Jump to content

Using Vista as a simple file server


breadandbubbles

Recommended Posts

so id like to settup a home server. i need this thing to be foolproof, failproof, and cheap. i know i know, EVERYONE wants that. but heres my quick situation.

I nabbed a Drobo, 2nd gen, second hand. before you roll your eyes, it was only 200 bucks, WITH a 1tb hdd. couldnt say no.

i also got a second hand PC. nothing fancy. dual core something or other, i cant remember, but its preloaded with Vista HP.

now, id like to plug my drobo into this thing, and have some online thing, probably Mozy, back it up. just a file server. OH, and ill have to put tversity, or something like it, on there for now for Playstation 3 access.

my point is, having mozy, drobo, and tversity all running means im stuck with Windows. i already have vista on there. is it as simple as reinstalling vista, setting up a firewall, and windows SMB? or do you think i should get into linux? im not adverse to linux by any means, but its the compatibility im concerned about (again dont roll your eyes, i know EVERYONE says it).

anyway, whats your advice? vista? linux? if vista, are there things i should take note of? connection caps? safety issues? if linux, i guess i could go with twonky for PS3, but what about online backups? remote access from my windows 7 pc? drobo support is iffy, isnt it?

if you have any input on any of the myriad of subjects here, please post it. id really appreciate any help at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


so id like to settup a home server. i need this thing to be foolproof, failproof, and cheap. i know i know, EVERYONE wants that. but heres my quick situation.

I nabbed a Drobo, 2nd gen, second hand. before you roll your eyes, it was only 200 bucks, WITH a 1tb hdd. couldnt say no.

i also got a second hand PC. nothing fancy. dual core something or other, i cant remember, but its preloaded with Vista HP.

now, id like to plug my drobo into this thing, and have some online thing, probably Mozy, back it up. just a file server. OH, and ill have to put tversity, or something like it, on there for now for Playstation 3 access.

my point is, having mozy, drobo, and tversity all running means im stuck with Windows. i already have vista on there. is it as simple as reinstalling vista, setting up a firewall, and windows SMB? or do you think i should get into linux? im not adverse to linux by any means, but its the compatibility im concerned about (again dont roll your eyes, i know EVERYONE says it).

anyway, whats your advice? vista? linux? if vista, are there things i should take note of? connection caps? safety issues? if linux, i guess i could go with twonky for PS3, but what about online backups? remote access from my windows 7 pc? drobo support is iffy, isnt it?

if you have any input on any of the myriad of subjects here, please post it. id really appreciate any help at all.

aaaaaaaaah screw it. maybe linux is the best. we'll see what you folks say.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I nabbed a Drobo, 2nd gen

Drobo is a company... They have a lot of different products. Hard guessing what you got for sure (a model # would be ideal).

dual core something or other, i cant remember

That's not very descriptive either.

my point is, having mozy, drobo, and tversity all running means im stuck with Windows

You make it sound like that's a bad thing. I'm happily "stuck" with Windows for pretty much everything I do too.

is it as simple as reinstalling vista, setting up a firewall, and windows SMB?

Reinstalling isn't a bad idea as you can't be sure what the previous owners did to the OS (I like clean). Firewall is already setup out of the box if you want one (and the vast majority of apps will setup exceptions when they are required). Windows "SMB"? There is nothing to "setup", that's always worked out of the box. You just need to setup some shares.

anyway, whats your advice? vista? linux?

Out of those 2, I'd definitely go with Vista, hands down. Either ways, I recommend trying it for yourself before listening to all the haters (who for the most part never even tried it themselves). I've happily used Vista for something similar to this for almost 2 years, without a single issue.

connection caps? safety issues?

Connection caps are a non-issue for a home server. They pretty much prevent you from running a hosting company with it, but here you'll be limited by your internet connection WAY before that. Safety issues? Just stay patched, just like for any other version of any OS and you'll be fine.

I don't see any problems with using a cheapo Vista box for that. It uses the new SMB2 stack, and it probably has a gigabit NIC, it's darn easy to administer, remote desktop is built-in (you can run any app on there too which can be quite handy), there's support for ever device you'd ever want to plug in, it's trivial to share devices like your printer(s) should you ever want to, you could use it to share your music library with WMP (and even use media center), and run every single app you've mentionned too.

I can't really think of any reason NOT to (Win 2008 R2 would be nicer, but it's unecessary and not as cheap).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You might also want to consider something like FreeNAS or OpenFiler - both are very good products, both are open-source, and both are free as in beer. If all you're going to do is serve files over SMB, either will work, and something like FreeNAS is lighter on the hardware. It also gives you other features/options like iSCSI, which I prefer (mounting iSCSI drives on my Win7 workstations) over using SMB shares and network drives.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's another great option that I've recommended several times before around here, but he seemingly wants to do a lot more than what those solutions do (video transcoding, online backups, etc)... Hence my "Go with Vista" answer.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's another great option that I've recommended several times before around here, but he seemingly wants to do a lot more than what those solutions do (video transcoding, online backups, etc)... Hence my "Go with Vista" answer.

well i certainly appreciate the feedback. id like to ask a couple of things though.

you mentioned gigabit ethernet. it does have that, but the router im using is of thw WRT54G series, running full DD-WRT, which is NOT gigabit. i need dd-wrt for a number of reasons, but one thing im wondering is whether or not gigabit matters? i mean i know it does theoretically, but in the real world will you notice it?

thank you for addressing everything step by step, it was really helpful. the only thing i forgot to ask was performance. will running vista have a substancial impact on system resources over linux? i think the processor is 2.2ghz. i dont know anything more about it. but with transcoding, ill probably be pushing it fairly hard. would linux be alot lighter? is there anything i can do to reduce vistas impact? just....disable unnecessary services, and any extra visual stuff?

oh! btw, i was upset about being stuck with windows not because it was windows, but because i was stuck! i just like to have options, and know what they are.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

you mentioned gigabit ethernet. it does have that, but the router im using is of thw WRT54G series, running full DD-WRT, which is NOT gigabit. i need dd-wrt for a number of reasons, but one thing im wondering is whether or not gigabit matters? i mean i know it does theoretically, but in the real world will you notice it?

Well, it depends on your setup. Over wireless of course it makes no difference. As for wired connections, gigabit ethernet switches are dirt cheap (my 8 port Netgear Gigabit switch that also supports jumbo frames was like $50). And yes, it makes quite a difference.

will running vista have a substancial impact on system resources over linux?

Both will be able to max out a 100mbit or wireless connection very easily.

i think the processor is 2.2ghz. i dont know anything more about it. but with transcoding, ill probably be pushing it fairly hard. would linux be alot lighter?

Transcoding is fairly CPU intensive indeed. And if your CPU is pushed to its very limit, the odds that it would do the job fine with any another OS are pretty slim (the fix would be more like a CPU upgrade). Vista's main overhead vs Linux is RAM usage (and even then, I had a plain old vanilla install of Vista that would boot in 365MB usage), but that's not what you really need a ton of here.

is there anything i can do to reduce vistas impact? just....disable unnecessary services, and any extra visual stuff?

Well, for the most part the "unecessary" stuff once loaded will get paged to disk anyway, so no big deal. You could disable things like indexing though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

you mentioned gigabit ethernet. it does have that, but the router im using is of thw WRT54G series, running full DD-WRT, which is NOT gigabit. i need dd-wrt for a number of reasons, but one thing im wondering is whether or not gigabit matters? i mean i know it does theoretically, but in the real world will you notice it?

Well, it depends on your setup. Over wireless of course it makes no difference. As for wired connections, gigabit ethernet switches are dirt cheap (my 8 port Netgear Gigabit switch that also supports jumbo frames was like $50). And yes, it makes quite a difference.

will running vista have a substancial impact on system resources over linux?

Both will be able to max out a 100mbit or wireless connection very easily.

i think the processor is 2.2ghz. i dont know anything more about it. but with transcoding, ill probably be pushing it fairly hard. would linux be alot lighter?

Transcoding is fairly CPU intensive indeed. And if your CPU is pushed to its very limit, the odds that it would do the job fine with any another OS are pretty slim (the fix would be more like a CPU upgrade). Vista's main overhead vs Linux is RAM usage (and even then, I had a plain old vanilla install of Vista that would boot in 365MB usage), but that's not what you really need a ton of here.

is there anything i can do to reduce vistas impact? just....disable unnecessary services, and any extra visual stuff?

Well, for the most part the "unecessary" stuff once loaded will get paged to disk anyway, so no big deal. You could disable things like indexing though.

hmm...i hadt thought of the paging. why are people so worried about services then?

okay, so, if i get an ethernet switch, and have all my wired devices running though it, and provide internet to it through my dd wrt router, then i could make some gains. but......alright. if i did that, THEN would vista become a hindrance? on gigabit? i hear the drobo only has 40mbps read speed anyway. so gigabit is kind of pointless, isnt it? actually...could 40mbps become a hindrance?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

why are people so worried about services then?

With XP and before services had more impact on system performance.

okay, so, if i get an ethernet switch, and have all my wired devices running though it, and provide internet to it through my dd wrt router, then i could make some gains. but......alright. if i did that, THEN would vista become a hindrance? on gigabit?

Your bottleneck will be disk speed, not the OS. I could saturate most of a Gigabit connection with Vista, but that was on a RAID0 setup.

i hear the drobo only has 40mbps read speed anyway

Over USB2? I don't see it hitting 40MB/s too often (nor for long when it does) -- more like 25-30 on average being a USB device. I've even seen HDTach benches of this thing saying more like 20 average, and speeds dropping to 15-ish when half full (i.e. when actually making use of it). If you wanted performance, then you go for eSATA instead. It would have been not only faster but you'd also have more bang for your buck. For example, this external eSATA 4 bay enclosure with this WD 2TB drive or this other WD 2TB drive would have costed you 35% more overall, but for 200% the space, better performance, and everything would be new with full mfg warranty. Or if you went with a smaller 1TB drive the price would be identical (but still faster and with full warranty). You'd also have far lower latency over eSATA than USB (you can expect a 20-something ms latency with this thing), and simultaneous read/write operations go a lot smoother over eSATA too. Either ways, Gigabit would still help as you're going to be limited to 12.5MB/s or less over a plain old 100mbit Ethernet connection.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

why are people so worried about services then?

With XP and before services had more impact on system performance.

okay, so, if i get an ethernet switch, and have all my wired devices running though it, and provide internet to it through my dd wrt router, then i could make some gains. but......alright. if i did that, THEN would vista become a hindrance? on gigabit?

Your bottleneck will be disk speed, not the OS. I could saturate most of a Gigabit connection with Vista, but that was on a RAID0 setup.

i hear the drobo only has 40mbps read speed anyway

Over USB2? I don't see it hitting 40MB/s too often (nor for long when it does) -- more like 25-30 on average being a USB device. I've even seen HDTach benches of this thing saying more like 20 average, and speeds dropping to 15-ish when half full (i.e. when actually making use of it). If you wanted performance, then you go for eSATA instead. It would have been not only faster but you'd also have more bang for your buck. For example, this external eSATA 4 bay enclosure with this WD 2TB drive or this other WD 2TB drive would have costed you 35% more overall, but for 200% the space, better performance, and everything would be new with full mfg warranty. Or if you went with a smaller 1TB drive the price would be identical (but still faster and with full warranty). You'd also have far lower latency over eSATA than USB (you can expect a 20-something ms latency with this thing), and simultaneous read/write operations go a lot smoother over eSATA too. Either ways, Gigabit would still help as you're going to be limited to 12.5MB/s or less over a plainj old 100mbit Ethernet connection.

okay, ONE LAST question. i already have a switch connected to my router. in this situation, what i would do is connect a new gigabit switch to my router, and my old switch to the new switch. so, to get to the internet, a computer would go through switch, switch, router, modem. would that work?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That would work just fine. Plug whatever needs the speed in the new switch, the remainder in the old one. Then plug both switches together and the router where you want, or just plug both switches in the router. It's hard to mess this up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That would work just fine. Plug whatever needs the speed in the new switch, the remainder in the old one. Then plug both switches together and the router where you want, or just plug both switches in the router. It's hard to mess this up.

hahaha. man, thanks so much. its all pretty simple. i cant wait to get my hands dirty, even though theres really not much dirt in the first place. thanks a lot man. i really appreciate it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...