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Setting up an upgraded G4 as a file server

iMpathetic

iMpathetic

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Oct 7, 2007
2,547
4
IMBY
Hey guys.

As you probably noticed from looking at my sig, I have a new G4.

It has been pretty heavily upgraded, with a 1.4GHz CPU, 1.3GB RAM, two 160GB drives in RAID, a dual-layer DVD burner, a Geforce 6200LE 256MB, an Airport card, and Leopard.

I bought it because:

a) Didn't have a Mac
b) wanted to set up a file server

So, how would this work? What I want it to do is serve music, pictures, movies, and documents throughout my house, and I actually need it to work with a few operating systems:

- Jaguar
- Tiger
- Leopard
- XP
- Vista

I don't have to go out and get 10.5 Server, do I?

Any thoughts on the whole thing?

Thanks a lot.
 
CWallace

CWallace

macrumors G5
Aug 17, 2007
12,027
10,731
Seattle, WA
I'm considering doing the same, myself. Work has an old dual 1.0GHz MDD Power Mac G4 with 2GB they're going to give me, so I am thinking of stuffing it with the biggest PATA HDDs I can fit in it. I don't need the Windows support, so I expect I'll not need to install OS X Server, but I am considering it just to play around with the features.
 
iMpathetic

iMpathetic

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Oct 7, 2007
2,547
4
IMBY
Interesting. I do know that you can share between OSes in the normal Leopard, although I'll bet it's harder.
 
W

waremaster

macrumors 6502
Aug 27, 2006
406
2
iMpathetic said:
Hey guys.

As you probably noticed from looking at my sig, I have a new G4.

It has been pretty heavily upgraded, with a 1.4GHz CPU, 1.3GB RAM, two 160GB drives in RAID, a dual-layer DVD burner, a Geforce 6200LE 256MB, an Airport card, and Leopard.

I bought it because:

a) Didn't have a Mac
b) wanted to set up a file server

So, how would this work? What I want it to do is serve music, pictures, movies, and documents throughout my house, and I actually need it to work with a few operating systems:

- Jaguar
- Tiger
- Leopard
- XP
- Vista

I don't have to go out and get 10.5 Server, do I?

Any thoughts on the whole thing?

Thanks a lot.
Click to expand...


I dont think the machine is going to run XP or Vista very well. VPC 7 I think was the last version available for PPC processors. The machine is fine for Tiger but not even going to be that great in Leopard. You really should have gotten an Intel based mac. I understand you probably got the G4 very cheap but there are still plenty of used Intel based macs available pretty reasonable on places like craigslist and ebay. Or even a refurb from Apple.
 
iMpathetic

iMpathetic

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Oct 7, 2007
2,547
4
IMBY
waremaster said:
I dont think the machine is going to run XP or Vista very well. VPC 7 I think was the last version available for PPC processors.
Click to expand...

Oh, I think you misunderstood! :p

I wanted its file sharing to work with Tiger, Jaguar, Leopard, XP, and Vista.

I do have a copy of VPC 5 with Win98 though.
 
tersono

tersono

macrumors 68000
Jan 18, 2005
1,999
1
UK
iMpathetic said:
Hey guys.

As you probably noticed from looking at my sig, I have a new G4.

It has been pretty heavily upgraded, with a 1.4GHz CPU, 1.3GB RAM, two 160GB drives in RAID, a dual-layer DVD burner, a Geforce 6200LE 256MB, an Airport card, and Leopard.

I bought it because:

a) Didn't have a Mac
b) wanted to set up a file server

So, how would this work? What I want it to do is serve music, pictures, movies, and documents throughout my house, and I actually need it to work with a few operating systems:

- Jaguar
- Tiger
- Leopard
- XP
- Vista

I don't have to go out and get 10.5 Server, do I?

Any thoughts on the whole thing?

Thanks a lot.
Click to expand...

I use an old G4-400 as a file/media server accessed by a mixed network of Windows, Linux and Macs without any problems - you'll be fine.

Provided you're not going to have large numbers of simultaneous file transfers going on, OS X client will do the job. BTW - if you're using the regular client version of OS X, using Leopard makes setting up shares that bit easier than earlier versions of OS X.
 
iMpathetic

iMpathetic

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Oct 7, 2007
2,547
4
IMBY
Excellent. I may look into installing some case lights and make the side panels clear -- but not right now. :(

Where would be the best place to put it? I think mine started life as a Gigabit Ethernet model, so would hooking it up directly to Ethernet and SSHing into it work well?

Or, should I sit it in the closet with a tiny 800x600 LCD?

Thanks for the help. This is the first time I've ever had the faintest whisper of a need for a server -- usually I just have 10 gigs or so of music and around a thousand photos on each computer.
 
motulist

motulist

macrumors 601
Dec 2, 2003
4,235
611
I can't tell you about making it accessible to non Macs, but for my network all I did was plug my old G4 into my wireless router via ethernet, and then turn on file sharing in the system prefs.

That's all it took.

And it's so awesome, from my laptop I have wireless access to my big external hard drive that's in the other room! It seems like magic. And for a real trick I do wireless printing! I do a print command from my laptop with no wires connected to it, and magically my printer in the other room starts printing what I see on my laptop screen! It's magic!
 
iMpathetic

iMpathetic

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Oct 7, 2007
2,547
4
IMBY
That's really cool!


... except.... wireless printing is like.... well... let's just say my 50-year-old technophobe parents use it.:eek:
 
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