Proper Home Server System??

[ruderemb]

Little bit of a long post

Current System
3000+xp 333fsb , dfi nforce2 ultra, 1gb ddr 333,aiw 8500, ide wd120 7200rpm, highpoint 454 raid 5 (5 maxtor 250gb diamond 9 720rpm) sparkle power 550watts..on WinXp pro

Right now i use the above system as my second computer i.e.(burn dvds, bit torrent, watch tv, web surf, lan game server , network storage, and stream video audio)
At times this computer chokes up (I understand the highpoint card puts alot of load on cpu)

I Currently have 5 computers on my home network (not all mine i have 3 roomates at my house)

I will be building a athlon64 sysyem by the end of the year...so my current main system (p4 2.8c, abit ic7, 1gb ddr400, enermax 651) will become avaible...

So from the 2 systems i would like make one my second computer i.e.(burn dvds, bit torrent, watch tv, and web surf) and the other a server i.e. ( network storage, video audio streaming, lan server) the server would put in a closet

Question Time?
I was wondering if 3000xp would be suitable for server duties ?
I would prefer the p4 2.8c as my second computer for HT but i think it would do a better job as a server is this a correct assessment?
Should I seriously think of a dual cpu setup server ?
Server OS's which should I consider? (I have no experience of linux ...but Im willing to learn)

Any comments would be thankful

 

[Rike]

The processing demands on most home server are pretty low. Either your P4 or your XP will handle it with no trouble. I really don't think HT will make much difference. Your RAID 5 array could be very useful on the server if you wanted to use the server to stream video or music to other users on the network. Dual CPU's would be why over the top unless your planning on hosting a medium to largish web site.