Subversion or some version control software on the server.

Now, after I'm setup what do I do about backing up my files, including the version control setup? I was thinking of putting in two 2.5" hard drives to do a Raid setup, but is that recommended? I have a NAS that I could place the backup files in, but how do I backup my installation without manually copying files over. I'm thinking there is something out there that takes an image of my CentOS installation, and if something goes wrong I can just install that image.

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Rsync is great for backups, but a differential, gzipped tar backup may be more suited to your requirements. (Side note - you can run CentOS in a virtual machine if you just want to setup a LAMP stack for development - unless you have a specific need, a dedicated server might not be required) – cyberx86 Jan 1 '12 at 2:11
Ok I'll check out Rsync. I wanted something dedicated to keep things compartmentalized and organized. And to mess around with servers etc.. – Adam Jan 1 '12 at 2:24
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Look into VirtualBox - it doesn't have spectacular performance, but you can run it on top of your current computer, setup a network of virtual machines, install whatever operating system(s) you want and configure the software as you desire. You can easily setup SVN on a VirtualBox LAMP stack, a DNS server (or just a hosts file edit), and access your dev site running in VirtualBox in a browser from the host machine. (Besides, with a price tag of 'free' it doesn't cost anything to try - literally). If, on the other hand, you need something to run 24/7 - the server is probably the way to go. – cyberx86 Jan 1 '12 at 2:47
I have virtualbox running already with Windows to do BlackBerry development :) Ok I'll try installing CentOS on that – Adam Jan 1 '12 at 15:36

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