Dedicated servers dont need to be expensive. Can rent one thats perfect for sharing files etc with friends etc for £20/30 month.

I'm taking it this small http fileserver you posted about is still run off your machine? UK upload speeds suck so if you go uploading music or even a 700Mb movie or 350Mb tv show to allow your friends to download then it's going to take sometime for them to download the files which defeats the purpose of FTP as in my books they're suppose to be quick downloads you get from them or at least the ones I use day in and out are quick.

Dan pm me what sort of files you'd like to use for FTP and I possibly could make some room on my server to let you use as a FTP