How powerful does a file/web server have to be?

[monkeysmith]

How powerful does a file/web server have to be?

I have a old box, intel celeron 566mhz, 192mb ram, and want to play about with it as a web/file server.

My aim is to setup a couple of large hdds in there, maybe using a sata card, and use it to backup all my work files. Also want to setup a web server to play about with.

Can anyone see any problems with the power of the machine? Will it be ok, how powerful does it need to be?

Thanks

 

[Rob7865]

What OS you looking to run first!?

 

[monkeysmith]

Well should be able to get a windows server 2003 license from work, can blag it as it would help with my job.

If not will go down the linux route, although I have very very little experience of this.

 

[afraser2k]

If it's 2003 then I'd recommend at least 512 Mb of RAM as it improves a lot compared 256 or less.

It was running fine on my Epia M6000-based system (Via Eden 600 MHz) so should be okay on your box, just up the memory a bit.

 

[monkeysmith]

Superb, thanks. Going through boxes now looking for old old SDRAM! Cheers

 

[KIA]

Get Debian on it

 

[!bluetonic!]

Get Debian on it

My home web server is a Linksys NSLU2. 133 Mhz with 32 MB ram.

It runs a cut down version of Debian. 2nd vote for Debian!

These People ran a web server powered by a potato, so I don't think you will have any problems with your specs.

 

[afraser2k]

I run Debian on my server command-line only with SSH when I need access.

 

[DarkHorizon472]

For a file or web server more RAM is good especially with windows 2003 server. That way it caches more in RAM and runs faster. When the server runs out of RAM it pages to the swap file on the hard drive making things run very slowly but for a home test server 512MB is a minimum and 1GB would be better if your PC will support that much.


If you are going to let it loose on the internet make sure it is setup correctly and fully patched !!!