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Finally got round to building my HP Microserver, had a few problems thanks to HP but that's another story. Am running Windows 2012 R2 Essentials and Drivepool to manage the HDDs and data but that's all I have at the moment.
My to do list so far is:
Anti-virus (Microsoft?)
Set up firewall (or use 3rd party?)
Sort out accounts and individual storage (me, OH etc)
Sort out external file access to some folders (work I need to access externally)
itunes to manage our ipods
Kodi and/or Plex for media serving in the house
Any suggestions/pointers?
MS defender or whatever it's called now (Security essentials?) and the inbuilt firewall are good enough for behind NAT use if you actually switch them on and keep them updated. The external access to folders is the part to get very careful about if you're configuring port forwarding.. I would try and live without it and use One drive or something instead for data on the move.
I'm using Plex on OS X, and it does a decent job, but seems to be getting tied tighter to the website for some reason, needing codes to activate new clients etc. - so I think I'd have a look at Kodi first.
I have a HP Microserver too, I bought it a few years ago and tried MS Homeserver 2011 and ended up running Windows 7 Pro due to compatibility of programs and hardware.
AV & Firewall = Kaspersky
External File Access - I use Dropbox linked to the server
I'm not a huge fan of Kodi, good as a player but that's it. For a DLNA/Media server I would use Plex or Serviio (I use Serviio).
I also have a defrag program that runs daily at night, but I can't remember the program name.
iTunes server - mainly for the ATV screensaver
I don't think Security Essentials will install on Windows 2012, though I believe there are ways around this if you search for it.
I tend to use the standard Windows Firewall, all the devices I use are behind NAT and a Watchguard Firewall.
NAT - yup.
Will think about whether it makes more sense to use a cloud service as a go between - ie server syncs to cloud, mobile devices use cloud. I do have a device I got from kickstarter that I was going to use but got fed up waiting for it and bought the HP microserver and then it turned up. YOu plug USB drives into it and it links them together and acts a bit like stablebits icloud (which I might use so sync to the cloud). I have a good chunk of Windows cloud space but will take a look around, not used dropbox so will take a look there too.
Kodi will be for playing on the TVs (films and music) on local devices (cheap android boxes most likely) and will probably use plex for mobile devices as it seems to work better for those. Kicking myself for not signing up for a lifetime plexpass when they were cheap.
Itunes - i whave been looking at setting up a server. All I really want is the ability to plug ipods in and remote access from our tablets to use itunes to send music to them. We have separate itunes accounts which might complicate things, although I dont actually buy music through itunes so I might install a third party version for my ipod and let Kate use the itunes installation for her ipod and ipad. The Apple Genius incorrectly told us we could run itunes on her ipad and sync the ipod to it. Not so much of a Genius after all!
I would prefer Windows Defender so might try that but it looks like Security Essentials will work http://www.techflute.com/how-to-install-microsoft-security-essentials-in-windows-server-2012/