file server Turning My Old PC Into a File Server

[Schyken]

I've got an old HP Pavilion PC lying around and I was wondering what I'd need to do to make it into a file server on my home network. Just a place where I can store and retrieve files from any other PC in the house. It has 12GB of DDR3 Memory, an AMD Phenom II, a 1TB SSHD, a 1TB HDD, and no discrete graphics card. Right now, I just have it hooked up running Windows 10 and I've shared the hard drive over the network, but it's really not what I wanted to do. I need it to be solely for server function without Windows installed. Any tips?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Windows will work just fine at file sharing and there are no big feature you gain going to another os in your case, but if you want.You can install freenas, roctstor or use ubuntu server/debian/centos with samba as a file server.

[Schyken]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Windows will work just fine at file sharing and there are no big feature you gain going to another os in your case, but if you want.You can install freenas, roctstor or use ubuntu server/debian/centos with samba as a file server.

Okay, thanks. The only reason I want a dedicated OS for file sharing is that CPU power is lost running Windows if I'm grabbing multiple files from different devices. Would you say my setup is okay for FreeNAS? I know I could probably do better, but for now this is what I have.

[Electronics Wizardy]

 

1 minute ago, Schyken said:

Okay, thanks. The only reason I want a dedicated OS for file sharing is that CPU power is lost running Windows if I'm grabbing multiple files from different devices. Would you say my setup is okay for FreeNAS? I know I could probably do better, but for now this is what I have.

There will be no speed difference(if there any windows will probably be faster as it has a better newer version of smb/cifs. Freenas will work.

[Schyken]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

 

There will be no speed difference(if there any windows will probably be faster as it has a better newer version of smb/cifs. Freenas will work.

Okay. Maybe I should test a few different options. Thanks for the insight. Maybe if I turn off or turn down some things in Windows, such as graphics and aesthetic things like transparency, I could see a boost?

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Schyken said:

Okay. Maybe I should test a few different options. Thanks for the insight. Maybe if I turn off or turn down some things in Windows, such as graphics and aesthetic things like transparency, I could see a boost?

No, as file transfers over the network are limited by your network and your drives, not your cpu. Your probably runnign gig eth, so you will be limited by your network even with 10 year old hardware.

[Alice in game]

I feel like you will have much more bottleneck for the HDD speed / Network speed. I would be surprised to see a CPU at 100% work load over file transfer.
Using Windows 10 also allow you to create a disk pool (with various size of hdd) to have redundancy without having to do raid. I use it and I think it's a nice feature (sure other people will say why it's no good but still, it's an option).