Setting up a Homeserver

Webservers/file servers do not need that much power, One computer will do just fine. Your internet providers upload bandwidth will be the real bottle neck.

Most ISP's give you fast 600k+ downloads but only 50-100k up.

You do not need anything overpowered. a cheap dual core should work fine(no point in getting single core now days). A fast hard drive can help if the site gets allot of visitors.

OS choice is up to you. I have done this with Windows XP Pro(Now MCE). Apache for the web server(mostly for avatar hosting and file transfers), Teamspeak, Quake wars dedicated(as well as other games at different times) file server(local network only) and MCE to record TV. the machine may as well do as much as it can. This was on an old A64 3200+(Before that it was a XP 1800+ 512 ram, but it was just web and ts and file then) with a 120gig(now over 1000gb) drive and 1 gig of ram. And it folds too

Since linux is FREE its a great option, just find one with Apache built in to make life easier.

I just wanted windows because its easy to use for me. I only shut it down for cleaning, it does not crash or anything. plenty stable for what i am doing.

109 days, but it was time to clean it  


I would honestly say if you have an old machine, start with that, then you can figure out what software you want before dumping money into something new

Last year I got an old spare server my job gave away to me...I first reformatted the hard drive (it had windows server 2003, and because I'm a nubcake, I'm not very familiar with it...). I then installed Windows XP Pro, and setup a workgroup that consisted of my desktop (gaming) computer, my two laptops, and my girlfriends laptop...It worked perfectly and was able to share all my files through my wireless router...
After everything working perfectly, for some stupid reason I decided to reformat the computer and install a linux distro on it...I wanted to set it up as a file server...I tried setting it up as an ftp server but I couldn't manage to share the external hard drive that was connected to the server (which is where most of the files were located...the internal hard drive of the server is only about 40gb)...
...My lack of linux experience was probably the reason why the linux server didn't work for me...If you don't have any linux experience, I would probably stick to using a simple Windows workgroup, especially if the server is only going to distribute to a few amount of computers...

sorry if this was too long...just my 2 cents...

btw...the specs on the old server they gave me are:
AMD Athlon XP 2500+ (socket A)
512 MB DDR 400
40GB HDD
...and I forget the other details...

but anyway...my point is, just as nukemaster noted, you don't need a power house of a computer to have a simple file server...

Thanx for your replies, but still i'm trying to use what I already have, which are those 3 computers, so... any idea how to put them at good use?

Use them for separate duty.

1. Webserver/blog
2. File server
3. Expensive stereo/dvd player  

What are the specs on your parts?

You can use them for research.
http://folding.stanford.edu/

but if I use separetly will I be able to make them share a single hard drive?

It would not be easy, there are not any easy ways to do that.

Network booting can be done, but its not worth the hassle in this case.

take all the best parts in one machine and use it for your server, keep the other parts for spares or when you come across more parts.