File Server on LAN

[trevatxtal]

Please if any one has a successful file share server on a LAN working can you let me know what software you use.
I have tried many methods so far but not to my liking.
My wishes are to access on an irregular basis many types of data file including photos films and music. contained on four or more drives.
I would like the drives to spin down after access and the mother board go into low power until wake on LAN.
The time taken to wake the system is not so important but must be available to a number of work stations.
If any one could point me in the right direction I would be most grateful.

I have not listed the methods so far tried as this may cause a fork to why one or other method will or not work hence if you have one working please let me know .
Many thanks for reading this and more thanks if you can help.

I am using latest PCLinuxOS with KDE or XFCE4 on all stations.

Added after first post.
I can give the requirements in a different way.
This is for a educational establishment charity. (short break workshops)
Requirement central repository for master copy's of pictures, films or cuts, music (out of copyright classical).
Each student has their own repository on a memory stick.
Master copy's are read only. student copy's are saved on the master disk/s as read only to all students but accessible to producing student and tutors, copy also kept on personal stick.
All students are encouraged to collaborate but able to prove originator of an idea.
All this and more I have working, with a large overhead of time to manage as I do it voluntary I am not always able to be available to reboot master machines after a power cut, by the electric company or the cleaner that pulls the plug.
To leave machines on when not required is wasteful of power, hence required to go in standby LAN awake on poling.
FTP is so messy for students and hard to configure over multiple drives.
 Samba is  a nightmare to set up and maintain with continuous change over of students. no quick way to set up accounts.(windows NO NO)
The same apply s to NFS shares.
Or am I missing something.
So please I am interested with a method that does work not one that may work for I have tried so many methods over many hundreds of hours with poor results.
Just maybe I wish to much.
Many thanks
Trevor

[nixer]

I would like the drives to spin down after access and the mother board go into low power until wake on LAN.

I think this would be outside of the file server setup, but would be configured within the power saving function of kde or xfce.  The three possible scenarios would be NFS, Samba or FTP.  I have not attempted a NFS setup before, at least not yet, so I can't help you there.

Do you want the access to the files/folders to be password protected?  By individual users or group?  

If you don't really know what you want, you might want to try what would be the simpliest and see if it fits your needs.  This  is the samba setup "how-to" written by the man himself http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,93375.0.html.

If this doesn't suit your needs, then you can try a ftp server.  I use pure-ftpd as it allows for virtual users.  It is easy to configure, but you may have to use the command line.  The pclos magazine had an article on setting it up http://pclosmag.com/html/Issues/201206/page12.html .  

It also might be better to state what you have tried, and also why it did not work out.  The more information submitted, the better the help you will receive.  

Edit:  grammar correction

[Just17]

I use NFS .....  I have no need or intention of making my files available to a Windows OS.

This might be of interest

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,107860.0.html

[trevatxtal]

Nixer thank you for your thoughts, but this is already forking to try and use pureftpd one has to uninstall proftpd and loose a working system.
adding and removing new users to a FTP server is really a night mare unless I have missed something.
To give a list of things I have tried and failed on would take hours.
Someone somewhere has a system working! that setup is what I would like to try.
I am prepared to install on a new machine to test leaving the system that is partly working to continue.
Many thanks
Trevor

[YouCanToo]

Nixer thank you for your thoughts, but this is already forking to try and use pureftpd one has to uninstall proftpd and loose a working system.
adding and removing new users to a FTP server is really a night mare unless I have missed something.

I think you are really missing something here! What are you trying when setting up an new user on ftp ? The last time I set up a new user it took less then a minute if that long to do the work.  Adding a new ftp user is as simple as adding a new user on your system. Nothing hard or a nightmare doing that!

To give a list of things I have tried and failed on would take hours.

If you don't mentioned what you have tried, how do you expect anyone to give you suggestions as what may work for you ?

Someone somewhere has a system working! that setup is what I would like to try.
I am prepared to install on a new machine to test leaving the system that is partly working to continue.
Many thanks
Trevor