Home Network

[Joe Bloggs]

Hi all.

I dunno if this is the right forum, but apologies if not.

I have just learned that broadband is now available in my area, and want to
set up a home network to take advantage.

I currently own (well me, the wife, and the kids!!) the following spec
pcs/latops/equipment:

1. Athlon 1300 Mhz, 64MB graphics, Epox 8KTA3+ Raid Mobo, 512 MB SDRAM, 2
x Maxtor 80GB ATA HDD, 2 x IBM 30GB ATA HDD, Lan card, WinXP Pro (mine)

2. Athlon 800Mhz, o/b graphics, PC Chips Mobo, 10GB HDD, 256 SDRAM, Lan
Card, Win XP Pro (Son 1)

3. Celeron 700Mhz, Abit BF6 Mobo, 10 GB HDD, 128 MB SDRAM, Simple
Graphics, Lan card, WIN XP Pro (Son 2)

4. Laptop - Dell P4, Ethernet card, no wireless, Win XP Pro(Wifes)

5. Pentium 133 Old machine. 2GB HDD, Some EDO RAM! (in loft but works)

6. 4 Port switch NetGear FS105

No.s 1, 2, 3 are currently set up through the switch No. 6.

Now I am currently upgrading mine, and thinking of buying a P4 3Ghz, 875P
Mobo maybe Abit IC7-MAX 3 or Microstar 875P NEOFISR , 2 x SATA HDD, (Just
won some money so gonna treat myself)

And was also thinking along the lines of a Belkin F5D7230uk4 Router/ADSL
Modem, and getting a ADSL service only (ie no hardware Package).

Does anyone have any thought or suggestions on this. I would like to end up
with, if possible:

PCs in the follwoing rooms: Study, Son 1, Son 2, and the Wifes work room,
(though this will probably be the laptop). Preferrably I would like the
LapTop to be accessible anywhere, especially the garden! (hence why I have
chosen the Wireless Router/Modem). The four rooms in question are wired for
ethernet with 2 cables each, back to a central point in the Study.

I also have a HP LaserJet 1010 USB Printer, and a HP Photosmart 7260 Photo
Printer. Can I get USB Printer Servers to use these more effectively?

Is there any benefit of setting this up with a file server (I was thinking
the Athlon 1300Mhz pc, with its raid mobo). I own Win Server 2003.

Finally, I would like a web site, and host it here, as I believe I can with
a static IP address from my chosen ISP. Is there any point/benefits with
this?? I see most ISPs offer web space. Out of interest, what sort of spec
machine would work well as a web server??

Your thoughts, ideas would be appreciated if you have the time!

Many thanks for thinking about this.

Cheers in advance

Joe

 

[Sooky Grumper]

Joe Bloggs wrote:

[snip]

And was also thinking along the lines of a Belkin F5D7230uk4 Router/ADSL
Modem, and getting a ADSL service only (ie no hardware Package).

I've got a cheapo ADSL modem/router that I'm running as a modem only
connected to a Netgear Firewall/Router/Print server. Works great. You
can still use your switch by connecting it to the uplink port of the
router you're considering. I haven't had a look at the particular model
you mention, but I imagine that you'll have three other ports to connect
to on the router besides the uplink port, giving you room to attach a
total of 7 computers. You can even use the uplink port of the switch to
add another switch (or just sell the current switch and buy a larger
switch, the benefit being there'll be fewer pieces of hardware to fail
*grin*).

Does anyone have any thought or suggestions on this. I would like to end up
with, if possible:

PCs in the follwoing rooms: Study, Son 1, Son 2, and the Wifes work room,
(though this will probably be the laptop). Preferrably I would like the
LapTop to be accessible anywhere, especially the garden! (hence why I have
chosen the Wireless Router/Modem). The four rooms in question are wired for
ethernet with 2 cables each, back to a central point in the Study.

That's cool, saves you having to worry about wireless. At least if you
do decide on wireless you could just add an access point and a card to
the laptop without having to add cards to everything else.

I also have a HP LaserJet 1010 USB Printer, and a HP Photosmart 7260 Photo
Printer. Can I get USB Printer Servers to use these more effectively?

Is there any benefit of setting this up with a file server (I was thinking
the Athlon 1300Mhz pc, with its raid mobo). I own Win Server 2003.

The benefit of getting a stand alone print server is that it's always
available, even if you're playing around with the Athlon box. Many of
the newer routers also have USB print servers IIRC. Mine has a parallel
print server, but usb printers usually have a parallel port, too (mine
did). Also, you can shut off the file server and save a little power
(bills and the environment) while leaving the print server on using much
less power than an entire PC setup.

Finally, I would like a web site, and host it here, as I believe I can with
a static IP address from my chosen ISP. Is there any point/benefits with
this?? I see most ISPs offer web space. Out of interest, what sort of spec
machine would work well as a web server??

Just about anything can be used as a server, but it depends on the
amount of traffic you're expecting. Also, any traffic to and from the
server will eat into your bandwidth for regular Internet use. Further,
you need to make sure you get unlimited uploads and downloads. Finally,
make sure you secure the server so it doesn't get used to attack other
computers.

 

[Aaron]

Finally, I would like a web site, and host it here, as I believe I can with
a static IP address from my chosen ISP. Is there any point/benefits with
this?? I see most ISPs offer web space. Out of interest, what sort of spec
machine would work well as a web server??

Mostly you have to consider a few things with running home servers.
1) accrding to your terms of service, does your ISP allow this?(most
people ignore this, as long as its not for a business, for residential
cable/dsl they don't care much)
2) do they block the ports that you are going to use? some ISPs block
ports such as 80(http) and 25(smtp) which would prevent you from running
those services on the standard ports.
3) how much bandwidth will you use up? most ISPs will send you a letter
telling you to use less bandwidth if you use far more than the average,
depends on the ISP. Also all that bandwidth being used won't be
available for your own personal use.
4) speaking of bandwidth, most dsl is _max_ 1.5Mbps download, 256Kbps
upload, usually lower if you don't have a great connection. this means
that when people get the webpages and such from you, there is a much
lower maximum than if you hosted from a real server. usually not a
problem unless its large video files or such.
5) yes indeed, security. I would recommend _not_ a windows server, and
especially not IIS considering the effort you have to take to even have
a slightly secure server, not to mention the patching always going on.
6) in order to get a static IP, you usually have to get the 'business'
service from your ISP, which means you'll pay more, but then they also
won't care about what you run on it. However, you can get a free
subdomain name from places like http://www.no-ip.com which you can have
adjust to your dynamic IP as it changes through some tools of theirs.
usually if you have a gateway/router, it won't change much due to the
fact that it is on pretty much 24/7 so it usually will just keep the one
it originally gets

good luck with everything!

Aaron

 

[Gary Tait]

Hi all.

I dunno if this is the right forum, but apologies if not.

I have just learned that broadband is now available in my area, and want to
set up a home network to take advantage.

I currently own (well me, the wife, and the kids!!) the following spec
pcs/latops/equipment:

1. Athlon 1300 Mhz, 64MB graphics, Epox 8KTA3+ Raid Mobo, 512 MB SDRAM, 2
x Maxtor 80GB ATA HDD, 2 x IBM 30GB ATA HDD, Lan card, WinXP Pro (mine)

2. Athlon 800Mhz, o/b graphics, PC Chips Mobo, 10GB HDD, 256 SDRAM, Lan
Card, Win XP Pro (Son 1)

3. Celeron 700Mhz, Abit BF6 Mobo, 10 GB HDD, 128 MB SDRAM, Simple
Graphics, Lan card, WIN XP Pro (Son 2)

4. Laptop - Dell P4, Ethernet card, no wireless, Win XP Pro(Wifes)

5. Pentium 133 Old machine. 2GB HDD, Some EDO RAM! (in loft but works)

6. 4 Port switch NetGear FS105

No.s 1, 2, 3 are currently set up through the switch No. 6.

Now I am currently upgrading mine, and thinking of buying a P4 3Ghz, 875P
Mobo maybe Abit IC7-MAX 3 or Microstar 875P NEOFISR , 2 x SATA HDD, (Just
won some money so gonna treat myself)

And was also thinking along the lines of a Belkin F5D7230uk4 Router/ADSL
Modem, and getting a ADSL service only (ie no hardware Package).

Does anyone have any thought or suggestions on this. I would like to end up
with, if possible:

Be sure youe provider will work with that modem. Some may require
their own modem.

PCs in the follwoing rooms: Study, Son 1, Son 2, and the Wifes work room,
(though this will probably be the laptop). Preferrably I would like the
LapTop to be accessible anywhere, especially the garden! (hence why I have
chosen the Wireless Router/Modem). The four rooms in question are wired for
ethernet with 2 cables each, back to a central point in the Study.
Good.

I also have a HP LaserJet 1010 USB Printer, and a HP Photosmart 7260 Photo
Printer. Can I get USB Printer Servers to use these more effectively?

Yes, but check on comatibility. I wouldn't hope to print form the old
Pentium though.

Is there any benefit of setting this up with a file server (I was thinking
the Athlon 1300Mhz pc, with its raid mobo). I own Win Server 2003.

If the systems are in various states of on/off, and your family shares
a quantity of files among themselves, then a central server may be a
good thing. Personally, I'd look into setting up a low-powered
noiseless PC, running Linux.

Finally, I would like a web site, and host it here, as I believe I can with
a static IP address from my chosen ISP.

Depends if your provider allows this. Most providers either frown on.
or diasallow public servers on residential accounts. Aldo, ulping
speed might be something like 128K, rather slow IMO.

Is there any point/benefits with
this?? I see most ISPs offer web space. Out of interest, what sort of spec
machine would work well as a web server??

Your Ghz Athlon with Server2k3 would be fine IMO.