[JDLIVE]

I may be able to acquire a decommissioned server here at work. It's only a PII, though (450 MHz). It's a big beast, but has built in RAID and 6 30GB drives. I'm not sure it's worth the space it will take up for what amounts to 150 GB using RAID5. Is a PII enough to serve DVDs over a network? I assume it's plenty of power for audio files.


EDIT: Whoops, it's dual PIIs. Still not sure if it's worth lugging the big beast home.

 

[jflatt]

Is it free? Probably worth it just for the case alone. You can probably upgrade the cpu's to the max that the motherboard supports and it wouldn't cost much. I doubt you'd have any problems file serving with dual PII anyways.

 

[BenDover]

if you just plan on serving the files and not streaming the video then the dual 450 is plenty...you will be limited by network speed/overhead and hd speed...

 

[JDLIVE]

Yeah, it's free. I'm not sure how upgradable it is, it's a Dell PowerEdge 4300, a 6U or so rackmount beast. I'll probably go ahead if I can find space and power for it. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[drkdiggler]

I don't see why you would have any problems with that machine. *IF* you were able to generate enough disk/network activity to eat up one processor, you would still have another to handle all of the background tasks.

 

[miimura]

I agree it's probably worth it for the case and power supply as long as you can mount IDE disks in it. The CPU is enough for a home media server. All you need now is a 3Ware card and a bunch of big disks. Throw those 30GB drives away, or use as paper weights. They're not worth the electricity to keep them spinning. The only potential issue I see is drive mounting. If it came with SCSI hot swaps, then you'll need new drive carriers and the whole thing is not as attractive. However, I don't know anything about the actual layout of this Dell case.


- Mike

 

[ralphjb]

Go for it. Plenty to do the job.