Computer hardware and software
Would this work as a home file backup server?
Question : Would this work as a home file backup server?
My uncle is giving me an old computer which i will hopefully upgrade and hope to use as a backup server. The computer would be running windows xp sp3 and would be hooked up directly to my wireless router so i could wirelessly upload and retrieve files from it on my main computer running windows 7 which has a wifi card.
backup server
Best answer:
Answer by johntrottier
Yes you can make it work
Is it the optimal system? – Probably not
Windows XP is not a server and is not designed as one, so there will be reliability issues that you could do without. Older machines may not have the hardware to support Windows XP, which can make upgrading a pain
Instead – load a Linux distro – Red Hat, Fedora, OpenSuse, Unbuntu – whatever
Linux runs better on older hardware and gets the most out of it. My first Linux server was a Pentium 120, which could not support XP, but was a great server under Linux
Use SAMBA to make the Linux machine appear as a Windows file server
Advantages – more stable, lower costs, better performance
Have Fun
you can use windows xp as a server but it does not have the full functionality as one ie; windows server 2003 sbs/enterprise/web server.
on windows xp you can download a GUI program that is called LAMP it installs webserver/mysql/ftp/apache if you are looking for data backups only, id highly highly recommend using a new computer with a newer operating system with sata drives that have a raid configuration preferbably mirror config. if you are looking for more, active directory/dns/dhcp/print server id recommend windows server 2003/2008.