Question

[CanaBalistic]

I have a question for you guys. I can get older computers for dirt cheap. Are they good for anything? Can they be turned into a decent HTPC or a file server? The computers range from 386's to p3's.

[AKA_RA]

p3s might work as a htpc, depending on what speed and what motherboard you got. but i cant imagine a 386 bewing much good really, unless you need a really big paper weight.

[CanaBalistic]

What about a file server, a p3 should be good enough for that right? Lets say i got a p3, what would my best os be if i wanted a file server?

[OvRiDe]

I have been testing FreeNAS for a while now.. http://www.freenas.org/ It works great! Takes only 16MB of disk space (so you could put it on a cheap Flashdrive and save your disk drives for storage), and has a web based interface to adminster it, so you don't need a keyboard, mouse or monitor once you finish the install.

Hope this helps ..

[Nagoshi]

Or just use Windows XP. Im runnin XP on my P3 right now, and it runs about 25% faster than with 98SE or ME.

Or you can use NT for networking.

But note, for a P3, you may surely need an extra HD controller, to allows bigger sizes. If you are lucky enough, you may get an ABIT BE6-II motherboard, which has 2 controllers, for a total of 4 UDMA/66 HDDs and 4 UDMA/33 devices. Im having 3 HDDs and 1 CD drive (would have 2 drives if I wouldnt be missing molex splitters). But even then, HPT366 does not support more than like 80Gb of hard disk, or somewhat around that, I cant remember the right number. So you will probly need one of those PCI controllers.

[silverdemon]

I'm using windows server 2003 on a AMD K6 II 500 MHz system... works very good... and uses less resources than winXP ...

[nil8]

386's are fun to burn up or shoot.

FreeNAS looks like fun to play with.

[fiendskull9]

run FreeNAS, Slackware Linux, or an other lightweight linux distro.....

dont run windows NT, youll get alot better performance with FreeNAS >_<

if you dont know how to use linux, go to a local computer nerd shop, and ask if anyone does, explain that your setting up a file server.....

or google around

-clay

[nil8]

Google is a better option. There's enough linux users out now to solve almost any dilemma a new user will have.

[Omega]

As for the 386s; try to see if you can overclock the **** out of them and take off the heatsink.

CPU go boom!