Rebellion88

Hello very new on the server scene got a bee in my bonnet and feel like making a server for home use. Looking for it to run a Ventrilo server, share files between 3 computers, general back up etc... What sort of spec am I looking at cheaper the better looking to budget. Specific things that would be better so motherboards, cooling and hard drive set-ups for example. What OS to run?

As being completely amateur at this sort of thing I will more and likely run into to problems but hope to pick your brains, I'm fine with putting it together its probably the networking part i will fluff up lol.

Thanks

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the_beast

Get pretty much the cheapest hardware you can for this. Anything low-end 45nm would be my recommendation. Add 2-4GB RAM & decent Intel NICs all round & you'll be away.

You don't need much cpu for what your looking to do. Cheap & low power is what you're looking for...

Rebellion88

Ok thanks very much, probably will go AMD and get something low wattage, what about OS Windows, or can you use linux?

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Manyak

People have been using *nix for servers way before Windows was even invented

Just use the one you're more comfortable with.

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the_beast

If you want to use *nix, then the biggest reason not to is a non-issue.

The learning curve is a bit steeper due to the lack of familiarality for most, and this puts many off. If you get past that then *nix is often the best (& cheapest) way to go for server use.

Rebellion88

Well instead of blowing money, I've bought a cheap pc off ebay socket775 celeron d 1gb xp pro £45. Going to partition the drive have a play with linux and a few others and see what there like.

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reezin14

An OS to look into,imo it's great take the tour to see if it something up you alley.
http://www.amahi.org/

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parityboy

@OP

Your first step was the best step - hitting eBay. You'd be surprised how capable old hardware is for serving up files.

Linux tends to be gentler on resources than Windows, and as with any *nix you have the choice of not running a graphical environment, which will save even more memory and CPU cycles.

You may want/need to add another GB of memory, but see how you get along with what you've got, first.

@reezin14

That Amahi Server looks pretty cool. I might use that for a project actually. I'd like to combine that with something like Myth and make the HTPC/PVR the central media server in the house.

PCCstudent

Ask youself how you are at command line work when you get past this remember the old addage about freeware 'you get what you pay for". If you need support Microsoft products are the way to go. Don't expect any level of support with freeware and you will not be disappointed.

Don't get me wrong,for the fully informed and fully competent freeware is the way to go,no question.

My opinions come from the experience of setting up a home hosted web site. You must pull it together and put the burden of making it work on yourself.