I’ve been thinking about re-doing the home network/server setup, for several reasons:

1. Redundancy (currently, the file server is integral with the XEN server)

2. The QoS the linksys router (with tomato firmware) is not up to par for my tastes. Surfins still seems kinda slow, wven when not downloading anything crazy.

So what I want to do is separate the Fileserver from the XEN server, and secondly make a dedicated box that runs pfSense as the firewall that should be able to handle lots of connections with no problem.

I found a smalish looking case with a PII or a PIII in it (at a local surplus shop) for $40, which I might pick up. It also has 3 PCI slots available, which means I can expand this into a monster router. I just need to find out how much ram it has and the processor speed.
I’m thinking of picking it up.

The other thing I want to do is separate the file server into it’s own box. Currenttly the XEN host OS is the fileserver. I think for future expansion, and stability (if XEN goes down, I still have file system access) I will spend the $69 for unRaid ($89 with a 1gig USB stick)
I just need to decide on what mobo to use, and what case to use.

The current XEN machine mobo is an Asus M2N-E

interesting case with lots of room for HDs

As for a Mobo, I will use the Via Epia EX C7 1.5Ghz board that is currently in the car computer. I will replace that with the other Via board EN C3 1.0Ghz board (since unRaid will apparently not run on a C3 board. C7 is fine)
That’s all good, since the car computer doesn’t need much processing power anyway.

UPDATE 04 Jan 09 :

Installed UnRAID on a usb stick, placed the EPIA EX board in the Centurion 590 case, along with a new Segate 7200.11 500gig drive.

Currently copying data off old server, so I can migrate drives over to new case.

Once all the data is copied, and all the drives are installed, I will need to re-organize the data. Interesting tips here.