Fileserver question..

bledd · 15 Oct 2006 at 11:53

i want to use an old pc for simple fileservering and backup

i have these hard drives for it..

old 20gb spare drive
400gb sata2 drive
400gb sata2 drive
400gb sata2 drive
400gb sata2 drive

if i use the 20gb as xp drive, will it affect performance on the 400gb drives? they'll be on sata controllers

would it be worth getting a faster -say 80gb 8mb cache WD drive for windows to run on?

if the 400gb drives are shared, do files pass through the 20gb drive first? or would they go straight from the sata controller to network card

basically asking if the 20gb drive will hamper performance

i'm not asking how to configure the other drives, i can do that myself

bledd · 15 Oct 2006 at 12:05

for £83 for each drive brand new, i couldn't say no

i'd rather not have the os on them, might just do some testing later with my other 200gb drive as the os holder..

bledd · 15 Oct 2006 at 13:04

i'm using an nlited xp, so only need about 150-200mb for os, and then a bit more for pagefile, but 20gb is the smallest non-useless drive i have

on a gigabit network

pleased with it so far, just dont want the 20gb drive dragging it down

the drives are in this thing..

so no heat issues as they wont be getting accessed 24/7 and there's decent fan on the back, and case airflow is maximum -no cover

bledd · 15 Oct 2006 at 20:53

all i'm asking is will the files have to pass through the C drive first, or do they skip it out completly?

bledd · 15 Oct 2006 at 22:46

thanks, i was hoping you'd answer, you seem like a wize owl

bledd · 16 Oct 2006 at 01:13

see, you're a pc king, you've got files in your head