[Techtalk] home server and digitizing documents

[Chris Hardy]

I'm rethinking my household server/network and one thing that I need to address is digitizing archival documents (tax receipts and handwritten journals).  

I have a freeNAS box and an ESXi box running a variety of linux and windoze virtual machines (unfortunately freeNAS isn't really stable on a VM, hence the separation).  I also have a mac laptop, but am reluctant to invest in mac-dependent archival gear since I doubt that I'll stick with mac for the next decade.  

What setup works for you?  what hardware are you using?  Is ScanSnap really the only document scanner solution? What software are you using for OCR? What are you using for document management like indexing and search? 

Thanks for any thoughts and experiences!

chris