Network File Server

What is the minimum configuration for a Windows-based network file
server for a small SOHO LAN? Would you use Win2K or XP Pro? The idea
is to put disk resources in one machine for ease of maintenance and
reduced cost.

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Bob wrote in message
...

What is the minimum configuration for a Windows-based
network file server for a small SOHO LAN?

Not that easy to say unless you say what you plan to store on it.

If its just a single place to have most files and those are only
used ocassionally, almost anything would be fine, right down
to a Celeron 400 class system. The main advantage with that
level is that those are very decent for memory etc. The older
socket 7 systems can be pretty fussy about ram.

Would you use Win2K or XP Pro?

XP, basically because its likely to have the user interface
a lot closer to what the other PCs are using, and thats
always handy for small non professional type situations
where you dont normally do much to the server very often.

The idea is to put disk resources in one machine
for ease of maintenance and reduced cost.

It doesnt really have to be a dedicated machine tho.

On Sun, 2 May 2004 05:49:09 +1000, "Rod Speed"
wrote:

What is the minimum configuration for a Windows-based
network file server for a small SOHO LAN?

Not that easy to say unless you say what you plan to store on it.

Just the usual stuff that home bodies store on PCs.

If its just a single place to have most files and those are only
used ocassionally, almost anything would be fine, right down
to a Celeron 400 class system.

That's what I am looking for.

The main advantage with that
level is that those are very decent for memory etc.

How much RAM for Win2K and for XP Pro? I am using 384MB for Win2K so I
would expect 128 MB should suffice for a network file server.

Would you use Win2K or XP Pro?

XP, basically because its likely to have the user interface
a lot closer to what the other PCs are using,

I am used to Win2K so that is not an issue. I was thinking more in
terms of performance.

The idea is to put disk resources in one machine
for ease of maintenance and reduced cost.

It doesnt really have to be a dedicated machine tho.

That's true. But if I use my machine then when I am busy with heavy
computing I would degrade performance. For example, I have about a
dozen Mozilla windows open and refreshing at all times, a market-based
charting package in real time and an active trading platform. That's
puts a load on the file system as it is, but what happens when my son
wants to play a DVD movie and my wife wants to look at some pics?

I intend to put 2 removable 3.5" hard drive bays, a DVD/CD-RW burner
and a DVD/CDROM highspeed reader on the box. That way we are covered
for just about anything we want to do.

Thanks for your comments.

--

Map Of The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy:
http://www.freewebs.com/vrwc/

"You can all go to hell, and I will go to Texas."
--David Crockett

Pentium 75, 32MB, Windows NT, IDE disks up to 135GB.

"Bob" wrote in message
...
What is the minimum configuration for a Windows-based network file
server for a small SOHO LAN? Would you use Win2K or XP Pro? The idea
is to put disk resources in one machine for ease of maintenance and
reduced cost.

(Bob) wrote in news:40940624.108272908@news-
server.houston.rr.com:

Just the usual stuff that home bodies store on PCs.

I'm hoping to get 1TB storage for my "home" file server. Backups, disk
images, and streaming AVI and MP3 files. Dual P3-800, 1GB ram, running
Server 2003. It's my desktop PC until I get a new one, then it will be the
"server".

If its just a single place to have most files and those are only
used ocassionally, almost anything would be fine, right down
to a Celeron 400 class system.

That's what I am looking for.

You could get by with even less depending on the OS. For Win2K, I'd want a
minimum of Celeron 300 and 128 megs of ram. But you could get by on a P133
running Win2K if you're just streaming mp3s for example. A P133 with 64MB
ram running Linux or Netware performs pretty good for file serving too.

How much RAM for Win2K and for XP Pro? I am using 384MB for Win2K so I
would expect 128 MB should suffice for a network file server.

Win2k and 128MB if you are doing nothing but sharing disk. If you want to
do more, like run antivirus, backup software, internet connection sharing,
remote desktop, VNC, or any other sort of background programs, then you'll
find that with 128MB and Win2k, you will see times where the disk is
thrashing as it starts moving stuff in and out of the page file. It will
significantly slow down at those times. You might want 256MB of ram to
avoid that.

Would you use Win2K or XP Pro?

XP, basically because its likely to have the user interface
a lot closer to what the other PCs are using,

I am used to Win2K so that is not an issue. I was thinking more in
terms of performance.

The performance isn't going to be much different as far as putting files
out on a LAN goes. XP will see more page file activity than Win2K on a
128MB, because it uses more memory to start with. At least that's been my
experience between running the two. Even with 1GB of ram, XP paged to disk
more frequently. I run Server 2003 now, and it accesses the page file less
than XP did. If you only have 128MB, I'd use Win2K, otherwise use
whichever you prefer.

You can use perfmon to monitor disk queue length and paging to see if
you're getting any serious delays. You may want to log some stats over a
few days to see what your usage is really like. It can be handy if you
think you're slowing down due to some performance issues.

The idea is to put disk resources in one machine
for ease of maintenance and reduced cost.

It doesnt really have to be a dedicated machine tho.

That's true. But if I use my machine then when I am busy with heavy
computing I would degrade performance. For example, I have about a
dozen Mozilla windows open and refreshing at all times, a market-based
charting package in real time and an active trading platform. That's
puts a load on the file system as it is, but what happens when my son
wants to play a DVD movie and my wife wants to look at some pics?

Unless you're playing games, where you need user response to be within
fractions of a seconds, it probably wouldn't perform that bad. At least
not on most new machines purchased today. Something like an Intel Celeron
2.4 or Athlon 2400, with 512MB RAM. Add a separate disk for the file
serving and that will reduce the transaction load on your main disk where
you are running your OS and apps. My dual P3-800 is a relatively old
system, much slower in any benchmark than the celeron 2.4, yet it does
streaming AVIs, internet game server, ripping CDs, compressing to mp3,
downloading from newsgroups and p2p, remote desktop, all at the same time.
It still seems responsive to me for web browsing and newsgroup reading.
It's only if I'm playing games that I shut down everything else.

I intend to put 2 removable 3.5" hard drive bays, a DVD/CD-RW burner
and a DVD/CDROM highspeed reader on the box. That way we are covered
for just about anything we want to do.

It is nice to have a machine dedicated for burning; fewer interruptions for
the one person who happens to have a burner in their PC. I like the
Plextor 8x dvd/rw out now, because it burns fast for both DVDs and CDs.
Previously, many of the DVD/CD burners were much slower at burning CDs than
the dedicated 52x CD burners for example. The Plextor does 40x cd-r (peak
speeds).

Keep an eye on cooling and power supply. Make sure you've got enough of
both if you are loading the system up with drives. I've got two ibm 22gb,
one maxtor 40gb, and two maxtor 160gb. Soon to add a Maxtor 300gb. I run
two intake fans and two exaust fans, plus the power supply fan. This is
overkill. I prefer having 4 low speed fans to just two high speed fans,
because it's quieter.

Best of luck on your server build.

Bob wrote:

What is the minimum configuration for a Windows-based network file
server for a small SOHO LAN? Would you use Win2K or XP Pro? The idea
is to put disk resources in one machine for ease of maintenance and
reduced cost.


I'd use Linux -- more bang for the buck.

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On Sun, 02 May 2004 00:12:34 GMT, "Mr. Grinch"
wrote:

Best of luck on your server build.

Thanks for all the great advice.

How did you get more than 4 disk devices in one box? Did you add a
controller card?

Speaking of controllers, can anyone recommend a decent RAID setup for
a network file server. Can you get by without having to backup disks
when you have a decent RAID system?


--

Map Of The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy:
http://www.freewebs.com/vrwc/

"You can all go to hell, and I will go to Texas."
--David Crockett

On Sun, 02 May 2004 01:41:34 GMT, CJT wrote:

What is the minimum configuration for a Windows-based network file
server for a small SOHO LAN? Would you use Win2K or XP Pro? The idea
is to put disk resources in one machine for ease of maintenance and
reduced cost.

I'd use Linux -- more bang for the buck.

How would the other machines running Windows access the file system on
such a Linux box?

--

Map Of The Vast Right Wing Conspiracy:
http://www.freewebs.com/vrwc/

"You can all go to hell, and I will go to Texas."
--David Crockett

(Bob) wrote in news:4094ad7c.151112878@news-
server.houston.rr.com:

On Sun, 02 May 2004 00:12:34 GMT, "Mr. Grinch"
wrote:

Best of luck on your server build.

Thanks for all the great advice.

How did you get more than 4 disk devices in one box? Did you add a
controller card?

Yes, I added a Promise Ultra 133 TX card. ATA 133 and two connectors for 4
drives. I've got the two IBM 22GXP on the motherboard IDE primary. I've
got two optical drives on motherboard IDE secondary, an Aopen 20x CDRW and
a TDK DVDRW. I've got two Maxtor 160GB on the Promise Ultra133 card
primary, and the remaining Maxtor 40 on the secondary. I'm adding a Maxtor
300GB to that last empty IDE connector soon as I can find one in Canada.

I've got it partitioned like this.
ibm 22GB DISK for C: (windows me) D: (server 2003) and E: (apps)
ibm 22GB DISK for F: (games, page file)
maxtor 160GB DISK for G: (data, mp3s)
maxtor 160GB DISK for H: (videos)
maxtor 40GB DISK for I: (temporary files, ntfs, dvd creation, downloads,
scratch disk)
tdk dvdrw:j
aopen cdrw k:

Spreading out the things like OS, Page File, Apps, and Temp/ Scratch across
multiple disks helps spread the transaction load out across the disks, so
you don't have any one disk with queued up instructions thrashing away
while others sit idle. It doesn't do load balancing across the disks
automagicly like RAID but you still can improve performance, once you know
what's generating transactions and split them up across multiple disks.

Speaking of controllers, can anyone recommend a decent RAID setup for
a network file server. Can you get by without having to backup disks
when you have a decent RAID system?

It depends. Is this for home use also?

The cheapest options would be 2 channel, 4 disk ATA RAID cards, like those
from Hipoint or Promise, or, get a motherboard that already has ATA RAID on
it. These typically support RAID 0, 1, and 0+1. If you need disk
redundancy, you can go with mirroring, but you really should test it to
make sure you can fail a drive and have it still boot and access the
files, and then test to see that you can put the drive back in and have it
rebuild properly. A lot of people set up RAID systems with redundant
drives, but never test them. Then a drive fails and they find out the hard
way that the redundancy didn't work or wasn't set up right.

Since mirroring updates the drives all the time, they aren't a replacement
for backups. Backups you can easily have multiple copies of, and you can
keep them for a specific date, and pick what to restore from that date.
With mirrored disks, the only way you get multiple copies or backups of a
certain date is to have lots of drives, one for every copy or date that you
need. It's just too expensive to do that, for most people. And instead of
restoring the single file, you need to bring back the entire disk to get
what you want, then figure out how to store it someplace temporary while
you put the up-to-date disk back in. While you are doing this, you
probably don't want any more changes to the drive, so the system is out of
commission. You wouldn't want anyone else using it. With a regular backup,
program, you can restore files and the users of the server won't even
notice. You don't have to shut the system down unless you're restoring the
OS.

Mirrors on the other hand are handy to have as a back-out for system
changes. Break the mirror so one drive doesn't get changed, then you can
make your changes, and boot. If the changes did something bad to your
system, you can go back to the mirrored disk you pulled, Disconnect the
updated drive, and use the backup drive to boot instead. Put the
"updated" drive back in and wait for it to remirror. Now you're back to
where you were. The time to mirror a drive varies. But as far as getting
the system back up and running, this method is pretty fast, compared to a
full system backup and restore. If the system is really important to you,
you'll want to do both. That is, have a full backup AND pull a mirrored
drive before you make your changes. This is a standard that a lot of
businesses or datacenters practice.

If you aren't mirroring (RAID 1) and are just striping (RAID 0) then
definately backups are a must if the data has any value.

The next option up in price are higher end ATA RAID controllers like those
from 3ware. If you want to stick to ATA disks but want to do the best
possible with ATA, then you can get these features: bigger volumes with
more disks (4, 8, or 12), battery backed up caches, redundancy features
like RAID 5 and hotspares, driver support for more operating systems. If
that's what you want then consider cards like those from 3Ware.

You can also buy a cheap ATA NAS device. It will be like a cheap PC in a
small box, running an embedded OS like Linux, with room for a drive or two.
Usually it will be managed through a web page. Drop it on your network,
set up the drives and security, and pray it doesn't break! They don't have
all the functionality of a PC, but they are small and cheap for the limited
file sharing task people buy them for.

The next option up from those are SCSI or Fiberchannel arrays. These tend
to be more expensive, faster, and have more reliability and redundancy
functions. Multiple SCSI busses and controllers, multiple power supplies,
higher rpm drives, bigger caches, battery backups, etc etc. But this is the
minimum standard storage for a lot of businesses performance and redundancy
needs.

Next up from those we have dedicated SANS / NAS / storage arrays. The
smallest, cheapest ones may be close to the pricing of the higher end SCSI
arrays. From there the price just keeps going up into tens millions of
dollars. The high end ones have redundant everything, full battery power,
gigabytes of cache, and their own operating systems and network switches.
The service contracts for them alone cost more than the total price of the
lower end systems. These would be the higher end systems that EMC and
Hitachi sell.

There is a growing demand for ATA drives used in conjunction with the super
expensive high-end systems. Because disk for the high-end systems is very
expensive per MB compared to the other solutions, some places will try to
minimize how much data they have on the fast storage. Or, they may find
that they have so much fast storage that regular backups to traditional
backup media just takes far to long. For both situations, there is a
solution called "Near line storage" which basically means something you can
move seldom used files or backups to. It's faster than tape but not as
fast as the high end disk and cache. It's an intermediate way to backup to
tape or a place to offload files that don't require high speed access. The
low cost of ATA drives has vendors offering them in large arrays as a cheap
yet fast alternative for nearline storage.

(Bob) wrote in news:4094af89.151638053@news-
server.houston.rr.com:

On Sun, 02 May 2004 01:41:34 GMT, CJT wrote:

What is the minimum configuration for a Windows-based network file
server for a small SOHO LAN? Would you use Win2K or XP Pro? The idea
is to put disk resources in one machine for ease of maintenance and
reduced cost.

I'd use Linux -- more bang for the buck.

How would the other machines running Windows access the file system on
such a Linux box?


There is probably more than one Linux solution for this. The most common one
is called SAMBA. Basically it emulates a Windows share (SMB) and makes the
Linux file system look like a networked windows drive to Windows clients.
It's used quite widely, from high-end file servers to tiny little NAS devices
with embedded Linux on them.