Because of its uptime, your media
server needs even more protec-
tion from malware than your regular
machine. Make sure you install antivi-
rus software, and schedule automatic
defi nition updates, as well as daily or
weekly scans of all your drives during
the night hours. Set up fi rewall soft-
ware, making sure to open the ports
that your streaming software and
generic Windows networking use. The
procedure for this varies based on the
streaming software you use and the
fi rewall, so you’ll have to consult yourdocumentation.
This is also the time to schedule a
weekly backup to your external drive.
Your backup drive should have come
with software that will allow you to
duplicate the fi lesystem of your drive,
don’t fool with incremental backups
or proprietary compressed archives, if
your software supports them. They’re
not worth the hassle, and because
you’re backing up heavily com-
pressed media, there won’t be any
space savings.Maintaining Your Server
A good backup drive
is essential for reli-
able operation of
your server, but only
if you run regular
backups.Sharing with Others
Now that all your media is on your
server, you’ll want to make sure that
other machines on your network
can access it. Right-click each of
the folders you want to access on
the network, and select Sharing and
Security. Check the box that says
“Share this folder on the network”
and give your share a descriptive
name. If you want to be able to make
changes to your files remotely, or
add new ones, you’ll need to check
the box labeled “Allow network
users to change my files.” That will
allow anyone with an account on the
machine to add, delete, or change
files on the server. You can man-
age accounts in the User Accounts
Control Panel. You should be able to
access any of the shared directories
by typing //name of server//name of
share in Windows Explorer
Next, install software for any
streaming devices you have, like a
Squeezebox or a video streaming
box. Once that’s done, your server
is up and running!Luckily, most backup drives come with software,
like BounceBack Express , that makes it easy to
schedule a weekly or monthly backup.