stn0092

I'd like to have my sig rig act as a server for all my movies, music, pictures, etc., preferably without spending much money. That said, I've been playing around with the filing sharing in Windows.

My sister's computer has been able to connect and access my music and stream movies just fine, although it is a bit slow when I try to copy the whole movie file onto her computer (cus of my 54mbps router?).

Now, my questions.

1. With multiple computers accessing files from my computer, I'd presume that I'd experience some sort of lag when I'm gaming, right?

2. Transfer speeds. Like I mentioned earlier, I have a 54mbps Linksys WRT54G router, which gives me about 2-3MB/s when I copy a file over to my sister's computer, which is right across the hall. I imagine that speed will drop off for my HTPC and anyone who brings their laptop over in the living room. All I have to do is get a better router right? What about the person's wireless on the receving end? I'd assume that they will still have limited transfer rates even if I get a 300mbps router when they have a 54mbps wireless adapter.

3. Should I consider building a separate server?

4. Is there anything I should really know about? I honestly haven't done too much reading on this aside from looking at past threads here.

e_dogg

1) No, you probably wouldn't notice too much unless you're playing online. Then you might have network issues to contend with. See #2 for more info.

2) If you're concerned about transfer rates, ditch the wireless and connect your computer to a wire. And gigabit is your friend when doing transfers on your local network (you won't notice much of a change in internet speeds).

A better wireless router probably won't help a whole lot since there's not much switching involved. If you're working wired, definitely get a swtich rather than a hub.

3) A file server wouldn't be too expensive to build and you can do more with it. Or you could just get a NAS attached external hard drive which is basically like any other external hard drive only it has a network port on it.

4) Just make sure you're not letting people outside of your network (i.e. the entire internet) get into your computer. Keep your firewall on and AV up to date and you're all good.

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stn0092

My sig rig is has a wired connection to the router. Everyone else connects wirelessly. Will I be okay for playing games online then?

Sig rig --wired--> Router <--wireless-- Sis's rig and everyone else.

What NAS would you recommend? If I do use a NAS, can I make backups across the network? That is, can I backup the files from the NAS onto HDDs in another computer?

I'm more inclined towards a NAS right now, but what of making my HTPC double as a media server as well?

EDIT: Hey, 500th post. It only took me a year.

Manyak

As for your first questions, there's not really much to add over what e_dogg said. Just watch out if you ever increase the network speeds on the other PCs (put them all on Wireless-N, or wired) - if they pull enough bandwidth from the PC it will increase your CPU usage and might affect framerates, unless you get a NIC with TCP Offloading.


As for using an HTPC for a home server, that's a great idea as long as noone turns it off. If you just want file sharing then just share the drives through windows, no big deal. If you want it to do other stuff (like maybe a VPN to access your files from anywhere) then use a virtual machine to run the server stuff.

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MrAMD_Fan

NAS that you can buy are generally slow.... A seperate file "server" pc is not hard to do and doesn't need much horsepower at all... especially if you are just sharing the files from that pc.

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e_dogg

I have a 1TB Maxtor NAS drive that's got a gigabit port on it. It's a ton faster than transferring via USB.

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Manyak

He's talking about NAS vs Server, not gigabit vs USB.

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MrAMD_Fan

Heh,heh... thanks Manyak.... exactly....

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bobfig

if you want speed transferring files then wire the computers together. 54mb G wireless throughput will give you 2-3mbps down or upload to a device with a "very good" connection. wired connections will give ether 3-4 for half duplex or 8-10mbps full duplex on fast ethernt(100mb). you can use your computer as a file/media server but IMO i wouldn't. it shouldn't hurt your gaming to much but you will start lagging if big file transfers are happening, my ping goes up to around 200 in COD4 when im transferring big files.

you computer also has to stay on all the time, or at least when other people want to access it. i would look into a small server build like a small amd or atom 330 build

upgrading the router wont help unless you get the adapters upgraded also

i would look into this and use that as a headless server. just set up remote desktop and all u need pluged in to it is the ethernet and a power plug.

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