I am looking to get a file server for my office network. I am running WinXP boxes, but want to use Linux to run the file server.

In concept I'll have a linux server with RAID hdds (and hardware RAID controller). It will run SAMBA to share the file stores. Linux will also run other server apps like httpd, imap, ldap, iptables, dhcpd, etc.

Should the RAID partitions used for file store be fat32 or ext2 since most if not all of the data will be read and written by WinXP apps? Should I have a non-RAID hdd to run the linux os even with hardware RAID?

I haven't decided on whether to use RAID1 or RAID5. I do need data redundancy. Which is faster?

Does anyone see anything glaringly wrong with this setup? Any gotchas to look out for?

Thanks,
Brian

I do not have to much experience with RAID, but I can answer the Samba question.

If you plan on having a Linux system with a file server (Samba), then your file storage partition has to be ext2.
Actually, I recommend an ext3 partition.

Samba has the ability to communicate with windows systems.
Actually, Samba will announce itself as a NT server.

SAMBA complies to the SMB protocol that Windows systems use to share files over the network. You can use any filesystem that your OS can handle.The filesystem will not effect the sharing process. In my experience, I use XFS and samba has no problems to and from Windows computers.

RAID 5 is fast and it has reduntancy because it uses RAID 0 (striping) with parity on a additional drive, so this means it needs 3 hard drives or more. Ethernet 100 megabit (about megabytes per second) is not fast. If you use RAID 5 you will just waste the bandwidth. IDE hard drives can easily output 10 megabytes. You are better off with RAID 1 (mirroring) or RAID 10 (mirror with striping). If you are thinking of using ethernet 1 gigabit (119 megabytes per second) then you might want to use RAID 5. When using RAID, use only a hardware RAID controller. I think 3ware controllers are well supported in LINUX than other controllers.