Maximum PC - UK (2020-01)

THIS MONTH THE DOCTOR TACKLES...

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OpenVPN Confusion

Poor Performance

AMD Mobo Woes

Best Drive Layout

In the early days of

computing, it was often

recommended that the OS

live on a separate disk, or at

least a separate partition.

In this new age of solid-

state disks, what do you

recommend? Cost and space

for multiple disks isn’t an

issue. –Daniel Swanson

THE DOCTOR RESPONDS:

Keeping the OS (and apps)

separate from your data

is pretty much a matter of

personal convenience—the

key thing is that you don’t

get lulled into a false sense

of security and forget to

keep everything backed up

separately. The Doc has long

split his data from the OS

and apps—originally through

partitioning, but now on

separate drives. That’s largely

down to the smaller size of

SSDs compared to regular

HDDs, coupled with a growing

accumulation of drives over

successive rebuilds.

Long story short: If you

want to follow the Doc’s

layout, start with a single,

dedicated SSD (or NVMe) drive

for Windows and your apps—

typically 256GB, but as little

as 128GB if your app demands

aren’t too great. In the past,

we’d have dumped all our data

on a traditional spinning HDD,

but if you have a spare SSD,

keep your key data files on

here for faster access, leaving

the regular HDD for archived

files that you no longer need

to access regularly.

This ensures that if your OS

goes down, you can restore

it without touching your data;

similarly, if your data drive

dies, you can restore that

without having to reload the

OS from scratch. Of course,

none of this replaces the

need to back up everything

independently. The Doc uses

Macrium Reflect Free to back

up his OS/apps alternately to

his internal HDD and a QNAP

NAS, while both File History

and a Nextcloud server act

to back up data (including

previous versions of files)

to the QNAP NAS. For good

measure, the Doc now also

backs up key OneDrive folders

via the QNAP’s Hybrid Backup

Sync tool, making use of its

encryption tools to provide an

extra layer of security.

Server Solutions

I plan to rebuild an MSI 970/

AMD CPU as a Linux machine

to run various servers:

Nextcloud, a small website,

and possibly a Plex server.

I came across the Holiday

2018 article on creating

secret and secure web

servers, which requires a

Linux PC running OpenVPN.

This suggested it should

be on an OpenSUSE Leap

42.3 distro. Does it have to

be? Also, what if you run

OpenVPN on a router—does

that change the process? I

have a T-Mobile TM-AC1900

(a rebranded Asus RT-

AC68U) that’s firmware-

locked. I can run the VPN on

my mobile devices just fine,

and I have set up a TV/DVR

stream using NextPVR on

my Windows machine that

can only be reached through

the VPN. I guess this is

different from the Linux-

based OpenVPN server by a

magnitude of, well, a lot.

The idea is to make the

Nextcloud instance hidden

and secure. Any tips would

be appreciated. Thanks!

–Anthony Prevo

THE DOCTOR RESPONDS: The

answer could be a lot simpler

than you think. As an aside,

you can run OpenVPN on most

Linux distros; the author

simply mentions OpenSUSE

because it’s the one he used

to write the tutorial. However,

if you’ve already got OpenVPN

up and running on your router,

this step may be unnecessary.

All the key functionality you

require should be achievable

using your router’s own

OpenVPN server.

Let’s assume you’ve not

changed two key OpenVPN

Server advanced settings on

your router: The interface type

is set to TUN, and the VPN ©^ M

ICR

OS

OF

T^

We’ve split Windows and our apps on to a different drive from our

data, but you can use partitions, too.

quickstart

22 MAXIMUMPC JAN 2020 maximumpc.com