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Create a fileserver!

ArrathArrath Registered User regular
edited May 2010 in Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern
Due to a chain of upgrades in the house, my oldest computer is now sitting unused. I would like to hook it up to the network and use it to store files, music collection, that kinda thing. I would prefer to remotely control it, rather than have to hook a monitor up to do things to it. And would like it to go into standby after a period of inactivity, to be woken over LAN when something is needed.

So I turn to the forums for your wisdom!

Currently I have a number of computers running a mix of XP Home and Win7 Home Premium and 2 Xbox 360s. I have a spare port on my router to hook it right up to.

The old machine itself is pretty old:
  • 1.3ghz AMD XP Pro
  • 512mb RAM
  • 256mb RADEON 9550 Pro
  • 200gb HD (in 2 partitions)
  • XP Home SP1 (it throws fits when I try to update it)

Arrath on

Posts

  • UncleSporkyUncleSporky Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    I don't know a lot about this sort of networking, I just wanted to say I don't think it's a good idea to network anything that's stuck on service pack 1, you might want to redo it from scratch.

    UncleSporky on
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  • ArrathArrath Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    Yeah, a big part of why it is collecting dust right now. My thought was to either (since my XP disc is long vanished) use a firewall on the computer itself to block any connections other than from other computers on the local network, or nuke it and put some other OS onto it.

    Arrath on
  • Apothe0sisApothe0sis Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality? Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    You should install Linux and samba for the sharing to windows machines and fuppes to handle the xbox 360s. Linux is far easier to manage remotely and maximize resources on low end hardware.

    Otherwise, if you have to stick with Windows and Home, you could install vnc or something of that nature and add one of a number of upnp options.

    The wake on LAN function depends on the network card and there are a whole range of ways to utilize that standard.

    Apothe0sis on
  • ImprovoloneImprovolone Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    Even if you've never used it but you have a half way decent ability with computers, Linux is wonderfully easy.

    Improvolone on
    Voice actor for hire. My time is free if your project is!
  • bowenbowen Sup? Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    http://freenas.org/freenas

    Install that on the machine.

    bowen on
    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    edited May 2010
    You should also be able to get Windows Home Server for "relatively cheap" now.

    Mugsley on
  • Apothe0sisApothe0sis Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality? Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    bowen wrote: »
    http://freenas.org/freenas

    Install that on the machine.

    That's cool, but can you easily run fuppes on it? Without it the xbox 360s are high and dry

    Apothe0sis on
  • bowenbowen Sup? Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    I don't see why not. FUPPES is linux based and freenas is BSD based. Probably as simple as logging in with SSH and compiling it.

    Not sure why he needs FUPPES, he didn't specify he'd need to stream media to his xbox?

    bowen on
    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • ArrathArrath Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    I don't have plans to at this point, but who knows. Freenas looks pretty neat.

    Arrath on
  • Apothe0sisApothe0sis Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality? Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    A) everyone needs to stream media to everything. If I had a network connectable washing machine I'd stream media to that as well, just in case.

    B) FreeNAS looks like the business, I am going to put that on a few machines in the near future.

    Apothe0sis on
  • ArrathArrath Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    Freenas it is!

    Arrath on
  • TincheTinche No dog food for Victor tonight. Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    One of FreeNAS's core developers jumped ship a while ago, is now working on a Debian based NAS thingy, but nothing's been released so far. You can google OpenMediaVault if you'd like to keep tabs on it, looking pretty snazzy based on the screenshots and screencasts. He said he wouldn't support Fuppes, but it's supposed to be quite reliant on plugins, so who knows.

    Of course you can't get ZFS support on Linux, and btrfs isn't quite there yet, but I figure the vast majority of home users don't need something like that or messing about with LVM.

    Tinche on
    We're marooned on a small island, in an endless sea,
    Confined to a tiny spit of sand, unable to escape,
    But tonight, it's heavy stuff.
  • bowenbowen Sup? Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    I'd make sure you can get fuppes working before you start using it to store data, as you may have to wipe and try another solution.

    bowen on
    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    edited May 2010
    Apothe0sis wrote: »
    A) everyone needs to stream media to everything. If I had a network connectable washing machine I'd stream media to that as well, just in case.


    Perhaps I'm missing the boat. I've got a DVR and I rarely hit media on my PC. No, I don't use Hulu or the like and I don't have a Netflix account. GET OFF MY LAWN!

    Mugsley on
  • bowenbowen Sup? Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    Streaming media to all these devices is in the hobby zone anyways. If I really wanted to watch an AVI or DVD, I'd watch the AVI or DVD in the appropriate places, not ripping them to my storage server and streaming them to my xbox. Not worth the hassle, you're right mugsley.

    bowen on
    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • Dr_KeenbeanDr_Keenbean Dumb as a butt Planet Express ShipRegistered User regular
    edited May 2010
    bowen wrote: »
    Streaming media to all these devices is in the hobby zone anyways. If I really wanted to watch an AVI or DVD, I'd watch the AVI or DVD in the appropriate places, not ripping them to my storage server and streaming them to my xbox. Not worth the hassle, you're right mugsley.

    PC is upstairs attached to a 24" monitor and 2.1 speakers. It has 2 TB of storage currently housing my entire DVD, BluRay, and music collection.

    xbox 360/PS3 are downstairs attached to a 46" TV and very nice receiver and speaker setup (7.1, but currently using 5.1). Shit, I can actually stream directly to the TV as well (has built-in gigabit ethernet for Netflix, Vudu, and such).

    In this situation, the answer is clear.

    And that answer is actually, HTPC. :P

    But yeah fileserver - go with linux and samba. Shit be reliable as hell, yo.

    Dr_Keenbean on
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  • bowenbowen Sup? Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    Man you young wippersnappers are lazy.

    I just change the disc.

    bowen on
    not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
  • MugsleyMugsley DelawareRegistered User regular
    edited May 2010
    bowen wrote: »
    Man you young wippersnappers are lazy.

    I just change the disc.

    Thank you for making me laugh at work!

    Mugsley on
  • MadpandaMadpanda suburbs west of chicagoRegistered User regular
    edited May 2010
    I have a linux pc setup (running a new ubuntu) that will probably become a fileserver sometime this year (running out of drive bays in other 2 computers :/).

    Are their any gotchas I should look out for in regards to storing media files, and possibly windows game saves, on the linux box? I remember you used to have to convert text files if they were original made on a unix system if reading them in dos and vice versa.

    Or is it just pretty much a) store file on ext3fs or whatever linux partion, b) get samba running c) stream stream stream.

    Madpanda on
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  • TincheTinche No dog food for Victor tonight. Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    Madpanda wrote: »
    I have a linux pc setup (running a new ubuntu) that will probably become a fileserver sometime this year (running out of drive bays in other 2 computers :/).

    Are their any gotchas I should look out for in regards to storing media files, and possibly windows game saves, on the linux box? I remember you used to have to convert text files if they were original made on a unix system if reading them in dos and vice versa.

    Or is it just pretty much a) store file on ext3fs or whatever linux partion, b) get samba running c) stream stream stream.

    Basically. You don't even need the a), just get Samba up and upload your files through that. If you want your files to survive a hard disk failure it gets more complicated.

    If you're only editing your text files on Windows, and just storing them on Linux, you don't need to worry about mangled line endings. If you want to edit them on both platforms you might want to check out this.

    If you plan on streaming video to proprietary devices with limited codec support you might want to look into transcoding options, like the guys above mentioned. I wouldn't know much about it, except that a Wii with HBC can stream all kinds of SD video files over Wifi+Samba.

    Tinche on
    We're marooned on a small island, in an endless sea,
    Confined to a tiny spit of sand, unable to escape,
    But tonight, it's heavy stuff.
  • useless4useless4 Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    bowen wrote: »
    Streaming media to all these devices is in the hobby zone anyways. If I really wanted to watch an AVI or DVD, I'd watch the AVI or DVD in the appropriate places, not ripping them to my storage server and streaming them to my xbox. Not worth the hassle, you're right mugsley.


    You don't have enough movies, places in your house to watch, family members or house guests I guess.

    A distributed video system allows people in any room to watch what ever the hell they want and leave me alone. Also let's me have unified place to store things rather then having to dedicate entire walls to dvd storage.

    useless4 on
  • darkphoenix22darkphoenix22 Registered User regular
    edited May 2010
    useless4 wrote: »
    bowen wrote: »
    Streaming media to all these devices is in the hobby zone anyways. If I really wanted to watch an AVI or DVD, I'd watch the AVI or DVD in the appropriate places, not ripping them to my storage server and streaming them to my xbox. Not worth the hassle, you're right mugsley.


    You don't have enough movies, places in your house to watch, family members or house guests I guess.

    A distributed video system allows people in any room to watch what ever the hell they want and leave me alone. Also let's me have unified place to store things rather then having to dedicate entire walls to dvd storage.

    ++

    Most of my roommates don't even use our TV anymore. They just watch everything in their rooms via WiFi.

    darkphoenix22 on
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