Q3: What is a good reference for setting up a cheap used pentium server and can I do that with reasonable ease having not done PC networking for five years or so?
I have read your first posting and am confused as to why you are going to arms' length to try and get
a 250Gb drive to work with your mac. What is the purpose of owning such a high capacity hard drive?
Are you planning to do some serious video work that requires such a massive amount of storage space or are you looking to store all your MP3s or your Divx collection so you can recall them at your finger tips in one huge hard drive? Either way, can your provide us with some hints and maybe we can help.
But in the meantime, let me explain why a server is not always a good idea to pursue if all you are after is a cheap way to get more storage space.
To get more storage space, you would buy a fast controller card and the drive that would work and fit into your Mac computer. The initial cash outlay would be steep, but nothing beats performance wise to a direct path to so much storage.
I am speculating here, but I think you are assuming that an inexpensive Pentium box networked to a Mac would do the trick. But good hardware is nothing short of inexpensive. You see, if you want a performance oriented server, it certainly doesn't come cheap. Also, what's inside the server are efficient hardware that maximize the usage of bandwidth may they be network or drive related. And if you want to access all 250Gb of data in a fast and efficient manner, you are not going to be doing it through a 10BT network at all with a slow ATA-66 controller. But that doesn't stop people from doing it either as I have personally experienced myself in the past with my clients. Even with 100BT, why go through all this trouble when you can buy a fast Ultra-ATA IDE card for your main Mac? A direct path for data is always the path of least resistance right?
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