To WHS or not ...

[Good Companion]

I have 5 computers in the house and a headless server. The server stats are:

AMD Athlon XP 2800+
MSI KT3 Ultra 2 motherboard
1.768 GB RAM (PC 3200)
Can't remember the vid card
Western Digital WD1200JB-00DUA3 120 GB IDE HD (formatted NTFS)
Maxtor 6Y160P0 160 GB IDE HD (formatted NTFS)
Khypermedia 52x32x24x CDRW
Khypermedia 8x4x32 DVDRW
Realtek RTL8185 54M Wireless LAN Network Adapter
ADMtek AN983 NIC (wired)
Antec Smartpower 2.0 500w PS (may have a diff PS)
WinXP Home

The server does 2 basic things for me: Acts as a print server and acts as a file server. I've contemplated expanding the file server function to also act as a media server, but haven't really pursued it.

I have a WinXP Pro license and also noticed I can pick up WHS 2011 for about $50 from Amazon. I'd like to upgrade at least to WinXP Pro because the kids are getting old enough that I want to block their access to stuff they shouldn't be getting into.

The big advantage that I see to WHS is the ability to automate backups of client PCs (eliminating Ghost) and there is an add-on which would allow you to automate turning the server off at night and back on in the morning.

I just don't know if these are enough advantages to make sense to do the upgrade. I also understand that WHS is not flexible when installing on a machine that already has data drives installed.

Thoughts?

[Steve R Jones]

WHS will also do the media sharing....Course, getting enough drives to backup all five machine will be expensive till the prices of hard drive come down.

[Nude_Lewd_Man]

The server does 2 basic things for me: Acts as a print server and acts as a file server. I've contemplated expanding the file server function to also act as a media server, but haven't really pursued it.

I have a WinXP Pro license and also noticed I can pick up WHS 2011 for about $50 from Amazon. I'd like to upgrade at least to WinXP Pro because the kids are getting old enough that I want to block their access to stuff they shouldn't be getting into.

The big advantage that I see to WHS is the ability to automate backups of client PCs (eliminating Ghost) and there is an add-on which would allow you to automate turning the server off at night and back on in the morning.

I just don't know if these are enough advantages to make sense to do the upgrade. I also understand that WHS is not flexible when installing on a machine that already has data drives installed.

Thoughts?

XP can act as a 'server' in the sense of what you're wanting to do with it.

You can share files ("file server" function)

You can share printer/s ("print server")

You can set up a fairly simple script to be run as a scheduled task, which could automate the backups (nice to know that someone thinks that their data is actually important!!)

You can set up another script to get it to shutdown - or tag it into the end of the 'backup' script, which might be a better option; so you know that the backup completes *before* the shutdown. The BIOS is likely to have some form of 'auto power up' type option too.

You can also configure accounts on computers for your kid/s to stop them accessing things you don't want them to - but this might well be easier to do on your 'router' device...

[Good Companion]

I forgot to note that I have multiple drives installed already. Most are old IDE drives that I'm using because I have them but I also have a 1TB installed and a 1TB external to throw in the mix.

I'm currently sharing folders and using it as a print server. I can't limit access (AFAIK) because I'm using XPHome. I have an XP Pro license, so I can upgrade to fix that.

I would love to set up a script to run backups, but I don't know how to do that. Currently, I have an ancient version of Ghost installed on some, but not all of the computers and they save to a network share. (I don't have the enterprise version of Ghost and haven't upgraded because it seems like all of the newer versions of backup software have issues.)

Lastly, this machine runs 24/7 and I really don't know how much cash I'm throwing down the toilet in electricity. I would love for it to either go to sleep or shut itself down and then restart on a schedule, but have no idea how to do that. Also, I understand that if I allow it go to sleep, I lose the print function.

Any thoughts on what direction I should go? Cheaper is certainly better, but not if it exponentially increases work ...