File Server over network
 

Im thihnking about rebuilding my old dell rig into a File server for my GoPro videos, instead of storing them on my main rig. But to access the movies when I want to watch them, I want to be able to pull them up on my main rig from my network. Is that possible? or hard to setup?

You can watch videos pretty easily from a shared folder or mapped drive on the network.

It's very seamless, specially with drive mapping. :) I have a file/media server myself, and mapped its storage hard drive onto my rig and laptop, no fuss. xD

:toast:

Yeah, at work when we need to pull files and stuff for servers from shares that we make we do that. Just not sure how to set that up. This will be a good learning experience too :)

I want to get 2 2TB WD Reds and run them in Raid 1 too

And run Windows Server 2012.

Actually theres not much i cant think of thats usable out of my old dell haha! Maybe the case for a little bit, but if have to rig up a way to have 2 hard drives i think.

Well, here's how to map a network drive in Windows 7:

First in "My computer" select Map Network Drive. As you can see below I already have one mapped from my server "Ninebreaker".
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/at...1&d=1358036893

Then, select the drive letter you want to use and click browse, or manually type the address: //[server name or IP]/[path]
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/at...1&d=1358036899

Lastly, if going through the browse, you should come up with this window, just select the server from the list, then the folder or hard drive that's shared and you're done. The mapped drive should pop up in "My Computer". As you can see, My main rig (Dragons-Crest) and the server (Ninebreaker), the later one listing the folders that are shared.
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/at...1&d=1358036903


Hope it helps, let me know if you need anything else :D

EDIT: Just saw you use Server 2012... I never actually used it, but it should be very similar, since mapping hard drives on older windows was basically the same as on 7.

:toast:

Whats the specs on your server? CPU wise. I was thinking about buying the E8500, 4GB of DDR2 1066 and a micro atx LGA775 board from the for sale section for mine to start out.

My server is pretty simple. Very low footprint.

Mobo: Zotac ION-ITX D-E
CPU: Atom 330 1.6GHz @ 2.0GHz
GPU: ION
RAM: 2x 2GB DDR2 800MHz
HDD: 80GB Hitachi 7200RPM 2.5" SATA (OS)
HDD: 2x 1TB Seagate ES.2 in RAID1
Case: Lian-Li PC-Q11B

It can run 1080p flawlessly, and do basic gaming. :)

Thats pretty sweet. So what i was thinking is overkill! lol. But I was going to mess with VMs too i think.

LOL yeah. You'll need a lot more power than what I have if you're going to be running VMs. If so, your setup is good, but depending on the number of VMs you'll be running at the same time you may need more RAM and CPU cores.

probably 1 or 2 single core VMs

Running two VMs at the same time will be a bit tight on a dual core but should do well enough :)

Running multiple VMs on a modern CPU (even a C2D) with a recent version of VMware or Virtualbox actually isn't that taxing, unless you put a heavy IO(hard disk) or CPU load on 2+ VMs simultaneously (I definitely wouldn't recommend a low-power, 1.?GHz CPU though). However, an issue you're more likely to run into is running out of RAM, if you plan on running three modern OSs (one as the host, and one in each VM).

And file serving is generally a very, very low CPU-demand task.

why limit yourself to local network?

I use HFS (HTTP File Server). This is easy to set up, and you can take it with you! Meaning, if you have a Dynamic DNS client, you can access it from anywhere. I use no-ip free.

I have a port directed to HFS on a reserved IP.

The best part about it...it runs from a web browser, any web browser...smartphones, tablets, etc.

Oh, and its a VIA C-7d doing the work.

I have one of these that would do everything you want(minus VMs) with the smallest footprint possible.

Iomega 1TB Cloud Storage Im 15 mins from Aurora(North Seattle) Lets make a deal

So will my network bottleneck me pretty bad with 15meg down and 3 meg up when trying to transfer 1GB+ GoPro Videos?

Local area network wont rely on your ISP at all it will be dependent on your router and Ethernet cards. Most are 10/100mb, unless you have gigabit which is 1000mb. So transfer will run fine if you have a descent lan. Unless you are talking about what 1freedude is HFS.

My router is the D Link DiR-655.

Your router has gigabit so its plenty fast to support the transfer of the files. What about your motherboard for your PC?

Its a Asrock P67 Extreme 4 Gen3. Onboard LAN.

Which supports these speeds.

10/100/1000Mbps

Im probably going to be buying the CPU and memory tomorrow. E8500 and 4GB of ram fopr about $100. then just need to find a micro atx p45 motherboard, possibly upgrade the PSU in my dell to a CX500M that just released, and then at some point get some 2TB hard drives and be good to go.

Perfect so everything will stream nicely, just make sure the Ethernet port you use for the file server also has 10/100/1000.

yeah. So i have another question. If I want to access a file, and then just save it if i do changes during a video edit or something, will it save automatically to the drives in the file server or will it try to save on my main rig.

When you go to save you can choose the file location to the server

OKay sweet.

This is going to be fun. Play with some old hardware again, and make my first server, and play with Windows Server 2012 some more. Been using it on some infrastructure servers in the labs at work, and its pretty sweet.

I also want to figure out how to TS(Remote Desktop) into it if i do do VMs for testing stuff.

Would you guys get an E8500 or a more recent Trinity A4 APU for $50 bucks? I am looking at going with the AMD setup just because its more recent and easier to find parts for.

I'd do neither...I'd get a NAS box with Cloud support. end cost would be about the same, power consumption would be lower than a full rig.

Well obviously theres better options, but this won't just be a storage server. I want to play around with VMs again. Ive never done a server and access it through the network, so I want to do it and learn. Im doing this as a learning thing, the miniscule benefits from having this server is the last thing im looking at. And I want to build a system haha.