This is very easy to set up and can be extremely useful if you have multiple computers in the house that you need to share files with. There is basically only two things to keep in mind for this, as far as the hardware goes.

     First, if you are going to be sharing large files, files that are access frequently, or by several people at the same time, then I would recommend a computer that has a giganet (1000mbs) network card. This is really only important for accessing the machine locally (within your own house). The reason I say this is because for accessing your server from the outside world, the limitation is going to be the speed of your internet connection from your ISP (internet service provider). I can promise you that the ISP is not going to provide you with a 1000mbs connection to the internet, or most likely, even 100mbs for that matter.

     The second thing is obviously, to make sure you have a large enough harddrive to accomodate what you want to share, and still leave enough room for adding more as time goes by. The speed of the computer is not as important, but this also is covered in the tutorial. I do recommend to use a separate harddive to dedicate for all the files you want to share, but this is certainly not required.

     Use these links for what you will need.