home server

[umakemebetter]

would it be a good plausible idea to create a home server for my family's home network (all of the PC's connected to it are wireless, and theres no sharing or anything set up). i want to physically connect a small server to the router via LAN cable, and so then my parents can have their family photos and video and such on that server (so when one of our PC's dies, we dont lose anything) - if i set it up properly, they can access the server, right (because rmemeber all of the PC's are wirelessly connected).

and my dad's really paranoid about a server hard drive dying so my solution is RAID, thatd work right? so if it dies, theres a mirror hard drive we can keep everything on, correct?

 

[esa193]

you could get a hard drive that connects to your router and use that

 

[ssc456]

you could get a hard drive that connects to your router and use that

wot bout the backup ?

 

[umakemebetter]

also, how much ram should a server have? we have 3 desktops and 2 laptops all accessing it wirelessly. 4GB good? will that minimize delay?

 

[ssc456]

ok are you just going to be using it as a storage server ?????????

then alll you need is like 256 mb RAM and a 1000 Mhz pentium 3 you really dont need a really powerful machine to run a storage server

 

[Remeniz]

I was thinking about the same thing a while ago and have had another PC hard wired to my main computer for this purpose.

It's a great idea as long as you protect the 'Intranet server' from outsiders and do a bit of re-search into setting up a home network.

Also setting up takes a while too.

Also if the server has RAID options then going for the RAID array, as you suggested, is the best way to protect your precious data should a drive die.

I don't think you'd need much RAM because the server wouldn't be running any applications apart from an Anti-Virus application. So 512MB I think would be fine.

So done right you could have 1TB, at least, of RAID storage for the whole family to access.

 

[umakemebetter]

the mobo i picked for this server PC has 10/100mbps integrated. good enough? and it has 0/1/0+1/5/JBOD Raid. idk what that is. is it good enough?

and will dual core offer any advantages? (like if 2 pc's are accessing files at the same time, will it help out at all? or not really?)

 

[hascet]

The best would be gigabit(10/100/1000) throughout, for the fastest data transfer. You want raid 1 for mirroring. Dual core won't really help for file transfers.

 

[ssc456]

well did you say all your comps are wirelsss ? the 10/100 mbps will be fine if your hardwiring comps you may wish to consider gigabyte netowrk cards

 

[umakemebetter]

all the comps are wireless.
so i'm planning on getting a 10/100/1000 card, is this good?

i chose an AMD Athlon 64 LE-1600 for the processor (it was the cheapest thing i could find), should do fine, right?
router is a belkin 54mbps wireless router, Cox 5mbps internet (its actually like 3.5mbps since i'm using a 54mbps wireless router, right? not that it matters)

i chose two 160GB Western Digital 7200RPM 3gbps drives with 16mb cache on both. (its mostly photos, so we dont need much). so i set these up with Raid 1 and everything i put onto one, gets put on to both?