Home Server / media and file storage

Recently I got another computer which left me with a spare, and I'm thinking about turning it into a home server. The specs are in my signature as the second computer with 2nd Gen i5 also I realise that it’s a overkill for what I want and I’m selling it to my brother and will be building a power efficient i3 when he buys it. I’m also buying 4 2tb drives in September.

What I want to do is have all my media and more valuable data stored on it. I also have 2 macbooks and 2 smart phones 1 apple one android.

I've been thinking about running Ubuntu and setting up file sharing on it for the drives i load into it and then i could just raid them. It seemed the simplest option and that way i could just remote desktop in and keep it headless. But i don't know if this is the best option for me, I’ve seen ubuntu server mentioned but i have very little experience in linux but I'm willing to learn, i've also seen Freenas mentioned. I'm just not sure which the best option is.

I also though it would be fun to try to host a website or private FTP server (if it is possible) so I can remotely access my data from school or another house. Also I wouldn’t be opposed to having the ability to host a VOIP service for when I’m playing games with friends like ventrillo

I use my desktops pretty heavily and my laptop a lot at school and work for python / Arc work and I really need better data security then what I currently have. This is the main reason for wanting a home server type set up.

Please give me any suggestions or ideas on how I should proceed or operating systems which I would use or learn to make it work the best.

Thanks for the suggestions,

Tonight my plan is to install ubuntu onto my computer and I had a question should I be installing to a USB stick or just a small HDD for the os only? I have a spare 180gb from a laptop that broke a while ago which I was planning on using.

I'm also going to try both Tonido and owncloud to see which I like best.

As for the chip I'll be running i wasn't set on the i3, i also just realized that i have a 3800 amd 64 X2 which I could possibly use how ever the motherboard its on has only 1 gb of ram and is DDR 1 at 300mhz, but i just checked NCIX and for 48.99 i can get a 2.4ghz celeron which looks like my best option.

Do you have any suggestions on which case might be a good option? I've found this one for 61$ http://ncix.ca/products/?sku=66764&vpn=PS07B&manufacture=Others supports six drives and filters so I could run 4 2tb drives in a 2x2 raid 0 and then a 5th for my os drive with one spare bay. Or should I just find the cheapest one possible and modify it to handle more bays? Because I do have the extra cage from my 650D which I could easily screw into another case if it fit.

Took me a while to get everything up and running because i got really busy at work but so far but i got it up and running for the most part now

I managed to install ubuntu to a 8gb usb 3.0 drive reads at about 55mb/s and writes around 30mb/s

currently I'm managing it with webmin, i got Tonido installed and working for pictures and movies in .mp4 format, seems to not support other formats yet. I've also got all my computer recognizing it for file sharing and i've got custom privileges for the different folders for my self and my girlfriend using a samba manager in ubuntu.

Now all i have left to do is convert it over to a lower power pc and get some more hard drives, and set up backups for my main pc and the 2 laptops.

Thanks for the help getting it up and running.