I'm trying to set up a home file server. I used to have a dual G5 in that role, but it was massive overkill for what I needed, and I sold it.

Here's what I want to do:
1. Run Transmission as a bittorrent client.
2. Serve video files and back up over the home network.
3. Back up periodically to an external drive.
4. Run leopard to make #3 a no-brainer.

Most of this time, the server should just be running Bittorrent on its own, quietly. At heaviest loads, it will be:
1. Running several torrents, some seeding, some downloading.
2. Serving a movie over the home wireless network
3. Copying backup data from a separate computer on the home network to the server hard drive.

I'm weighing options between an iBook G3, a Mac Mini G4, and an old PowerMac G4. Fanless is a plus, low power is a plus, internal drives are a plus. I have plenty of external derive cases, but internal will be faster and cheaper for future expansion. I have my own installable Leopard so that's less of an issue.

I don't want to run Windows for security purposes. I'd love to use Linux, but my experience with getting file sharing to work on linux has not been good.

How slow of a G4 can I go to? The G5 dual was (obviously) able to handle everything with ease. Would a G4/533 be able to do the same? An iBook G3/500? Am I missing an obvious solution?

Thanks -

EEMac

Quote
EEMac
I'm trying to set up a home file server. I used to have a dual G5 in that role, but it was massive overkill for what I needed, and I sold it.

Here's what I want to do:
1. Run Transmission as a bittorrent client.
2. Serve video files and back up over the home network.
3. Back up periodically to an external drive.
4. Run leopard to make #3 a no-brainer.

Most of this time, the server should just be running Bittorrent on its own, quietly. At heaviest loads, it will be:
1. Running several torrents, some seeding, some downloading.
2. Serving a movie over the home wireless network
3. Copying backup data from a separate computer on the home network to the server hard drive.

I'm weighing options between an iBook G3, a Mac Mini G4, and an old PowerMac G4. Fanless is a plus, low power is a plus, internal drives are a plus. I have plenty of external derive cases, but internal will be faster and cheaper for future expansion. I have my own installable Leopard so that's less of an issue.

I don't want to run Windows for security purposes. I'd love to use Linux, but my experience with getting file sharing to work on linux has not been good.

How slow of a G4 can I go to? The G5 dual was (obviously) able to handle everything with ease. Would a G4/533 be able to do the same? An iBook G3/500? Am I missing an obvious solution?

Thanks -

EEMac

You know that most ISP's will throttle (or even shutdown) your BitTorrent Server?

BGnR

---

"Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto! You're beautiful!"
"If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster."
"Near the day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky."
"A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans."

Quantify "most" ISPs.

I've never read of one shutting down BT traffic.

BitTorrent is UNETHICAL

Do you hear me? UNETHICAL


Just ask the person who called me unethical when I offered to run CarFax for cheap - to
help offset the $30 I paid.

BitTorrent steals MILLIONS from THOUSANDS by eliminating the middle man who STEALS MILLIONS FROM THOUSANDS -- and therefore YOU are stealing MILLIONS from THOUSANDS OF MIDDLE MEN when you run BitTorrent & any computer dedicated to SEEDING 24/7.

U N E T H I C A L

btw.... if you get it set up - and make it private, send me the IP and make me a member, as there are a few things out there I'm looking for, and after all, I DID offer CarFax to you, too.

btw2.... any G3 of any sort should handle it.



.

edited by UNETHICAL CARFAX BUYER!



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2008 09:45AM by Jimmypoo.

Quote
incognegro
Quantify "most" ISPs.

I've never read of one shutting down BT traffic.

I am speaking of a BT Server, read my original post.
ComCast
TimeWarner
AT&T

BGnR

---

"Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto! You're beautiful!"
"If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster."
"Near the day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky."
"A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans."

Maybe it would be worth pointing out that the OP said "Run Transmission as a bittorrent client. " not as a server.

Quote
mikebw
Maybe it would be worth pointing out that the OP said "Run Transmission as a bittorrent client. " not as a server.

Read the word "Seeding" in the OP.

BGnR

---

"Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto! You're beautiful!"
"If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster."
"Near the day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky."
"A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans."

On data point - I have a G4 800DP doing pretty much all the things you say you want to do. CPU usage -- when just ticking along serving videos and UL/Dl torrents -- never gets above 25%.

Quote
BigGuynRusty
I am speaking of a BT Server, read my original post.
ComCast
TimeWarner
AT&T

BGnR

Are you saying that Comcast, TW, and AT&T will throttle traffic to and from my connection f I am hosting a tracker?

edit: "CPU usage"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/20/2008 09:48AM by x-uri.

True enough. But are you defining seeding as the distribution of torrent files, or the act of uploading actual content via Transmission to other downloaders?

I don't see how an ISP could really throttle an occasional torrent file from going out over the Internet, say if it were to be hosted on a website. And since seeding was not one of the four main requirements I didn't think it would occur enough to be a cause for concern anyway.

Quote
mikebw
True enough. But are you defining seeding as the distribution of torrent files, or the act of uploading actual content via Transmission to other downloaders?

I don't see how an ISP could really throttle an occasional torrent file from going out over the Internet, say if it were to be hosted on a website. And since seeding was not one of the four main requirements I didn't think it would occur enough to be a cause for concern anyway.

Occasional??
BT Seeding goes on for days.
It only took TimeWarner 15 minutes to throttle me back to a crawl.
Depends on where the BT originated from.
SandVine is vicious.:
[en.wikipedia.org]

BGnR

---

"Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto! You're beautiful!"
"If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster."
"Near the day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky."
"A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans."

I thought the whole idea behind bittorrent was that there was no central server, i.e. every person who downloads also uploads. Therefore, everyone is the client and the server.

Again- are you defining seeding as the distribution of torrent files, or the act of uploading actual content via Transmission to other downloaders?

I would define it as the distribution of a torrent file through a web site. This should not be a cause for concern. I would agree however that uploading actual content takes many days, and can go on forever if you wish. Some ISP's seek to throttle that traffic.

ISPs monitor port traffic. Have had Comcast do it to me when the whole Net Neutrality thing started hitting the papers.

Same with Gnutella ports, no matter if the use was legal - freeware or GNU licensed, personal vids, etc.

Quote
mikebw
Again- are you defining seeding as the distribution of torrent files, or the act of uploading actual content via Transmission to other downloaders?

I would define it as the distribution of a torrent file through a web site. This should not be a cause for concern. I would agree however that uploading actual content takes many days, and can go on forever if you wish. Some ISP's seek to throttle that traffic.

Define what you want.
You are trying to get a definitive answer from something that the ISP's are doing, something that is impossible.
I know what ISP's are doing with their SandVine hardware, and I am not happy.
Do some reading.:
[en.wikipedia.org]

BGnR

---

"Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto! You're beautiful!"
"If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster."
"Near the day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky."
"A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans."

I had a G4/700 eMac doing basically what you mentioned for a couple of months. Never had any problems with it. CPU Speed didn't seem to be the limiting factor, network speed is what you're concerned with.

Quote
Jimmypoo
btw2.... any G3 of any sort should handle it.

Can't run Leopard on a G3.

Fine! Embarrass me in front of everyone for missing that ONE word!

MILLIONS from THOUSANDS!

I'd get a mini with a massive external drive that can be used for other stuff if need be.

You guys caught the details.

Not a BT "server," just a seeding machine, which is what all machines on BT networks do by default.

And yes, I've read about Sandvine, for months I've known about it.
Comcast uses it; it affected my friend outside of Boston with his seeding (not his downloads, though).

I'm curious how many ISPs use "shaping" (throttling) and/or Sandvine technology.

My cable provider does nothing of the kind. Anyone on Verizon or other big names care to check in on their BT traffic?

Quote
incognegro
You guys caught the details.

Not a BT "server," just a seeding machine, which is what all machines on BT networks do by default.

And yes, I've read about Sandvine, for months I've known about it.
Comcast uses it; it affected my friend outside of Boston with his seeding (not his downloads, though).

I'm curious how many ISPs use "shaping" (throttling) and/or Sandvine technology.

My cable provider does nothing of the kind. Anyone on Verizon or other big names care to check in on their BT traffic?

Who is your provider?
Unless your provider is a private entity, it is using SandVine.
Also, most BT traffic is not throttled, but if you get torrents from the big illegal torrents folks, you will be flagged!

BGnR

---

"Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto! You're beautiful!"
"If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster."
"Near the day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky."
"A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans."

Thanks all for the data points. Based on a G4/700 being enough, I'm planning to go with a G4 tower. A mini would be nice, but costs more than the G4 + SATA, and I don't think a FW400 connection will gracefully sustain heavy, multiple access. The ability to use groups of internal drives will be a huge cost and size advantage both initially and over time.

I'll be careful about throttling. I pay for Comcast Business Class, and they mess with my connection far less than they did when I had residential service. Torrents go faster, and I haven't detected sandvine interference. (Under residential, everything would go at dial-up speed and I often couldn't upload.) That's actually part of the reason for setting up this machine. We have two laptops running torrents separately, and it's harder to limit bandwidth usage. I've set my upload/download limits to "reasonable" amounts (50K-100K up) so I'm not hogging the line, and Comcast has left my connection basically alone. I'm sure it would go faster without any traffic shaping on their part, but I get downloads as high as 250K for short periods of time. Fair enough by me.

i have a g4 733 doing a similar thing. this machine doesn't meet leopard's minimum requirements, but you can still install it if you put it into target disk mode and mount it on a computer that meets the minimum requirements. i use mine also as a front row machine and am looking for a new solution as it is to slow in the front row interface.

hope this helps

prove that my provider uses Sandvine.
prove it, or you're just blowing smoke and trying to sound like a know-it-all.

Sandvine keeps seeders from uploading. i regularly seed 2:1 or 3:1 or more.
no way Sandvine allows that.

---

To answer the original question... I would not go less than a 500MHz G4 cpu with a 32MB video card for a video server these days.

If you go for something less, you could still use it for serving, but previewing/playing video files is likely to be choppy.

Since you're also thinking of serving video files over your home network, you should have gigabit Ethernet as well.

A good compromise between ambient sound, speed and connectivity would end up somewhere around the 2002 PowerBook G4 667. But you also want to run Leopard, which should have at least an 867MHz G4. That places you squarely on the Nov. 2002 Titanium PowerBook 867.

Add a 2.5-inch bus-powered FW drive and you would have a pretty sweet server that runs almost silently and uses relatively little power.

Video card is irrelevant for a video file server. Of course if you plan to connect to a display then it becomes an issue.

I have successfully uploaded tens of Gigabytes of data via Transmission at great speed through my Verizon FiOS connection. I can get up to 2Mbps upload and they have not to date made any visible attempts to throttle that. Perhaps they will eventually, but for now I am only suspicious of Comcast playing those tricks.

I believe it is in the best interest of any ISP to shape traffic to some degree to increase overall efficiency, but intentionally reducing the performance for customers who choose to use specific applications is not fair IMO.

> Video card is irrelevant for a video file server.

As someone who has configured several low end Macs as video servers in many environments, I disagree. Vehemently.

At some point, it's going to be used to look at a few of those files. At that point, it would be nice if they played at least half-decently, doncha think?

I was figuring 100% headless operation, but sure if you think playback will ever be necessary then get a decent video card.

Quote
incognegro
prove that my provider uses Sandvine.
prove it, or you're just blowing smoke and trying to sound like a know-it-all.

Sandvine keeps seeders from uploading. i regularly seed 2:1 or 3:1 or more.
no way Sandvine allows that.

Comcast does, you proved it by your own statements.
SandVine does much more than that.
SandVine I know, along with a BoatLoad of other Tech stuff that you don't have a clue about.
Blow this smoke InCogNegro.:
[digg.com]
[forums.afterdawn.com]
[apnews.myway.com]
[techdirt.com]

BGnR
Been There, Done That, Wrote the Tech Manual, Taught the Class!!

---

"Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto! You're beautiful!"
"If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster."
"Near the day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky."
"A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/2008 11:23AM by BigGuynRusty.

Quote
BigGuynRusty

Quote
incognegro
Quantify "most" ISPs.

I am speaking of a BT Server, read my original post.
ComCast
TimeWarner
AT&T

BGnR

ISPs who mess with BitTorrent...

Comcast: definitely.

TimeWarner: I don't know but I'll take your word for it.

AT&T: nope.