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Daemon1313 · 11-13-2008, 02:51 PM

I'll try and answer the best I can. I'll use my home network as an example.

I have two "servers". One is a file server and the other is a media server. There are 5 people that access the network on a regular basis.

The file server is XP Pro with a pair of drives running RAID 1 and are backed up to an external drive on a periodic basis and kept outside the house. It's for storing files that we do not want to loose. Each user has a share on this server and there is one communal share.

The media server is MCE 2005 with a small OS drive and a 1TB data drive. The server has a share for each media type and one share for "mature" content that is locked down.

I use VNC to remote into the computers and manage them. They do not have a keyboard, mouse or monitor attatched to them. Remote desktop would work but I prefer VNC.

All 5 users can access any of the communal shares without any issues. I have network drives mapped to appropriate shares on the various users PC's for my own sanity's sake.

As was pointed out already the bottleneck for performance is the network. I've tested this on my network and I'm running gigabit. RAID 0, RAID 5, SSD drives or Raptor drives won't get you anything with a normal home network. As long as you are using decent quality cable (5e or 6 for gigabit) there is no performance impact up to the max cable length of 100 meters. The RAM and CPU won't make an impact on performance as long as it is enough to run the OS decently.

11-13-2008, 02:51 PM	#12 (permalink)
Daemon1313 Crazy Location: Atlanta	I'll try and answer the best I can. I'll use my home network as an example. I have two "servers". One is a file server and the other is a media server. There are 5 people that access the network on a regular basis. The file server is XP Pro with a pair of drives running RAID 1 and are backed up to an external drive on a periodic basis and kept outside the house. It's for storing files that we do not want to loose. Each user has a share on this server and there is one communal share. The media server is MCE 2005 with a small OS drive and a 1TB data drive. The server has a share for each media type and one share for "mature" content that is locked down. I use VNC to remote into the computers and manage them. They do not have a keyboard, mouse or monitor attatched to them. Remote desktop would work but I prefer VNC. All 5 users can access any of the communal shares without any issues. I have network drives mapped to appropriate shares on the various users PC's for my own sanity's sake. As was pointed out already the bottleneck for performance is the network. I've tested this on my network and I'm running gigabit. RAID 0, RAID 5, SSD drives or Raptor drives won't get you anything with a normal home network. As long as you are using decent quality cable (5e or 6 for gigabit) there is no performance impact up to the max cable length of 100 meters. The RAM and CPU won't make an impact on performance as long as it is enough to run the OS decently. __________________ A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.