[Billthedrill]

Yep, and if you're going to do that you might as well get a dedicated server box with redundant power supplies. Really, there are good reasons not to try to turn a workstation into a production server and that's one of them. I didn't mention upgrading the disk controller but most workstation controllers don't support RAID out of the box. And so it goes, nickel by nickel, until you might just as well have bought a server. And we haven't even addressed the backup issue.

(Along those lines I'm testing a half-terabyte USB external at the moment - the vendor swears they're not as flaky as they used to be. $250. It is fast. I don't know if it's reliable enough for business but I may just go out and buy one for me.)

[ThePythonicCow]

For a single server for home use, I doubt one needs redundant power supplies. A reliable brand, such as Enermax, P C Power & Cooling, Thermaltake or Antec of adequate power rating is good enough. One does not need 99.99 % uptime, and with the extra PC's in the house, one is not completely off the air if your server goes down.

For backup, I'd recommend USB external drives. Have at least three of them, and rotate them every week or three. Then even if one goes out once a year, it won't cost you too much lost data. Keep the ones not in use a fair distance from the computer, so that thieves, fires and other natural disasters that get to one don't get to the other.

The price and size of removable harddrives such as this has gotten too competitive to bother dealing with any of the other classic forms of backup, such as tape drives, for all but the most serious uses.

[ConservativeMind]

Look, their needs are not mission critical. They can handle having their power supply out for a couple hours until they put a new one in.

There's no need for high performance hard drive schemes, either.

A decent form of backup, preferably an image with incremental image capability (Acronis Drive Image or a similar one that is available free) will be fine.

[ConservativeMind]

Correction: True Image by Acronis. Drive Image was made, I believe, by PowerQuest before they were bought by Symantec.