Hi,
I have an old pentium MMX 233mhz computer that was donated to me. In my house i have a small network, which I would like something to store files on. Would it be possible to put a fresh install of windows 2000, put say, 4 120gb hard drives in, and set them all up for sharing. Then connect it to my network. I dont have much room so a monitor is a no no, unless ts for maintinence purposes. Would this work? Im not so good with PC's so i thought i'd ask!
Thanks
Oliver
Yes it would work however I would recommend that the machine have at least 128 or more megs of ram (a lot of those old 233 based systems took 72 pin ram and had mostly up to 64 megs). I also would consider putting one of those pci ultra ata133 cards into the system as well to get the best throughput (the 233 system problaby has ata33 or 66 on the motherboard).
For that matter, i would put a ata raid card into it and raid the 4 drives if you are concerned about your data.
It should...
I would recommend putting VNC onto it
I had something like that in mind for a 466 celeron emachines with 196mb of ram. I don't need a huge amount of HD space, so I was thinking one 100gb drive. What is the best OS for this? It is currently running Windoze 98se-can I rig that for sharing over a Wireless network? Is VNC the best option for me? I have read about it, and it seems like a viable option.
VNC is nice because then you can run a headless server. I'm lazy and all my machines are winxp pro or win2k server so I just use remote desktop connection/terminal services but VNC works as a server on a wide variety of operating systems (including win98se).
personally, i would go with win2k pro on the466 celeron box for a file server. To me, win98se is okay for a workstation but its just not reliable enough to act as a server.
Win98se will work though in a pinch.
Or if you are adventurous, you could consider one of the many flavors of Linux out there, I want to try Mandrake 10.2 myself.
Depending on the age of the mobo you'll quite liekly run into the 8.4GB drive limit. There are workarounds from drive manufacturers, but be aware that they are there. Also, a P233 is gonna top out at ATA33, and is most likely gonna be a PIO Mode 4 capable controller. For most purposes most anythingis gonna be just fine. How fast is your network? ATA-133 is gonna be over kill on a P233 and any 100Base-T network. Really, it's not like you are trying to build a high load server, right? Just personal files? If it's a 10Base-T network or 802.11b, then anything over PIO Mode 4 or UDMA33 is gonna be overkill.
I've got a simple Celeron 400MHz machine running as a file and print server at home. I'm running Win2k on it, and it has 192MB RAM and a 40GB hard drive. Works like a charm--I've got VNC installed on it so I can keep the monitor I have hooked up to it off. It serves two printers (my LaserJet 5MP and my Epson inkjet) and works as a good place to dump backups to.
Eventually, the machine will be swapped out for a 933MHz P3 machine running Win Server 2003, but for now, it's great.
Why do you need it to serve the lasjet 5mp? Doesn't the laserjet 5mp have eithernet with a built in jetdirect card? I know that my laserjet 5 does? (awsome rock solid printer btw).
You might want to have a look at the Linux distro called SME Server.
http://www.contribs.org
Based around Red-Hat it provides a very easy to set up base for a simple file/web server. Look out for a new Lycoris supported release coming soon too.
You're thinking of the 5P. The 5MP is its baby brother, and doesn't have a JetDirect slot.
I have a 5mp with a jetdirect EX and it works flawlessly.
Is the ex the external model?
The 5MP is a good, solid printer, but only if you upgrade its RAM. The thing is slooooooow if it only has its original 3MB. I upgraded the memory in mine to 11MB, and printing is significantly faster.
Yes, it connects via a funky parallel cable
Same here, though above 6 it only seems to matter on really huge documents.
I think i have 28 megs of ram in my LJ5. I keep meaning to buy the postscript dimm off ebay for mine so that I can print to it directly from my mac's without having to use ghostscript.