Networks pc server

hi guys, i was reeading on a website somewhere that if u have multiple pc's in the same house (i do) then it is a gud thing to have a dedicated pc as a 'server' with all your files and everthing on it, and then access it with your other pc's, could someone please explain to me wot it does?, the benifits of doin this, plus do i need it? and then also (if ur bored ) tell me how to do it??

Thank you to any1 that replies.

 

It's not entirely necessary, but it can be useful because backing up everything when reformatting is hard work, especially on multiple computers, so storing files on a server is useful, also allows you to easily access it from multiple computers, or the server can be used as a backup for files. You can also use the server for a proxy, to share the internet. Or a gaming server which will reduce load on other computers. There are many reasons why a server is usfeul, but it isn't necessary!

 

Thanks for your reply

wot do u mean by this:

 

A bit off-topic, but what are the advantages of having a fileserver over a NAS hard drive on a small network?

 

Seebul, what I meant was if you were to run a gameserver on the same computer as you are playing on, gameplay wouldn't be very good for you or the other players (unless you were running a dual core processor perhaps).

And having a fileserver over a NAS means you have more configuration options, basically a fileserver can act as other things, whilst a NAS will just be a hard drive with some configuration settings, no more. So if you need only a space to store stuff over the network, you would want a NAS, however it doesn't leave any expandability unlike a server does.

 

how many seperate boxes do you have in your home anyway?

and do you have any experience with linux

 

So you mean to save space on the other computers - is that a gameserver?

i have five pc's includin one laptop, and no i dont have experience with linux, y?

 

a fileserver would probobly be nice. I dont know how much gaming you do but I dont know the ins and outs of that process. I asked about linux because of windows networking "issues". I believe home can only be part of a 5 user environment. If you have pro you should be fine. and if you ever wanted to take your server up to the next level and start hosting stuff linux would be a better choice

 

Some people seem to get put off by the term "server". It seems like it infers some huge, dusty, mystical machine running in an air-con'd basement, being attended to by a team of guys in lab coats, with terabytes of storage and untold processes running on it.

In reality (espcially in a home network), as soon as you right click on a folder, and select "Sharing and Security", then "Share this folder", you've set up a file server for your Workgroup. You've probably already done it.

A "server" is just a device in a network that offers a service to other devices. Nothing more. For example, your router at home is probably a DHCP server.

So if you've got a spare PC, stick a big Hard drive in it, share some folders, and you've got a fileserver. Easy as. Open up "My Network Places", then "Computers near me" (or something similar), open up the shared folder, and your PC is now a client to the server.

The "server" doesn't need to be a fast PC for a home network, as all it's doing is authenticating users, and sending files over the network to maybe 2 or 3 users at any one time.

Doing it with Linux isn't easy if you're new to Linux, but it's not rocket science, and you avoid the "networking issues" with Windows, and you'll learn tons of cool stuff in the process.

 

ok thanks for the reply... one more quick question, i have sorta set up a temporary 'network' for now but only with three pc's, but the only folder that i can view from other pc's are the 'shared documents' folder that windows already has on there, all the other folders i try to share dont work, if i try and view them from another pc, it just says' The network path **** is not accesible you may not have permission..... blah blah blah' Why is this happening??

 

check file permissions on the computer that "owns" the folder. it should be set to something like read/write, or general acess, or full acess.

 

What Peanut[UK] said is pretty much what it's about

A gameserver is a computer which hosts games on the internet or LAN, most modern games are now compatible online for multiplayers. If you are interested in a gameserver, basically it's better to have it on a separate computer (ie. server!), it won't save you space, it is the processing power that's relevent, playing a game on a computer that is also a gaming server isn't a good idea because you are sharing processing power between the game server application and your game.

A server is supposed to run 24/7 and not used by a user directly, which means there are less chances of the computer going wrong, so storing files on it or running a game server, ftp server, web server etc is much more reliable, than on a computer which you will be on all the time!

Linux would be good for a server, tends to be more reliable, and free too!

 

Another good use for a server is sharing peripherals. I use mine to share my printer/scanner/copier over the network amongst other things. It also does the weekly backups, and hosts near to half a terabyte of data. I also run VNC to remotely access it.

 

I currently have two servers set up in my spare bedroom. They're both athlon xp1700+ jobbes with 512mb ram in each server.

One has 4 40gb ATA drives in Raid0 which is my fileserver with my mp3's, movies and other stuff.

The other one is a lan game server which I dont even use anymore. That server also has my webserver and mysql database server on it.

The webserver keeps its files on the fileserver (so the web root directory is on the fileserver) and access it via NFS.

Both servers run linux (ubuntu) and its mighty fast. I get around 0.05s page generation with the XMB forum.

If you really want to setup a fileserver, you'd be best off with linux, but if you dont know anything about linux at all, I'd stick windows 2000 or something on there and a huge hard drive and get it shared

 

Need more info - what sort of 'network'? How have you connected the machines together? Into a hub? Into a DSL router? Also, what are the machines running? All on WinXP?

 

A NAS is a file server, just it's usually linux and it's embeded in a chip in the NAS, There usually not as flexible or upgradeable as a server, but then there's less to go wrong and they consume less power, horses for courses really.

 

There plugged into a D-link broadband router/modem, and yes there all running XP.

 

I have a few servers that I run at my house. I'll list the stuff I have them do just so you can kinda get an idea.

Active Directory
Web Server
Web Portal to get around school's web filter
Downloads
File serving
Print Server
DHCP
NAT for my two internet connections
Time Server(gets time from an atomic clock and then network computers update to servers time automatically(
among other small things.

 

Price. Why spend £500 on a box that can take 4 disks when you could set up a box with a 4 port RAID card that could take 8 or even 12(4 IDE, 0/2/4 onboard SATA, 4 SATA on the card) for half the price or less? It'd probably be able to perform other functions too, if you desired.

Anyway, if you have 3 or more PC's in your house and you do keep a lot of files on even one of them, a file server is a great idea. They're cheap, because you really shouldn't be building one with anything more powerfull then a 1Ghz CPU, they dont need much of anything,except hard disks and decent networking capabilities. Once you have one, you can keep duplicate files all on the one PC, which saves on space, and increases the number of files all the computers have access too. It's also quite cool if you're intrested in that sorta thing just to have a server, you learn things.

 

I guy at work bought a 2TB RAID5 NAS box on friday. I hate to think how much that cost him