Help making home server

I'm trying to set up a home server but I've not been able to find much info on the net on what the best way to do it is. Here are my goals:
1) Back up my everyday use computer and laptop on a scheduled basis
2) Provide an FTP server for my friends so that we can exchange various files (only a select few to have access)
3) Host a small web page just to keep my family and friends up to date on our family
4) Act as a server for any games I play on line with friends
5) Be a file server for all my music an divx videos

What I don't know is what kind of hardware I could accomplish all this with and second what kind of software I need to make all this happen. I have access to lots of software through work so any suggestions will be helpfull. Thanks

You can do this on a any OS, with the built in tools (although better alternatives exist). Your requirements are not very high (I run these services except game server off a 333MHz SPARC which is plenty power). Pretty much a P-400 and above would run this fine. I would however invest in a quick HDD and lots of fast memory (512 and above). I have to admit that I have never run a game server so I don't know what reqiurements for that is.

Oh and make sure you have a nice firewall with those services.

Dev

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