[infiltrator7]

Basically, my home network is a workgroup with 3 wired computers and 1 wireless computer (and two wireless devices) connected through a FiOS router. My family recently aquired a computer that is about 5 years old and has decent specs for what we would need as a server (mostly). This "server" would probably be used to store files that everyone can access, and not much else. I have a few questions?

1. Right now, the computer has a 20 gb drive (IDE). Would it be best to install the operating system (I think i'll use either XP or win 2000) on the 20gb drive?
1a.) even though this computer only has 2 IDE connections (1 is being used by the 20gb drive), can I buy a SATA RAID card, and connect two new hard drives via the SATA card?

2.) How can I remotely access this computer?

3.) Anything else you guys think I should know about this?

Thanks, I'm kind of new to this whole server thing so bear with me....

[Ethereal_Dragon]

1. Yeah, sure, you can install the OS on that drive.
1a. With the 2 IDE ports that are on the motherboard, you can attach 4 devices. There is a primary and secondary port, and each port supports both a master & slave. Just keep note that optical drives will use the IDE ports also.

Getting a SATA card would work, as long as you have an open PCI port on the motherboard. Keep in mind that some cards have RAID, and others do not. If you ARE getting a RAID card, make sure to look into the different flavors of RAID, the most popular ones being RAID0, RAID1, RAID0+1, and RAID5 and JBOD.

2. You will want to enable file sharing on the computer. Also, if you have a printer, you can connect the printer to it, and share the printer over the network. This will allow any host on the network to access both the storage on the computer (only the folders you share of course), and also allow access to the printer.

3. The only downside to using a full-fledged PC for this task, is that it consumes more power than a smaller NAS (Network Attached Storage) device. At this point, you are probably better using the PC anyways though, since you already have it, and don't have to go and purchase it.

Here is an example of a NAS device I mentioned..... 2-Bay Network Storage Enclosure - DNS-323 by D-Link. I actually own one of these (listed in my sig), with two 500 Gig drives in RAID1.

Good luck on your project.

[Greg]

Look into FreeNAS or eBox for the operating system.

These will give you multiple ways of connecting to the server, as well as a whole bunch of other nice features.

FreeNAS is more focused on the network attached storage part of it, so I would recommend trying that one out before eBox. eBox takes up more resources too, I believe.

[infiltrator7]

Thanks for the replies guys.

I think what I'm going to do is buy a SATA controller card with RAID and install the OS on the 20gb drive (on the IDE Channel). I'm going to use RAID 1 on two 320gb drives so that I have a backup of all my data. Do you think that this controller card is OK? Newegg.com - Rosewill RC-212 PCI SATA / IDE Controller Card SATA 150 + ATA 133 : Supports Raid 0, 1, 0+1 - Retail

Regarding the OS, will this FreeNAS software be compatable with all of my windows systems? Right now, there are 2 systems running XP Home, 1 on XP Pro, and one of Vista Home Premium. I have an extra copy of Win 2000 laying around, so do you think it would be best to use that? Also, with Windows 2000 would I be able to remotely access it using Vista home premium?

Sorry for all the questions.

[Greg]

FreeNAS supports SMB, FTP, AFP, and NFS (and maybe more, I don't remember). You should have no problem accessing it from any operating system.

[Law]

Other than FreeNAS, Windows 2000 or XP will do you just find also. However you shouldn't have to buy any Windows OS when you have FreeNAS or other open-source OS out there to do simple file sharing. With SMB support, you should have the same familiar file sharing environment you have with any Windows OS.