Basically, me and my friend have a couple old computers (2 towers and a laptop) that we've volunteered as servers. I know, this isn't going to be like a super efficient setup, but it's pretty much only gonna handle basic file transfer. We have the laptop up and running, as a server, however, I don't know how to set up the the towers to run in sync with the laptop... I know that's a pretty general post for the monumental task at hand, but I wanted to provide the general info first, and I can provide other infos as we go.

What are you even trying to achieve?

Umm... set up a server farm that runs efficiently to host the files on their respective hardrives so they can be accessible online? I dunno if that's what your asking. I'm a 2 year old when it comes to this kind of stuff, so please treat me as such.

If you want to run it as a sever from home, its my understanding you'll have to buy more bandwidth from your provider, or else they'll disconnect you until you do.

Umm, well, we're running it from his house, and he has pretty heavy duty internet, IIRC...

They typically have plans set up specifically for people who run servers out of their house.

Why have you decided that running a server farm from home was going to be the best way to do this? What files are you sharing? Why would you need a server (24/7 access) - wouldn't it be sufficient just to make the files accessible when specific people are wanting them? Why not use FTP to upload files to someone else?

You're basically trying to use servers at home to solve a problem that either doesn't really exist, or for which servers at home is complete overkill.

I'm aware that this is overkill. We just kinda want to do it for the sake of doing it.

Use linux, of course. I believe there's a way to mount other computers as drives/folders on one main machine, so you'd have one machine as the "portal" machine and you'd store files on its file system. Part of that file system would actually be stored on the other computers.

One to three computers isnt a farm, and you would really just be wasting time sorta. Servers arent meant for two people, rather 5 to Millions

He's just doing it for fun, there's no wasting time involved. He's not doing it to provide a competitive service to hundreds

maybe this image could be of use?

That seems like just about what we want to do actually lol. Where'd you find it?

futaba
here's the non crap version with text you can actually read.
http://puu.sh/13HL