Server idea for work

so at work right now its kind of a mess, and were using external drives and flash drives for applications
and or driver storage and seeing how unreliable they are i want to setup a server..
we have a "server" computer where its just basically a windows xp computer containing files.. (needs an hd upgrade though)

we don't need a webserver or anything, but a public server where files can just be downloaded via windows network places or something just for software/drivers

so would a better option just leave the computer containing files alone and upgrade the hd, and organize it a bit with public access or would it be more logical to go with something like ubuntu/samba

so what would be the best option to choose for just a basic file server and if any hardware suggestions are up what should i use?

Just use windows server, itll be good for your resume

Can you use windows server as a regular pc? as in game on it and such?

Cheap/easy would be a router with a USB port and NAS capabilities. Slap on a big USB hard drive and you're done.

Depends on if the video card has drivers for it

we tried that.. stupid hd ended up dying because it kept sleeping for some stupid power saver mode we couldn't turn off, and we do have a bunch of stuff lying around so we ended up putting something together and sometimes use it for hd recovery too now

i've tried this on my sister's computer before ohhh the complaints she used to get.. its not easy to run games.. lots of weird compatibility problems even if ur an admin

Probably could do it easily with Ubuntu. Just make sure to RSync to another drive/server everyday.

What's the budget? How many users, what access (remote/local), email, file access, physical/virtual? SBS 2011 can be run on a VM but there are many factors involved.

budget is low, i mean well upgrade the hardrives for storage but thats about it..
probably 1 - 3 admins, other than that, a shared folder for public..
no email/no internet needed, well kind of we are transferring files via network url \\server
and full physical of course

Well if it's only used by a handful of people I would keep the XP machine. Keep in mind all MS OS's that are not server based have a limit of 10 concurrent connections. Upgrade the hardware, use a few external USB drives/offsite backups and you should be relatively fine. If the data is that important mirror the data drives (RAID 1) during the upgrade.

If users complain about using the IP to connect to the "server", edit the hosts file for each computer to add an entry like this:

ServerName 192.168.1.1

Now they can connect to \\ServerName\sharename instead of having to remember the IP.

if you have <15 people accessing it, get Windows foundation. You can spec out a Dell T110 w/ a decent sized disk for <$750, just make sure you back it up

looks like someone already did that and thanks for the info

and thanks tex but i think a couple of hds are cheaper since its just basically a file server