Building a seperate system as file server

[Ender17]

I'm thinking of building a separate system to use as a file server.
I would connect this to my DGL-4300 Gigabit router and I want transfer speeds to be as fast as possible - basically want it to be as fast as having the RAID5 card in my main machine.
I want this to be inexpensive without sacrificing performance.
Also, wanted to add that this will only be serving one user/computer and will have movies/music on it.

I already have the hard drives and RAID card.
I need recommendations on:
CPU: I don't care how slow it is as long as it doesn't affect the speed of my files transferring to the main I'm thinking of building a separate system to use as a file server.
I would connect this to my DGL-4300 Gigabit router and I want transfer speeds to be as fast as possible - basically want it to be as fast as having the RAID5 card in my main machine.
I want this to be inexpensive without sacrificing performance.
Also, wanted to add that this will only be serving one user/computer and will have movies/music on it.

I already have the hard drives and RAID card.
I need recommendations on:

• CPU: I don't care how slow it is as long as it doesn't affect the speed of my files transferring to the main computer. I would like something that is energy efficient though
• motherboard: something cheap and stable
• RAM: again, just enough that it isn't a bottleneck
• boot disk: can I use a USB thumbdrive? once again, don't want anything here to be the bottleneck
• OS: never used anything windows XP, but if there is a simple version of Linux, then I'll look into it. remember this machine is just going to be stuck in a closet, not used for any computing
• NIC: unless the motherboard has built in Gigabit, I will need to add one

motherboard: something cheap and stable
RAM: again, just enough that it isn't a bottleneck
boot disk: can I use a USB thumbdrive? once again, don't want anything here to be the bottleneck
OS: never used anything windows XP, but if there is a simple version of Linux, then I'll look into it. remember this machine is just going to be stuck in a closet, not used for any computing
NIC: unless the motherboard has built in Gigabit, I will need to add one

 

[blurredvision]

There's some good info in another thread that's going on at the moment.....

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=27&threadid=2003164&enterthread=y

 

[Leros]

If you're only serving one computer and you're only serving movies and music, why is there such a need for performance? A $50 ten year old computer could do what you are wanting.

 

[Ender17]

Originally posted by: Leros
If you're only serving one computer and you're only serving movies and music, why is there such a need for performance? A $50 ten year old computer could do what you are wanting.

what kind of transfer rate can I expect from Gigabit?

I know it works out to 125 MB, but is that what I will actually see?
all I'm really concerned with is I don't want a delay when browsing through folders or streaming 1080p content

also my RAID card is PCI-E so I will probably use my motherboard from the last Intel Retail Edge bundle