How should I set up a server in my home?

Question

I have a network of 2 computers and an Xbox 360 in my house, with other people coming over and plugging into it frequently. I want to use another spare computer I have as a storage server, with a couple high capacity USB hard drives plugged into it. How should I do this? What sort of operating system should I use, Windows or Linux? I have a budget of $0. One computer on the network is running on Win XP, and the other ones are on Vista.

Answer 1

FreeNAS is a free network-attached storage server, supporting: CIFS (Samba), FTP, NFS, rsync, AFP protocols, iSCSI, S.M.A.R.T., local user authentication, and software RAID (0,1,5), with a web-based configuration interface. FreeNAS takes less than 32 MB once installed on CompactFlash, hard drive or USB flash drive.[1] FreeNAS is currently distributed as an ISO image and in source form. It is possible to run FreeNAS from a Live CD, with the configuration files stored on an MS-DOS-formatted floppy disk or MS-DOS-formatted USB disk. There is also a VMware release available.



The minimal FreeBSD 6.4 distribution, web interface, PHP scripts, and documentation are based on m0n0wall. FreeNAS is released under the BSD license.

Answer 2

The ideal software for you would be Windows Home Server. It's about $100 here - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116550



and is fairly easy to use and will integrate nicely with your 360. It will serve media everywhere and also back up all the windows machines on your network for easy restores.



If your budget is truly $0, then you're going to want linux (any server based distro) and about a week of time. Me, I'd rather pay $100 then spend 40 hours learning something, but I think my time is worth more then $2.50 an hour.

Answer 3

The one with XP OS make it as a server, assign it an Static IP address like....192.168.0.1, then connect this system with a simple ethernet LAN switch with 4 or more ports than you can connect many more devices to it and also the Vista system to it.



Now If you want to share internet on all the systems through this network, you will have to buy a cheap modem which you will connect to the LAN switch where all devices are connected. Now buy a pci lan card and install it on the XP pc, now assign dynamic ip settings to this lan card on xp and connect it directly to the modem which is connected to DSL or internet. Now assign dynamic ip settings to all other devices which are connected to the LAN switch.



Now you can connect to the internet and also connect to all other devices including the server which has XP on it.



If you want to give restrictions on the users who are connected to the internet and network, install CCproxy on your xp system (server) and remove the wire which is coming from the modem to the LAN switch.



Best of Luck.

Answer 4

if you use flash drives it will run very very slow. there is really no need to have a sever unless you want to have all music, videos, ans such in one spot. not a smart idea unless you have a lot of files on one computer that you would like all of them to see.