Question Looking to turn old gaming PC into home server.

[kirb2326]

I have an old rig I'm trying to turn into an a home server for file sharing. I've watched youtube videos on how to do with windows and the process seems easy enough but they don't really give you any of specs. My old rig has:
Msi B450 Tomahawk mobo
Ryzen 3700x
Corsair 16 GB DDR4 @ 3200
Msi 570 8 GB OC gpu
Corsair 850 psu
1Tb ssd (boot drive)
2 Seagate 8TB hdds
Will this work? Every other PC in the house is Windows 11 and this is running Windows 10. The server will store pics, movies, docs, and car tuning files. Thanks for any help.

 

[Ralston18]

I would not be concerned about "old rig specs" per se.

Just set it up and try it. If performance is acceptable then leave well enough alone.

If the performance is not acceptable then you can try to determine the "bottleneck".

Key is to have minimal apps running on the home server and ensuring that nothing else gets launched after initial boot up via Task Scheduler or some background app that is necessary and left running. (backups, updates, "phoning home").

Learn to use Task Manager, Resource Monitor, and Process Explorer (Microsoft, free) to observe the "home server's" performance.

All three tools can prove revealing. For example: a drive that is getting full (70-80% full) may slow things down.

Run only one tool at a time while observing. Eventually you may no longer need to keep any of the tools running.

You may no longer need to OC the GPU - graphics, per se, not a requirement.

Process Explorer:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer

Start by testing as is. Then if you see an opportunity to improve performance then make the necessary change.

Change only one thing at a time. Keep notes regarding what you changed, the original and new configuration, and where the change was made.

Just in case some changes needs to be undone or changed again.

Be sure to allow time between changes.

You may also want to provide a UPS for the home server. Not to keep it running indefinitely - just to allow enough time for a proper shutdown if power is lost.

Otherwise data could be corrupted and/or lost.