whats the best way to set up a network file server using old computers?
1. Take stock of your hardware Note each computer’s location and its hardware, including peripherals such as printers and modems. 2. Choose your ICS host If you wish to share an Internet connection between your computers using Internet Connection Sharing (ICS), choose which computer will be your ICS host. The ICS host has a direct connection, either by dial-up modem or high-speed link, to the Internet and provides access to the Internet for other computers on the network. Ideally, the host should be a computer running Windows XP. I’ll assume you have made this choice in the following steps. Apart from XP’s easy handling of ICS, by using an XP computer as your ICS host you get the benefits of using the Internet Connection Firewall. 3. Choose a network technology The most common choices are Ethernet and wireless LANs. For an Ethernet LAN you will need to install a network interface card, or NIC, in each computer and run cabling between the computers. If you don’t like the idea of opening
