[G4] Best for server

[jim carbone]

Hi everyone,

I have a small, two employee office that consists of several Macs: a  
PowerPC G5, a G4 Dual MDD, a G4 QS, and even a triple-boot  
monstrosity that began life as a B/W G3, got upgraded to a 1GHz G4,  
and boots OSX, OS9, and Ubuntu. I also have a couple PCs and a  
printer RIP station. I also have a remote employee that I'd like to  
be able to connect to the network with her Mac.

Right now, the "network" is a mix of routers, switches, hubs, both  
wired and wireless on cable internet. It's a pain to search other  
computers on the network for images and slow to transfer between them  
all.  I believe the best thing to do is to dedicate one Mac to being  
a server, though I admittedly don't know much about servers.

I've heard something to the effect that my G4 Dual MDD is basically  
an Apple server in a tower layout, and I like that it has four HD  
bays. If the server thing is true, it sounds like that would be the  
ideal choice, but I'd like to keep the two fastest machines as the  
workstations for speed and graphics processing power if possible. I  
currently have Tiger Server en route.

So my question is, will the G4 QS 800MHz with 1.5GB RAM be a useable  
server? If so, how will it compare to if I used the MDD as the  
server? (Using the G5 is not an option...)

Again, I know very little about servers, but I keen to learn as I go.  
Any information or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,
--jim