I had spare parts laying around, an extra $30 student copy of Win7 pro, and a few bucks, so I have a dedicated machine running as my NAS for my multiple desktop/laptop Windows PCs and Macs.
It is an Antec Sonata III w/500w PSU... 7200gs video with heatsink... Athlon 3200+ w/1gb RAM... dedicated PCI-E Gigabit Intel NIC... run through a gigabit switch. For storage I have 2x1.5tb HDDs, and a 500gb HDD.
Everything is running great for storage syncing/transferring between systems. I have it running iTunes and sharing the music collection to access on all systems.
But what else can I do with this system that is cool?
Remote file access when away from home?
Forward torrent dloads to it?
Host a website?
Host an FTP server?
I guess I just feel like having a good OS (pro version) with decent hardware all dedicated to being a NAS server or server in general means it has a lot more potential than just sharing my files and iTunes. Would appreciate any suggestions, advice, info, ideas, etc.!
I'm sure there is more to do I just don't know what!
(and when it comes to hosting a website or remote access, I have 5mbps upload speed through Verizon Fios)