Our file server isn’t playing nice anymore. We’re getting Delayed Write Failure messages (which, apparently, are notoriously hard to troubleshoot). Dina’s Mac has intermittent problems connecting to the file shares. The machine itself (processor / main board) is fairly old… 7+ years. I’m going to try to upgrade it to W2K3… if that doesn’t work, maybe I’ll try Linux… What I really think I should do is to buy a new machine (I don’t want to build one). Suggestions on what to buy?
Tags: computer, file server, home network
Back it up first and soon! I can lend you a NAS device if you are backing up under about 200GB (and are running a 32-bit version of Windows).
I voted with my feet and built my fs on Linux (Fedora specifically) and have no regrets. As far as what to buy: Dell can sell you a rack-mount hot-swap server cheaper than you can build that yourself. (I know, having built one myself. :) ) From experience, I know that machine room racks plural will fit in Alex’s closet. ;)
Kramer: I have two drives (which you sold me), one inside the server, and one in an external USB enclosure, so backups aren’t a problem. I’m assuming that Linux can write FAT/FAT32 so the backups can be read on Windows, just in case (though, I know there are Windows drivers that give read-only access to Linux file systems.
The server closet is now across from the bathroom.
Canonical / Ubuntu is coming out with a supported server edition, I may try that.
I also need to make sure it can share our HP LJ 1012 with a Mac and a WinXP machine. I know that there are Linux drivers for the printer, I just need to figure out sharing.