I have several older PCs that I have sort of turned into 'network attached storage' units by basically installing XP, installing several hard drives and then connect it to my router via an ethernet connection. I would then basically change each installed internal drive so it has sharing properties and then map each to my main PC as a separate drive letter. It has been working good for the most part, but I'm wondering about trying another way. I thought about maybe trying to install Windows Home Server on an older PC. Does this program then take ALL the internal drives (3 of them) and make them look like one big drive throughout my network when I try to map a drive from this PC? Is there maybe another alternative to Windows Home Server? Something that might also be cheaper?
Me and my housemate run NAS PCs that run a Linux OS, and even with that we map each drive as a separate share name. The only good way to have all the drives appear as one would be to RAID them, but that's not really beneficial without a good RAID card (typically PCI express) and several drives, at least 4, preferably 6 or more.
The linux server method is to make a mount point for the full array containing symlinks to the other locations. That hides the actual drive configuration from users while the admin can still keep track of what is where for backups etc.
One of these days i must get around to moving all my (shared) hard drives onto a Linux box but for now i have them all on just the one PC (XP); 6 of the drives are internal and the rest are USB2.0 attached. This is just so all my machines and xboxes around the house can easily access the various shares, and works well enough, though doing this on multiple pc's would obviously be wasteful. As a *nix guy i use & understand symlinks (though personally they drive me barmy if the're used/abused too much) however when used properly they are a great way to achieve things (that Windows machines couldn't even begin to cope with) For now i use various shares but make sure to keep the share names clear and obvious.
The thing that gets me is the 2-3 second network access latency that windows has, if you make a file transfer, or worse install a game that has to access 100 files, even if they're only tiny, that's at least 5 minutes just waiting for windows to catch up.
I don't experience any lag that i notice, especially lucky since all upstairs pc's and xboxes are ethernet connected to a wireless router (using DD-WRT firmware) and that router is connected wirelessly (using WDS over WPA) to the downstairs (DD-WRT) wireless router which in turn is hanging off the cable modem, i think that's the proverbial ancient Motorola modem. So internet use is very quick around the house, as is LAN access. But as i say i must one day sort out knocking up a Linux equivalent machine to drive all the shares. Trouble is it's all too much like bringing my work home
