Question Can an old PC be configured as a NAS?

[GPag]

I use iDrive for backups but backing up to the cloud is so slow I mostly backup to a local drive. If I am doing local backups I figure I may as well create my own NAS rather than pay for lDrive.
I have a Comcast router and two laptops, a printer, and a TV connected wirelessly to the network. The NAS would be used for backups and also for file storage - photos, documents etc. No gaming, and I wouldn’t be streaming much video.

I’d like to find out if I can reconfigure an old older HP Media Center PC to be a NAS or if it makes more sense to buy a NAS. I’m interested in using the Media Center PC because it is a tower and has 4 drive bays plus two USB ports. I have 2TB HDD drives that I could configure as RAID 1 or RAID 5. I also have 2TB USB drives that I could use. I know it would not be blazing fast but that isn’t a real concern.

What would be involved in turning this PC into a NAS? If more information is needed I’ll need to get it running to see what it has for memory, CPU, etc. I did upgrade the memory at some point but don’t remember what is there.
Thanks

 

[Tech Junky]

Just add an os drive if you have a M2 available on the board and setup Linux with mdadm and samba.

With Linux ram only needs about 4gb.

I run raid 10 with a hot spare and get 400MB/s out of the drives. This falls just below 5ge for speed on the network and makes quick work of transfers between devices. My AP has a 2.5ge port and I can't do 1.5gbps over WiFi from a single client with an ax411 adapter.

 

[GPag]

M2?


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[Shmee]

I think he meant an m.2 slot on your motherboard. If there is one. How old is the HP and what are it's specs? You could probably use it as some sort of NAS, depending on your OS of choice, unless it is really old.

Also, I would not use USB drives on the NAS, but they could be used for external offline backups.

Depending on the system's specs, I would look into and consider software such as Truenas, XimgaNAS, and others. Of course, you could also do it by configuring your Linux distro of choice, as already mentioned.

 

[Tech Junky]

m.2 slot

Yup. The other option is to just run the os off a quality flash drive since Linux doesn't require an actual drive to run like Windows would.

I have a SanDisk Pro that shows up as an SSD which would get the job done and the speeds are comparable to a mid range SSD around 350MB/s.

 

[GPag]

I’ll have to check on the specs. I’m pretty sure that it’s max memory capacity is 4gb. M.2 didn’t exist when this system was built. All the drives are SATA.


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[Tech Junky]

I’ll have to check on the specs. I’m pretty sure that it’s max memory capacity is 4gb. M.2 didn’t exist when this system was built. All the drives are SATA.

Then just use a SanDisk Pro to boot/run the os.

The other option could be using a pcie adapter and SATA M2 for something more permanent than the USB option.

RAM is just a perk as the os doesn't need much it's the underlying processes that can potentially use it. I put in 16gb as it was $60 but the system only uses 4gb most of the time. With that in mind you could turn on the swapfile as virtual ram if it feels bogged down.

 

[GPag]

If I did this I was planning on using TruNAS on a flash drive for the OS, but TruNAS says the memory requirement is 8GB.


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[In2Photos]

Look into unRAID. You can run it on very minimal hardware.

 

[GPag]

Here are the specs on the system. I didn’t include anything about the multimedia ports or the graphics and sound cards because I assume I would be removing what could be removed and not using any of it that couldn’t be removed. The graphics card uses the PCI Express slot, I assume the memory uses the PCI slots.

HP Desktop PC Pavilion m7680n

• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6400(2.13GHz); 2 MB L2 Cache
• Chipset: Intel P965
• CPU FSB: 1066 MHz
• Memory: 4GB upgradable to 8GB DDR2 533 Mhz
• Power supply: 300 watts
• HDD Interface: SATA
• PCI Slots: 3 PCI slots (occupied), 1 PCI Express x16 Slot
• Ethernet: 10/100Base-T network interface
• LAN Speed 10/100Mbps
• Wireless Card: Wireless LAN 802.11 b/g
• Front Ports: two USB A, one IEEE 1394
• Back Ports: four USB A, one IEEE 1394, RJ45
• Front 9-in-1 memory card reader – supports Smart Media, xD, MultiMedia Card, Secure Digital (SD),Compact Flash I, Compact Flash II, Micro Drive, Memory Stick and Memory Stick Pro

 

[Shmee]

Ok so it is a core 2 duo computer. Might struggle with truenas, but other options should work.

If it doesn't have onboard graphics, then you will still need a graphics card for the computer to post. Even if you don't have any monitor connected most of the time.

The memory is DDR2, it doesn't use PCI, but there should be 2 or 4 DDR2 DIMM slots on the board. Not sure if it is worth upgrading, since DDR2 can be fussy, and higher capacity kits are hard to find.

One concern is that the ethernet interface is only 10/100. If you have a spare PCIe slot, even an x1, you could add a gigabit NIC.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Ok so it is a core 2 duo computer. Might struggle with truenas, but other options should work.

I wouldn't use something THAT OLD as a NAS, just due to bathtub curve reliability issues that might crop up.

 

[GPag]

I wouldn't use something THAT OLD as a NAS, just due to bathtub curve reliability issues that might crop up.

Yeah, I thought about that too. I guess I will just send it to the scrap heap. Maybe pull the power supply that has very few hours on it, and any thing elseI can get a few bucks for. Think the chassis would be worth anything?


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[In2Photos]

I wouldn't use something THAT OLD as a NAS, just due to bathtub curve reliability issues that might crop up.

Until a few months ago I was using an Athlon 64 3000 1.8GHz Socket 939 with 2GB of RAM on my unRAID server. Upgraded to a i5-2300. It might be a decent system to try things out on before spending any money.