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External Hard Drive or Network Storage/Server
emp123
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So when I was living away at college, I built a HTPC so my roommates and I could record TV and stream media and stuff, but now that Im back home I no longer have the need for it. Now, I can either take out the hard drives (2 250gb Seagates in RAID 0 giving me 500gbs of storage) and let my little sister use it as her computer in her room (she has one and it does what she needs, although she wants to be able to play the new Sims game which it cant run) or I could turn it into network storage so we can finally have someplace to back up all of our data.
If I give it to my sister, I'll end up buying an external hard drive (probably a terabyte) and I'll format it in two partitions (NTFS and HFS) so I can use it as a Time Machine drive but still back up all the information on our PCs.
- Is this even possible? Also, can multiple laptops use the same external hard drive as their time machine drive?
If I turn it into network storage, do I need special software for this or can I just leave it running Windows Vista? Can I use this as my time machine drive? The only downside to turning it into network storage is that I dont know what I would do with the TV tuner card.
I know I can get a network storage external hard drive thing but those are more expensive than just a standard external hard drive and I dont mind leaving the external always plugged into one of our computers (unless I cant just leave it plugged into a computer so it can be used as network storage)
Any ideas on what route I should go?
If I give it to my sister, I'll end up buying an external hard drive (probably a terabyte) and I'll format it in two partitions (NTFS and HFS) so I can use it as a Time Machine drive but still back up all the information on our PCs.
- Is this even possible? Also, can multiple laptops use the same external hard drive as their time machine drive?
If I turn it into network storage, do I need special software for this or can I just leave it running Windows Vista? Can I use this as my time machine drive? The only downside to turning it into network storage is that I dont know what I would do with the TV tuner card.
I know I can get a network storage external hard drive thing but those are more expensive than just a standard external hard drive and I dont mind leaving the external always plugged into one of our computers (unless I cant just leave it plugged into a computer so it can be used as network storage)
Any ideas on what route I should go?
emp123 on
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I like the mobility of an external hard drive, but I like the convenience of a storage server.
How difficult is it to manage a home server if you have no experience running servers?
Can you just turn it on and let it do its thing or am I going to have to fix a lot of problems due to data transfer or something?
Im basically looking for a simple way to share data across 1 computer running Windows XP, 1 computer running Windows 7 (although it'll be running XP when the beta ends), and 2 computers running OS X 10.5.8 (although one of them will be running 10.6 when my school starts to support it).
External hard drives do seem the easiest, but I like being able to access that data from any point in the house through the network.