Fileserver

[Wossi]

So, I've got an old athlon xp-2500m with motherboard and the such sitting around doing nothing. If I wanted to build some kind of fileserver or the like where I could keep the stuff I have downloaded so anyone in the house connected to the network could access it, what would be the easiest way?

I'd guess one of the Linux distro's would be best? Or is there something else out there that would be better?

[leowyatt]

Linux distro running samba the right solution? Unbuntu I think is the popular distro flavour at the moment.

[Chuckles]

If you don't mine using a hooky copy, I'd just go with 2003 server. Linux is great, but a real pain if you aren't familiar with it. Far to much messing round in config files.

[Burble]

Depending how many clients you wanted to serve you could do it with just about any version of Windows.

That said, I'd go for Ubuntu. It's a really nice distro and needs very minimal arsing about with to get it working.

[Wossi]

I perhaps should have said, it will be in my house so act as a hub for *cough* stuff *cough* that I own. I've never used Linux before but figured, what the hell.

[Burble]

Give Ubuntu a whirl and see what you think. if you can't get on with it then 2003 server is an absolute doddle to setup.

[Wossi]

Will d/l it tonight and see how bad I am at using Linux :D

Also on the same vein, is there a big difference between using gigabit switches and the 10/100 switches?

[Burble]

Possibly. A good 10/100 switch can out perform a crap gigabit. You also need to look at the network cards you're using. If you have a switch and cards that support jumbo frames then you can get some very nice throughout.

[Chuckles]

Will d/l it tonight and see how bad I am at using Linux :D

Also on the same vein, is there a big difference between using gigabit switches and the 10/100 switches?

100mb is fine for streaming HD content which is what it sounds like you will be doing ;)

[Wossi]

100mb is fine for streaming HD content which is what it sounds like you will be doing ;)

But that would be illegal :shocked:


;D

[Chuckles]

But that would be illegal :shocked:


;D

What? HD videos you've taped using your HD camcorder? Nothing illegal about that my friend.

Why, what were you thinking ok? :shocked:

[Del Lardo]

Will d/l it tonight and see how bad I am at using Linux :D

Also on the same vein, is there a big difference between using gigabit switches and the 10/100 switches?


Personally I'd stick with Windows for ease of setup unless you really want to play around with Linux but like other have said Ubuntu is very easy to use.

Switches it really depends on what you are planning on doing. If it's just streaming video then 100mbit is fine but gigabit really comes into it's own when you are copying. I have 3 of these (http://www.netgear.com/Products/Storage/ReadyNASNVPlus.aspx) sitting in my server room full of 1TB disks and frequently want to copy 20GB of cough data to my laptop before I go away for work. With a 100mbit connection I would be lucky to get 6-7mb/sec but on 1000mbit connection I usually max out my HDD at 34-35mb/sec