Turning my 'unused' windoze PC into Mac compatible server?

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maybejamesmaybejames
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Right



After a 12" Powerbook, Mac Mini and now a Macbook I realise that I almost never use my 'old' windows pc

After I installed the Vista beta and was totally underwhelmed I haven't turned it on.

There is however just under a terrabyte of usable storage space on the machine and also a collection of all my movies etc.

I wanted to know what peoplle might recommend I do with the machine?! (serious suggestions!)

Should I keep it as Vista and connect up with my macbook as and when it feels like playing or is there a specific OS that is worth intalling to turn it into a 'home server'.





Thanks in advance,



James

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    benzenebenzene Posts: 338member
    If you feel like using linux, you can use netatalk to easily share drives via appletalk/appleshare.
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  • Reply 2 of 4
    mynameheremynamehere Posts: 560member
    Turn it into a home server. I'd suggest Some UNIX/Linux OS given tha they tend to be more stable. If you want a really easy to set up/manage OS exclusively for serving files, try FreeNAS. You can use Samba ('WIndows Sharing') as a fairly universal way of sharing your files.
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  • Reply 3 of 4
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Maybejames View Post


    After I installed the Vista beta and was totally underwhelmed I haven't turned it on



    I hear ya. I was like, OK, pretty, then after about 1 day you're like, well, that was fun, now what?
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  • Reply 4 of 4
    sunilramansunilraman Posts: 8,133member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Maybejames View Post


    Right



    After a 12" Powerbook, Mac Mini and now a Macbook I realise that I almost never use my 'old' windows pc

    After I installed the Vista beta and was totally underwhelmed I haven't turned it on.

    There is however just under a terrabyte of usable storage space on the machine and also a collection of all my movies etc.

    I wanted to know what peoplle might recommend I do with the machine?! (serious suggestions!)

    Should I keep it as Vista and connect up with my macbook as and when it feels like playing or is there a specific OS that is worth intalling to turn it into a 'home server'.





    Thanks in advance,



    James



    As suggested above, use Vista and SMB (Samba) ... in Mac OSX, go to Directory Access, then set your workgroup to the same name as the PC computer in My Network ...



    Get a 802.11g/n(?) router (if you don't have one) and connect via ethernet to Windows Machine. Voila.



    But seriously, I think just SMB (Samba) is a shit protocol for NAS. There has to be better options out there for hash-check-verified, transactional system for transfers of big files onto and off the NAS. Maybe "FTP Server" or

    "BitTorrent Internal Server" or some other NAS software for Linux..... ????



    Otherwise, RIP OUT THE HARD DISKS FROM THE WINDOWS PC, put it in a external FW400 RAID1 case. Take the monitor for the PC and hook it up to the Mac Mini, as extra screen, etc, if you haven't already. I think this is the best suggestion.



    Particularly if you're talking about Movies, TVShows, DVDRips, etc, 802.11n even is painful at best. Unless there's GigabitEthernet connections between the NAS and the Macs, it's pretty damn slow. Hence my suggestion of just using the harddiskspace through FW400. That way too all transfers are just regular Mac-OSX-Finder type transactions(transfers). The clincher is a hardware based RAID1 enclosure so you don't have to worry about all the RAID details, the enclosure itself will just take 2 or 4 or whatever of you hard disks from the WindowsPC, and handle the RAID1 -- you obviously WANT REDUNDANCY on your Movies, etc. If the hard disks eat it and you lose a Terabyte of data, not fun, eh...?? 8)
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