Home network usage

I have a tiny network at home. Allows a couple of pc's to share my internet access. Modem, router, wifi access, 24/7 server. I use subversion as a service on the server to sync files I'm working on. Took me a while, I initially used it for backup of quite large chunks of my main machine. Then I realised that I only need a few files, those currently being worked. Lessons learned? I now use rsync for backup, local and remote disks, my wifes machine to this server, now svn for a couple of directories and my new 'shared' directory which really is rsync'd between three machines. I am slow.