http file server

[Mike Maltese]

> Hi Friends, I have been asked to come up with some kind of system so that
> our company can share the data & drawings with different customers and
> vendors.

What you're describing sounds like an extranet. Apache with SSL sounds like
a good idea here, especially if this is sensitive data.

> Present requirements: 50 Gb disk space, web access & password protected
> directories/folders and less expensive.

> My idea is to build an "http file server".

It would be pretty easy to build some kind of file browsing system with PHP
or Perl. You could also use either of these for whatever authentication
scheme you cook up.

> OS: Naturally I am going to use FreeBSD

Good idea. =)

> Hardware: May be I will buy two (2) 50 Gb IDE disks. Is 256 Mb ram is
enough
> or need more? What kind of backup system we should put? Which is reliable
> RAID controller? Or What size of Dat's. etc.

My suggestion for an IDE RAID controller would be something from 3ware. If
this will be a moderate to very busy site, I would also suggest a minimum of
512MB of RAM. My last thought would be that you keep future expansion in
mind and go with slightly larger disks, maybe 80 or 100GB.