In reply to a post by john2007:

Any version of Linux. Given that the box may be connected to the www I'd go for something like Debian which has timely (if irregular) security updates.

Linux has become much more usable than it was 5 years ago.

Will this be easy to configure as a NAS drive and aslo web services FTP HTTP etc.

TBH im ok with linux i can do some command line stuff and im oki with distros like ubuntu and backtrack and i im not scared of having to learn new things about it but in the 6 year ive been messing with linux/unix ive never really bothered to look into the network file sharing/web side always did it on my windows comps lol , Basically i usually just go with a duistro designed for the job EG freenas/Open Media Vault are designed for it so i took the other posters advice to try it out lol do you think Debian could do a better job

Ash

In reply to a post by AEP:

I can't help with the choice of processor (although personally I would probably go for the Pentium 4 as it has more cache), but can I make some suggestions about the OS.

1. If you want the best performance forget Windows 7. It has a lot of overhead which helps it as a desktop system but is just a waste of resources for a NAS/server.

2. Although Ubuntu will do the job, I still think you are using a desktop system to do a server's work.

3. Can I suggest that you investigate FreeNAS. This is built specifically to do the job that you want, so will make the best use of your hardware. It's built on FreeBSD rather than Linux, but don't worry about that. It's actually a better, more mature, and stabler OS that is ideally suited to this application. You don't specify what "other little things" you want to run but all should be available under FreeBSD. The 2GB of memory will be more than enough for this setup.

Just a quick update i ended up installing windows server 2008 R2 lol and added active directory for the fun goto roaming profiles lol i tried a few alternatives in the end theyd do some things i wanted but not others were as server 2008 r2 seams to do the lot i want + more,
Its running smoothly and i realy only use windows pcs with the odd linux but so far ubuntu can access all the shares n stuff and the web server side is working perfect

Thanks for all your help you've given me info so i can help other people who need similar setups, Freenas has ended up been perfect for one of my friends so some good came out of me giving that a try

Ash

Roaming profiles is very last decade.... you probably want to enable folder redirection in conjunction with.

In fact hang on a minute how are you running 2008 R2 with a 32bit CPU....

Wasn't one of the available processors a 64-bit one?

I thought we had settled on P4!

In reply to a post by Pipexer:

Roaming profiles is very last decade.... you probably want to enable folder redirection in conjunction with.

I know but i always enjoyed them lol when youve got a few pcs its nice to have you wallpaper n other custom [censored] follow you lol and yes ive enabled folder redirection.

In fact hang on a minute how are you running 2008 R2 with a 32bit CPU....

I swapped the P4 for a PD 64bit out of another old comp that still runs XP ironically the XP pc speeded up it seamed to like the P4 HT better than the PD lol.

I have a load of way old comps that get used for various things and then my more powerful comps for gaming and vid editing lol im working on clearing most of the older ones out i dont really need them i just dont like thorwing things away ya never know when they will come in handy haha

And yes the celeron was also 64bit but i did not realy want to use the celeron on server 2008 lol

Ash