I want to build a server for my family to store pictures and videos and maybe even stream stuff from. We have 3 android phones a ps3 ( soon to be a ps4) a pc, android tablet and a laptop and we need somewhere to safely store our pictures and videos. I have an old pc thats not being used it has opteron 144, 1 gb ram, dfi lan party motherboard and a geforce 7900gs with a 500gb hd.
Could I use that as the server wirh a few more hard drives in it? Could it serve android, ps4 and windows systems?

It would be unlikely to support android systems since it's such old hardware it would struggle to run even an ancient version of Windows Server, and it would probably choke on Linux of any flavor, although it might perform better than Windows on it, by the time you got all the software to support the android and other devices it would be a real dog.

Your best bet would be to get one of the network RAID drive arrays and use that. If all you're going to use it for is storage, that would be your most economical bet.

You dont need to install a server based operating system.

Install a linux flavor with lxde. I would suggest manjaro. set up a samba share (i never have), and im sure there is ps3 media server for linux.

I didn't realise I'd need so much processing power

I used to run simple web servers off weak systems like that. Shouldn't need a ton of power but don't expect the world from it.

Weak?
7 years ago that was my gaming system :(

you don't, those single core intel atom/celerons are enough for a file server. that old computer is more powerful than that..impractical though as it will consume a lot more power probably around 300 watts at idle and it will run 24/7..those old DFIs are power hungry. the newer atoms run at around 20 watts at idle. if you replace your graphics card with the cheapest new one you can find (around $50) you could slash 100w from your power consumption.

you can start with this guide:

http://www.anandtech.com/...ile-server-builders-guide

and a pretty good one 7 years ago :D i love those old DFIs..could overclock like mad

Yeah my sockket 939 opteron 144 ran at 2.4ghz :)

Weak compared to what's out currently :)

If its just a file sharing server for your house just buy a huge disc drive and share it over the network.

You can get 1 TB of storage rather cheap these days.

Yea, I'd just install ubuntu 12.04 with gnome-classic (no effects); that *should* run fine, and be modern enough to handle all the latest stuff

(incidentally, 12.04 gnome-classic (no effects) is what I'm using to run EE =/ though the no-effcts part is an unintended side-effect of upgrading the kernel before the corresponding newer xorg packages were ready i believe...)

This. Simplest to set up too. Just have an existing computer been running 24/7.

The trouble with that is that it not my pc its my 14 year old sons. I wanted all the pictures and videos kept away from any kinda of spyware or viruses etc. He uses his pc everyday and if he does something to his pc and wrecks it I don't want to lose the data

so, use linux!

everything in linux requires you to know the root password to install anything or change anything.

You can easliy run unix on a system like this - try ubuntu with an easy gui and lots of (free) support.

Or just get a network drive.