What's in a Typical Geek Home Network?

Posted by Cliff on Saturday May 14, 2005 @07:26AM from the more-esoteric-than-hubs-and-workstations dept.

Mike D asks: "I have several machines on my home network (A Mac OS X server, a few Windows XP desktops, a G4 workstation, etc.) as well as various devices (wireless base stations, VPN/firewall) and always have spare machines around that I'm torn on what to do with. So, I wonder -- what do 'typical geeks' have on their home networks? What items do you feel are a requirement, what are luxuries, and what is just cool stuff that I should integrate into my own network? Of course, suggestions should be cheap/free/use existing hardware I can find around the house."

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Obvious answer... by Plac3bo · 2005-05-14 07:30 · Score: 4, Interesting

HTPC/DVR ... MythTV
Backup by rueger · 2005-05-14 07:42 · Score: 4, Interesting

Best thing that we ever did was take one old Pentium box, stuff it full of drives, and set up Second Copy to back up essential files every couple of days.

Turn on the backup box, fire up Second Copy, and an hour later everything critical on our network has been backed up with no work and no thought.

It even syncs directories between the laptop and desktop machines.

Beyond that we have one PIII/Win2K, 1 P4/XP, 1 PII/Win98, 1 linux box, one laptop, one HP5P, one HP 990 inkjet, scanner....

--
Three Squirrels