Transform G5 into a NAS?

[mknabster]

I'm looking into either purchasing or building a NAS as a backup for my media center, and i was looking at the Lacie 5Big, as well as transforming my G5 tower into a storage server. Now the drives need to be seen at all times by my Windows media center, which, right now with my home network, the Windows and Macs have a difficult time seeing each other over the network for some stupid reason. They do see each other when i don't need them, but when i do, they don't work. In any case, I would like to set one up, for remote access outside of my network as well. I was looking at the Sonnet G5 Jive to add 3 more drives to the unit, but i don't know what i would use to run the server, should i use OSX server, or FreeNAS, or something else? Any advice or opinions? Thanks

[Germany_chris]

If I were you I wouldn't use the G5 as a media server for a couple reasons:
1. The G5 uses quite a bit of power
2. Of all PowerPC mac's it holds the fewest drives.

I'd sell the G5 and find a nice G4 pack the drives in and go to town..or I'd build something cheap put and put Linux in it.

[mknabster]

If I were you I wouldn't use the G5 as a media server for a couple reasons:
1. The G5 uses quite a bit of power
2. Of all PowerPC mac's it holds the fewest drives.

I'd sell the G5 and find a nice G4 pack the drives in and go to town..or I'd build something cheap put and put Linux in it.

I actually wasn't going to use it as a media server since i have a Dell Precision tower for that, i was thinking about using it as a storage server, but yea, it does take a lot of power, which is probably the reason why i'll invest in a NAS and hope i can turn RAID off.