Pentium 4 file server

[Mr. Gruntsworthy]

Just so I can outsource all my music, media, etc from my gaming machine to a dedicated hosting system (one that will also run Limewire and Bitcomet), I was thinking of fixing up my old Dell Pentium 4 machine. Now, it would require a bit of working around to get it set up in a standard ATX case (stupid incompatible Dell crap).

Keep in mind that the system need not be powerful; it's only needing to operate two large hard drives, windows xp, limewire, bitcomet, and maybe some other miscellaneous filesharing things.

Though, if you have useful suggestions for me as far as network sharing and the like goes, i'd be open to it.


anyways, here's the build (italicized parts i have already):

Case: Antec NSK4480 380W Mid Tower ATX Blk/Slv
OS: Windows XP SP3
Processor: Intel Pentium 4 @ 1.7GHz (socket 478), 400MHz FSB
HSF: CoolerMaster ICC-L81 X-Dream3 Fan for P4
Motherboard: ASRock P4i65G/M s478 AGP 8x Motherboard
Power Supply: 380W PS included with case
Graphics Card: Radeon X1650 Pro
Memory: 512MB DDR 400MHz
Hard Drives: 1 x 80GB IDE WDC (OS, Apps); 2 x 500GB OR 2 x 1TB SATA Western Digital (File Storage) w/ HDD coolers
Optical Drives: 1 x LG DVD-RW combo drive (IDE)

I dont have a heatsink for socket 478 cpus, so thats why i'm getting one. And i figured i might as well get a decent one to increase the longevity of the cpu, because this system will be on 24/7.

I can only find microATX mobos for socket 478 P4s, so i'm hoping this Antec case can hold MATX mobo's no problem.

It also looks like i'm going to have to affix HDD coolers to the bottom of the two storage HDD's to keep them nice and cool as they will be running quite frequently (between limewire, bitcomet, and network access). I know somebody's going to suggest RAID, and I may consider it. I'm either going to get two 500GB drives to run non-RAID, or two 1TB drives to run in RAID. (Can I run RAID with the two 1TB drives, not worrying about the 80GB IDE drive apps and OS are installed on?)

I'm also going to map the storage hard drives so that my two other computers in my system (my gaming pc and my htpc) have easy access to it's contents.

The computer will be left alone to do it's thing, somewhere in a dark corner of my room.

The reason for outsourcing files to this server is to decrease clutter and whatnot from my gaming and HTPCs, and to have a centralized spot for storage.

if you spot any parts that are incompatible with eachother let me know :P

[Tazer-[X]]

only one OS needed, OpenBSD.

[Mr. Gruntsworthy]

windows will do all that i need this machine to do, though.

[yamawho]

The video card is way overkill for a server.

Try and have the system consume the least power possible since it will be on 24/7.

A mobo with onboard graphics would be better or better still, for about the cost of that ASRock P4i65G/M, you could get this mobo that has an intigrated cpu as well ...

Link here ...
Intel BOXD945GCLF2 MINI-ITX DDR2 945GC Dual Core Atom 1PCI Motherboard Retail - DirectCanada

[Mr. Gruntsworthy]

the reason the graphics card seems overkill is because it's the only extra one i have lying around at the moment. If i could stick something less powerful in there, i would :/

edit: LOL I found an old Radeon 7000 kicking around xD

[Tazer-[X]]

even a radeon is to powerfull. I used to build my servers back in the day with 1 MB Trident video cards. All I was doing was reading text, not displaying graphics. And sides, Windows makes great servers, but, not free ones:P

[Mr. Gruntsworthy]

Eh, i already own the copy of XP so why not.