Streaming/File Storage HTPC

[01philip01]

Currently have the following pc I'm hoping to repurpose as a HTPC being able to transfer files and videos to it from my other computers and streaming with plex.

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit (originally a vista machine)
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.4GHz
GPU: EVGA NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT 1GB
RAM: 3 GB DDR2
Case: Coolermaster HAF 912

I've read that I'm able to access and control the pc through remote desktop connection (If there's an easier option please let me know!) but I'm not sure how I can set it up to get full access to the drives as I want to basically keep the clutter on there and not on my main pc. I'd also like to use it to download torrents from, would I use have to RDC into it and get the torrent going or is there some easier way?

Thanks and sorry for this wasn't the right place to ask!

 

[paotasos]

Just use windows remote desktop if you have windows7. Its easy to setup the first thing to do is put a password to the user login otherwize it doesnt work and than just add the user to windows remote, which under windows system properties.

 

[maddogfargo]

All you need to do is setup an account on the PC hosting the files and map a drive to the share using those credentials.

 

[01philip01]

Is it really that easy? Can a mac access the shared drive too?
Can I partition a drive on the htpc to give it some OS space and share the rest of that drive on the network as well?
When you download something and it asks where do you want to save it, could I direct it to the network drive? like download a torrent and have the torrent save location on the network drive?

Thanks for the help!

 

[boosted1g]

Have you looked into Linux?

Linux will use much less resources and that PC will be very capabile.

You might look into xbmcbuntu. You could have XBMC as your front end, use its plugins to do torrents and stream videos to/from it. And there is also a Plex media plug in so that you can access your plex media server.

 

[01philip01]

Have you looked into Linux?

Linux will use much less resources and that PC will be very capabile.

You might look into xbmcbuntu. You could have XBMC as your front end, use its plugins to do torrents and stream videos to/from it. And there is also a Plex media plug in so that you can access your plex media server.

Not a fan on linux, I used ubuntu and it was ehh. I was thinking of using freenas but I can't connect to lan with the computer and it only has 3 GBs and I heard it runs very ram heavy. I do have an appletv hacked to use xmbc already.