Found some third party ftp servers. http://omolini.steptail.com/mirror/win95/win9 … srv/ftpsrv.html

digicube wrote on 2021-03-13, 03:48:

Found some third party ftp servers. http://omolini.steptail.com/mirror/win95/win9 … srv/ftpsrv.html

Probably best to use one of those . AFAICR, IIS in those years did not exactly have a stellar reputation . That said, I still hope that FTP server will not be Internet-facing .

What exactly is this for?

Because if it's just for something quick and dirty, I would go with smallftpd.
http://smallftpd.sourceforge.net/

"It Isn't Secure"

Errius wrote on 2021-03-13, 05:02:

"It Isn't Secure"

Neither is Windows NT, hence my hope that this won't be Internet facing .

To transfer files between computers. Right now I'm using Network Neighborhood and map network drives. I tried using Serv-U ftp server, doesn't seem to be much faster. I probably need to upgrade from a 4GB CF card to a 120GB SSD at some point. Hope Windows NT 4.0 supports it. I'll probably install Windows NT server instead of Workstation.

warftpd? or that deosnt work in NT?

digicube wrote on 2021-03-13, 09:35:

To transfer files between computers. Right now I'm using Network Neighborhood and map network drives. I tried using Serv-U ftp server, doesn't seem to be much faster. I probably need to upgrade from a 4GB CF card to a 120GB SSD at some point. Hope Windows NT 4.0 supports it. I'll probably install Windows NT server instead of Workstation.

Thank you for sharing the context .

FTP is lightweight and is, IMHO, a great choice for serving DATA to older/slower machines that are either not running Windows or do not have great throughput using Windows's file sharing functionality .

If you just want to run a third party FTP server application, I doubt NT server will bring anything useful to the table. If you aim to get the best possible performance, especially if you intend to use this with modern machines as well, NT4 (server or workstation) may not be the optimal OS to use .

Anyway, if you are dead set on using NT 4 (server or workstation) with large drives (especially if intend to boot from one), here is some useful info :

A general page on using NT4 with large hard drives (use the KB (Knowledge Base) archive listed below to access linked old Microsoft KB articles that Microsoft no longer hosts) :
https://nt4ref.zcm.com.au/bigdisk.htm

Microsoft KB archive :
https://www.betaarchive.com/wiki/index.php/Mi … soft_KB_Archive

Universal ATA/SATA driver (if needed, required for going above 127GB on NT4 when using a controller that normally uses NT4's native ATAPI.SYS:
http://alter.org.ua/soft/win/uni_ata/

If you want to experiment on your own to find a solution that suits you, feel free to ask specific questions, as needed .

If you would like some possible suggestions or opinions on setting things up, feel free to provide some more details ( client machine CPU/NIC type/OS, Server CPU/NIC type, current throughput, type of network used, hopes/expectations regarding throughput).

Either way, best of luck and let us know how it goes .

Thanks, that big disk link is very helpful. I'll stick to 120GB for now. Larger disk will be a future adventure with Universal ATA driver. I remember installing it and NT will no longer boot, guess my mobo Asus P2B-DS isn't supported.

digicube wrote on 2021-03-13, 01:36:

I downloaded Internet Information Server 2.0 from vetusware and installed it but it just freezes when launch. I'm following this youtube tutorial but it seems to be Windows NT 4.0 server instead of workstation. https://youtu.be/CQ6zdd2xIgg

I take it you're using NT 4 Workstation then? Back in those days, we installed the "Windows NT Option Pack" to get IIS, and it provided IIS version 4.

https://www.mcpressonline.com/programming-oth … tp-to-the-as400 says:

If you install the Option Pack on Windows NT Workstation, however, many of the more advanced IIS features are not available, such as IP address filtering and multiple site hosting. Microsoft has dubbed this more limited version Personal Web Server 4.0. For the purposes of setting up a simple FTP server, either platform will do.

I'm not sure if we ever used the FTP server on NT 4 Workstation, but I'm pretty sure we used it on NT 4 Server without issues.

darry wrote on 2021-03-13, 05:03:

Errius wrote on 2021-03-13, 05:02:

"It Isn't Secure"

Neither is Windows NT, hence my hope that this won't be Internet facing .

I think you missed the old joke
Q. What's IIS stand for?
A. It Isn't Secure

darry has posted links pretty much everything I was going to mention but the main points
To keep thins easy keep your boot disk under 4GB. Lucky this is plenty of space even for NT4 server. I usually give the OS 2GB and put the rest in a Data partition.

You need to install SP4 to go above 8 GB even if the drive is partitioned, if you leave anything above 8GB unpartitioned your safe
(this was my cheat fix back in the day, Install OS then SP4, then partition the last little bit)

120GB is pretty close to the BX chipset's limit but as you have the DS you can always go SCSI! This will get around at least point 2 above as well.

I've only only used FTP server on Windows Server as well. It's easy enough to setup as even guides for 2008 (I haven't done it on anything later) will point you in the right direction if not exactly the same as NT4.
It's pretty basic though, We used to use it for internal IT use much like what your doing. Anything public facing we used 3rd party software which had better security but wouldn't be surprised if had better performance as well.

(in case you haven't noticed I do like NT4 and love my P2B-DS system)

Welp BIOS freezes while detecting 120GB SSD, so 32GB CF card it is since 64GB SSD is twice the price of 120GB ones.
https://www.amazon.com/Transcend-SSD370S-Soli … S/dp/B00VX82P42
https://www.amazon.com/PNY-CS900-120GB-Intern … d/dp/B0722XPTL6

digicube wrote on 2021-03-16, 20:22:

Welp BIOS freezes while detecting 120GB SSD, so 32GB CF card it is since 64GB SSD is twice the price of 120GB ones.
https://www.amazon.com/Transcend-SSD370S-Soli … S/dp/B00VX82P42
https://www.amazon.com/PNY-CS900-120GB-Intern … d/dp/B0722XPTL6

A cheap SIL3114 based PCI controller card would work with any modern SATA SSD or HDD . AFAICT, there are NT 4 drivers for it from Silicon Image ( https://www.philscomputerlab.com/silicon-image-sil311x.html) and UniATA also supports it ( http://alter.org.ua/soft/win/uni_ata/compat.php ) .

I remember buying BPFTP server back in 2003 to run on Windows 2000 Professional. It was a very nice piece of software.

darry wrote on 2021-03-16, 21:10:

A cheap SIL3114 based PCI controller card would work with any modern SATA SSD or HDD . AFAICT, there are NT 4 drivers for it from Silicon Image ( https://www.philscomputerlab.com/silicon-image-sil311x.html) and UniATA also supports it ( http://alter.org.ua/soft/win/uni_ata/compat.php ) .

Question is will the BIOS detect it and let OS boot from it. I guess I can use it as a secondary/storage drive.

digicube wrote on 2021-03-16, 21:51:

darry wrote on 2021-03-16, 21:10:

A cheap SIL3114 based PCI controller card would work with any modern SATA SSD or HDD . AFAICT, there are NT 4 drivers for it from Silicon Image ( https://www.philscomputerlab.com/silicon-image-sil311x.html) and UniATA also supports it ( http://alter.org.ua/soft/win/uni_ata/compat.php ) .

Question is will the BIOS detect it and let OS boot from it. I guess I can use it as a secondary/storage drive.

Most SIL3114 cards come with an onboard BIOS chip . As long as a card has one, flashing the latest non RAID BIOS is all that is required . This BIOS will handle disk detection and is LBA48 capable . I use one such card with a 1TB HDD in an Asus P3B-F . You can boot from it (you need to choose SCSI as a boot option in BIOS), but I would guess it's probably simpler to boot from your existing drive .

Make sure the card you get has a flashable BIOS chip, some do not or have a non flashable one .

If it's mostly for file transfers, why not run a separate server and have the NT machine be the client? You could use something like Samba on a Raspberry Pi to function as a Windows server that the NT machine could then connect to.