Windows 7 Dude...I'm so hosed up...Help?

[MisterVapor]

So, I have a Windows 7 box that I use as a home server. I store all kinds of shared files on the machine include music, pictures, videos, home movies, work related, kids' homework, everything. I created the computer with two hard drives including a SDD drive that i use for the System's core files (the C drive). This has worked INCREDIBLY...the server boots up in 15 seconds flat...from dead cold to ready to go in 15 seconds, AMAZING. Over time, I've added more and more harddrives. Now, I'm up to 10 TB of drive space but my permissions and access have become completely hosed. Some people can access certain drives but not all of them. To confuse things even more, a user using ONE device can access Drive 1 but they cannot access drive 1 from a different computer on the network using the same login credentials. I've gotten my setup so confused that I just want to start over with respect to users, sharingm etc....general security settings for this machine as well as the other machines I want to connect to this server. I have a laptop, my wife and kids both have laptops that all use data on this machine. I also have two Logitech Revues that connect to the machine for movies, music and videos. They all still work...knock on wood. But things are REALLY messy. I can sit here on my laptop and try to connect via Windows Explorer and NOTHING....but as soon as I used VNC and connect to the machine with VNC, it works...perfectly. Can someone point me in the right direction to explain how to start over and maybe the CORRECT way I should set all of this up? I've been a programmer for over 10 years and I know just enough about Windows, obviously, to be dangerous....lol. Help?

Thanks in advance for whomever is crazy enough to help me out.

 

[VsUK]

Are all the systems you have connected able to access the full amount of storage on the server?
Are all the HDD's individual or raid? Lots say raid is best, but if 1 goes they all go so I rather avoid using raid.
If things are getting slow & I presume the server you build has decent ram/cpu? I would assume a bottleneck is happening or the router you connect via has started to randomly drop/shuffle IP's around which happens when the router gets to hot, reboots & some things change a little.

I'm no qualified networking engineer but I've networked small business's & friends to know its best to just unplug everything from the server & follow a few simple steps.

1. Check the server for speed/usability directly. If its slow when your sat at the machine then its the machine. If its slow, then have some sort of system maintenance run when idle, I like tuneup utilities personally but there's others that are free out there also.
2. Scheduled de fragmentation at a time when server use is low.
3. remove all priv's from the server & add 1 system at a time, checking access & usability each time a new system has been added.
4. Stress test the server, play a video from 1 system, load up another & connect & play another & if your fully capable of having all ur systems connected playing a video at the same time, nice server & it looks good. If you start to have difficulty accessing the server before all your systems are connected & playing a video then stress test failed & you need to look at bandwidth on your network.

But, I'm still learning myself so I am keen to know how it goes