I am entertaining the idea of setting up a small file server. Couple nice fast harddrives in a RAID configuration, good memory, and just a small processor/video card because there wont even be a monitor attached unless I'm working on it. I would use it to hold all my games. included would be a Gigabit ethernet onboard so when I get my gigabit switch anyone with a gigabit onboard adapter would have a fast lan connection. I was thinking of having 20 or so virtual cdrom drives on the file server and having all my lan games in them so no one needs the cd to play, and to save harddrive room on the other computers in my house. The server would also act as a router for the internet.
My problem is that I dont know if multiple people can access files from one computer through a network. The normal users for the lan would be 3-4, max 7-8 at a time. But could 8 people access game files from one computer at the same time? any lag problems? re-write problems if more than one uses the same file?
second question is about hte virtual drives. ive heard bad things and good things. the good thigns is that no one needs the cd besides once at install. and the game runs faster because harddrive is much faster than cd-rom. i heard 200x cd-rom equivilant. but I heard that it causes systems to crash. I would be using winxp for all of the computers.
any help would be appreciated. and comments on the server idea, any thing i would need to make it run better. I'm a novice at that, i do mainly gaming systems but hate having to install games and patches and mods on everyones comptuer so itll run with everyone else.
My problem is that I dont know if multiple people can access files from one computer through a network. The normal users for the lan would be 3-4, max 7-8 at a time. But could 8 people access game files from one computer at the same time? any lag problems? re-write problems if more than one uses the same file?
second question is about hte virtual drives. ive heard bad things and good things. the good thigns is that no one needs the cd besides once at install. and the game runs faster because harddrive is much faster than cd-rom. i heard 200x cd-rom equivilant. but I heard that it causes systems to crash. I would be using winxp for all of the computers.
any help would be appreciated. and comments on the server idea, any thing i would need to make it run better. I'm a novice at that, i do mainly gaming systems but hate having to install games and patches and mods on everyones comptuer so itll run with everyone else.