Setting up a Network

Eddie-Rocket

Hello Peeps,
Im looking to setup a network, what i need to know is,

Whats the best kit to use ?
Where should i buy it?

Im looking at about 4-6 machines to start with bu i plan to but a 12/16 port hub, Any advice is greatful.

All the best,
Ed

WhiteWashMan

if you are atarting with 4-6 the best route is prolly a peer to peer network.
however, if you are getting into double figures you are prolly better of using a server-client relationship and using NT. i havent reallly looked at win2k yet, but i imagine its fairly similar to NT.
things start getting very messy after 8 or 9 pcs on a peer to peer network when it comes to file sharing and printer sharing.
as for the actual set up of the network...erm, you'll have to find someone with a bit more experience with servers than me! atm, i only know about setting up client side of things......
hope someoof this helps. if you have anything else post away and i'll see if i can figure it out. however, i suspect you know more about this than me

Finglas Incubus

Let us know your requirements are ie.
bandwidth, mail/application/file servers etc

Fing

amp

Well the main thing is, if you start off with a peer to peer, is where peoples files will go. One of the main problems is that everybody will, by default save to c:\my documents. Fair enough but as the amount of files grows it can be a pain in the **** to back them up.
Have one slightly better win98/nt4 workstation with a big hdd and use that for file storage. Map a folder like c:\users on each "client" and set Office apps or whatever to save to it by default. With 4 to 6 to start with you can't really justify the enormous cost of server.
The advantage of this is that you can upgrade to Server later without too much reorganizing of the network.

Win98 to Nt Server 4.
Copy across i386 folder to c:\
Delete C:\windows
run winnt /ob
Nt Server setup starts and all the data is still intact.

Win98 to Windows 2000 server.
You can upgrade win98 directly to Windows 2000. Sounds a bit dodge and never seen it in action so if in doubt the steps for NT4 will work exactly the same for 2000.

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Lunacy Abounds! Play GLminesweeper!

Eddie-Rocket

Hi Guys,
The plan is to network our house, theres about 5 machines at present in the house. The network would be mainly used for games/file sharing/Shared Internet access. I want to leave some extra room on the network to allow some visiting people hook up for lan parties. All the systems presently run 98 so i want to be able to run in this envoirment. My play is to use a Client/Server with a Star network. I think i can use NT for the Server and to create the proxy server for shared internet access.

Whats yeas think ?

Ed

WhiteWashMan

just get a hub and stick em all together and see what happens

amp

1. ahhhh, your using a "special" nt server license
2. What Eamo said
3. I have a 3com 24 port 10baseT Superstack 40 hub. Interested?

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Lunacy Abounds! Play GLminesweeper!

[This message has been edited by amp (edited 07-06-2000).]

dollar

For sharing the internet I would sugest a linux box with IP Masq. An old 386 would do the job nicely though installing linux would be a bit scary on it if you haven't done it before. If you have some thing w/ 16Mb of Ram and is pentium then the chore will be alot easer with an X interface to install with.

As a router to the internet sharing a ppp link you'll find no better tool.