Spare PC for server, advice needed.

[DoubleCheese]

Afternoon all. I have a spare PC sitting about that isn't getting used and before I sell it I'd like to explore a few possibilities with it.

I also have my main PC and a laptop and I'd like to have a central store/backup for all my music and digital photos that I can also access from the laptop without having to switch on the main PC.

I've looked at the Synology NAS drives and they are very tempting but can I create the same sort of thing with the spare PC I have and save some cash?
The PC specs are:
AMD Barton 2500+
1GB RAM
Geforce AGP card
160GB HDD (more to follow if it works.)

Any advice ideas and pointers glady accepted!

 

[wombraider]

I did something similar (server PC) but ended up just scrapping it and using
a nslu2 with external usb drives

Didnt want to waste electricity on running a server when a smaller more economical unit sould do the same.