MP3/Video server

[ye110man]

i have a few computers and i think i need a cheap always-on mp3/video server. it's becoming difficult to copy everything onto 4 computers. things that it needs...
large capacity... like 2 x 80gb hard drives in a raid.
a dvd drive
a cd-rw
ethernet (obviously)
capable of acting as an ftp server so i can access files away from home
small if possible

other features that would be nice but not absolutely necessary...
usb ports for a printer, scanner, and portable usb hard drive.
a modem so i can use it as a fax machine.

i don't want a full-fledged pc. it doesn't need any video or audio. i just wanna be able to use it for storage. i was looking at some network attached storage devices but they're so freakn expensive!

i also plan on installing some x10 devices so it would be great if i can run it on this server so that i can control my home from any web browser.

 

[TheWart]

hmm, I am kind of in the same boat. I am thinking onboard video is the way to go, but other than the nForce, are there really any viable options for an AMD user? Intel's onboard seems to give the answer, but then again, their processors are very expensive. If it is not going to be a game server, I think and Duron ~800 is what you need (any less is almost negligable due to cost)

 

[ye110man]

yeah how much processing power would a ftp/http server need? how much memory? since it's only for private use it wouldn't have more than 2 people accessing it at the same time.
since it's gonna be always on it's gotta be reliable and quiet. thing is i don't want to buy another monitor. is pluging in a monitor then disconnecting it the only option?

 

[ElFenix]

i ran an ftp server with a pro 200 and 32 megs of ram. you don't need much when you have very few concurrent transfers.

 

[ElFenix]

go buy a used dell and stick a big arsed hard drive in it

 

[TheWart]

Yea, for an ftp server, you figure that you only have to transfer as fast as the network allows. So IMO hd speed (7200RPM) is what will make a big difference. Maybe not though, I am by no means a network guru.

 

[FishTankX]

Can I give a system spec sheet perhaps?

A decent case/PS 35$ shipped
Duron 950 maybe 30$ shipped
I saw an AZ11 on pricewatch for 35$ shipped
Maybe pick up 128 megs of decent quality RAM(25$). Run 2000.
Since a 5400RPM harddrive has an awful seek time and you might have 3 or 4 concurrent transfers at once, I would reccomend a D740X/Segate Baracuda ATAIV 80GB variant. 100$
Pick up the cheapest videocard you can *possibly* find. You can probably find a ViRGE somewhere.. or just pick up a half meg PCI card. (10$)
Dual 10/100 NIC's running to the hub for a nice theoretical 24MB/s of bandwidth. Enough to handle quite a few DivX streams. If you want to go 1 card, that's OK too.

Total cost
35+30+35+25+100+10/20=~250$ shipped.

 

[Spac3d]

Originally posted by: FishTankX

Dual 10/100 NIC's running to the hub for a nice theoretical 24MB/s of bandwidth. Enough to handle quite a few DivX streams. If you want to go 1 card, that's OK too.

How does that work???? So if I want to make a server and I stack it with 2 cards, it will go that fast if its hooked up to a hub? How?? How would it be able to split the bandwidth to do that work.

I know this isnt the networking forum... but I would like to know so I can stack my server with SCSI and a few NICs

Spac3d

 

[TheWart]

Originally posted by: FishTankX

Dual 10/100 NIC's running to the hub for a nice theoretical 24MB/s of bandwidth. Enough to handle quite a few DivX streams. If you want to go 1 card, that's OK too.

Yes, I would love to know about this as well. Would the server automativally put each request (say two comps were trying to access the server at the same time) on a seperate ethernet card? very intriguing. Or is it more of the "shotgun" approach?

 

[FishTankX]

I believe the stacking is auto if you just use it as a server. If you have a hub with dual inputs, it will use each NIC's bandwidth to answer requests. I might be wrong on that though. I was always under the impression that Windows 2K or XP (I'm not sure about Pro, but i'm almost *sure* server does) would span multiple requests over the two NIC's. Like how XP handles CPU's.

 

[AndyHui]

You can't do that, since Ethernet means only one card is sending at a time (on the entire network). If each card was assigned to a different subnet/network, then yes, you can send on both cards at a time.

But no, you can't put two cards together for double bandwidth.

 

[Derango]

Those two 80GB drives better be in a RAID 1...anyone who uses RAID 0 in a server is, frankly, a moron (In my opinion at least)

 

[FishTankX]

Hmm, Okay then, I remembered wrong.

Thanks AndyHui, for the correction.

But if that's true, then why can I have 2 computers in a network sending to two other computers on a network? Interleave?

 

[AndyHui]

No. It's kind of like how IDE works. Only one drive can send at a time on the bus. Same with Ethernet.

 

[TheWart]

ahh, ok, I understand now, thanks AndyHui

 

[ye110man]

Originally posted by: Derango
Those two 80GB drives better be in a RAID 1...anyone who uses RAID 0 in a server is, frankly, a moron (In my opinion at least)

an mp3 server isn't exactly mission critical. i can easily back up the mp3s on cd or something.

but now that i think about it 80gb seems a lil too much. maybe 2 40gb or 60gb drives will do.


another question. can i use nero from another computer with a networked cd-rw placed on the server? and what if i want to back up files from the server to its cd-rw?

 

[splice]

Originally posted by: ye110man

Originally posted by: Derango
Those two 80GB drives better be in a RAID 1...anyone who uses RAID 0 in a server is, frankly, a moron (In my opinion at least)

an mp3 server isn't exactly mission critical. i can easily back up the mp3s on cd or something.

but now that i think about it 80gb seems a lil too much. maybe 2 40gb or 60gb drives will do.


another question. can i use nero from another computer with a networked cd-rw placed on the server? and what if i want to back up files from the server to its cd-rw?

80GB is probably enough for now. I have one file server running with 1G Duron an an 80GB seagate and the other an Athlon XP 1600+ and 100GB WD. I run VNC on both machines so I can remotely access the servers desktop from my main computer.

As far as transfer load I can easily stream 2 DVD rip movies, a DIVX video, and listen to mp3's all from the same server while the server is running the UD client. (this is on a swiched 100Mbit LAN)

For backing up you can use Windows Task Scheduler or in *NIX use cron to schedule backups