Fileserver O/S. What to use?

soloman02 · Post by **soloman02** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 1:06 pm

I'm building a file server from some old components I have lying around.
The specs:
AMD Athlon X2 4200+
Asrock 939Dual-VSTA
512MB DDR 400
Leadtek 7900GT (3d is screwed up, but 2d is fine)
3 80 GB IDE drives in RAID 5.
3ware 7506-8 PCI 2.2 IDE RAID Controller RAID 0/1/5/10 JBOD
TT 420Watt PSU (Cleaned out with new fans installed)

I know I'll probably need more RAM but that can wait.

I really don't know what O/S to use. Since I'm a student, I have server 2003 for free. But I'm not sure I really need to use that since all I'm doing is sharing the disk.

Should I use server 2k3 or Xp pro? I'm not a linux guy. I can do some basic things in Ubuntu, but when it comes to command line stuff forget it, I'm a linux command line noob.

Suggestions?

roflsaurus · Post by **roflsaurus** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 2:11 pm

If you're not scared to do some googling, you should be able to do all your file sharing in ubuntu via a GUI. Ubuntu 8.04 sharing folders is pretty easy - you just right click a folder and go "sharing options". Plus it's free!

Server 2003 is pretty robust, and if you've got a free copy, I'd recommend that over XP. You have more sharing / security options if you ever want to use them, plus there's slightly less overhead.

NyteOwl · Post by **NyteOwl** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 2:44 pm

If you have to use Windows I'd use Server 2003. It was designed for the role and provides you more options in that regard should you wish to expand your uses.

That said I personally prefer Slackware Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD or Solaris for servers. Or workstations for that matter

oso · Post by **oso** » Sat Aug 09, 2008 5:58 pm

I'd recommend NASLite (http://www.serverelements.com/). I know you said you're not a "linux guy", but if all you want to do is file serving, it doesn't get any simpler than this. I'm not a linux guy either, but I had this set up in under 10 minutes and it's been running without issue on my company's server for a couple months now. I was a little hesitant to pay for it without testing it first, but I finally bit the bullet and the simplicity is worth every penny.

tehcrazybob · Post by **tehcrazybob** » Sun Aug 10, 2008 7:46 am

I'd suggest Ubuntu. It's free, fast, and secure. Here's an excellent guide to get you up and running:

http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2007/06/05 ... n_server/1

soloman02 · Post by **soloman02** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 8:41 pm

Seeing how I have a copy of Ubuntu 8.04, I might try it out. I especially like the remote admin feature cause once I have it set up, I want to keep it out of the way.

derekva · Post by **derekva** » Mon Aug 11, 2008 9:10 pm

What about Windows Home Server? Microsoft finally got the data corruption bug fixed and it's pretty darn stable. It doesn't require a lot of power from a CPU standpoint (my WHS server is built on a D201GLY2) and is pretty easy to manage.

Granted, it's not free like Ubuntu, but it does everything I need it to do (store files, back up my desktop PCs, stream media).

-D