Question Found NIB NAS from 2009 Spring cleaning....still viable??

[Ronstang]

I bought this thing 14 years ago from this Hot Deals thread an it has been in the back of a closet ever since. I just found it and I was wondering if anyone knew anything about this unit. I am not even sure how to use it....BUT I do have a need for a NAS as my emby server setup now consists of two machines and lots of hard drives so if I could use this to stuff full of hard drives that have competed and verified content ready for sharing it would streamline my setup and allow all my machines access to the same files easily.

Will this dinosaur work with modern large capacity hard drives? I currently have two 16TB Toshibas that are full of ready to view content.

Does anyone know what software this thing uses and if it's hackable to use something else? It's an attractive unit and all I need if for is file serving so it doesn't have to do any transcoding or anything so if I can use it I would like to.

Thanks

 

[Ronstang]

Nobody has any advice. This group is the smartest I know when it comes to this stuff. It's a beautifully made piece if I have to I can just use it as a case and change out the inside electronics with some low power PC stuff if I can. I just need a box to sit my big hard drives in.

 

[kschendel]

A bit of google suggests that the drives are SATA, so you could likely replace them with larger drives. Whether it would understand 16TB, no idea. Guts are apparently an old Celeron, 512MB RAM, and no OS loaded.

I might be tempted to do a first power-up someplace where the smoke can blow away, just in case the PSU electrolytics have completely un-formed.

 

[Ronstang]

Yeah, I was thinking about sticking in two 500Gb SATA drives I have that don't have anything on them that doesn't need to be erased already and see what happens. I have the DOM so it should boot and start working on it's own. I think it's a RAID so it will erase the drives and build the array.

If it boots and works with the 500Gb drives I will stick in two 4TB drives I used for archiving that are empty or about to be erased for a new use and if they are not recognized then I know the BOIS in this unit won't see anything above 2.19TB or whatever the old limit used to be in the BIOS.....but, if it does recognize the 4TB drives then it should work with 16TB drives.

I seem to remember people putting Windows Server on these, or Linux so I think I may be able to do something with it as long as it can recognize large drives. Since I have no use for or want any RAID array I may have to investigate changing the internals. I could probably stick a Rasberry Pi in there and use it to build my own NAS since this is a really nice enclosure which I could put my two 16TB drives in and add 2 more or two bigger ones and have the perfect low power consumption NAS that looks nice and is easy to work in. The way the drives go in is rather cool.

 

[Ronstang]

I found a thread on SNB forums dedicated to this particular piece of equipment and it had all the information I need. I have been talking with the OP of the thread and he has answered all my questions.

From what he told me the drive size limit is not a BIOS thing but an OS thing and back in the day MBR was the limiting factor and how the OS accesses the hard drive. He told me since the NAS is SATA it is capable of using any SATA drive regardless of size with the right software so he told me to replace the software on the DOM with OpenMediaVault of something similar and then the drive size limit goes away.

There is a person in the thread who has done this who has four 8TB drives in the unit and then uses the eSATA ports with port multipliers to attach more for over 100TB of storage, all with the original hardware inside the box with nothing more than a software change.

He also told me that even though the unit is old it is a quality unit and the GbE is a top notch controller an that once set up the unit is quite capable of saturating a home network. He should know too, he collects and restores these things as a hobby.

From what I have read the people still using these things say they have tried many solutions available on the market for NAS units and those that still use these modded are using them for a good reason....because they are quite capable and efficient even though for most they are all but forgotten.

So, as soon as I rebuild this machine with my new processor/mobo and then reconfigure my other server with a total overhaul and fresh windows install I will get on this thing. It appears all I need is an IDE to Compact Flash or IDE to SD adaptor and I will have all I need to install the software using an old machine I have in the closet with an IDE port.

I'll update with results just in case anyone is interested. I still can't believe something I bought off the Hot Deals forum 14 years ago is actually going to solve my NAS needs today.....only with the internet and thanks to Anandtech for starting all of this....LOL

 

[aigomorla]

It really looks like a cute unit.


4 drives... 2 fans.. 1 gig-e.

I would definitely R10 this unit... set up a raid 0 on 2 drives, then mirror each other.
As it would probably be the fastest and most redundant solution while saving as much space as possible.

DO NOT RAID-5 ON SPINNERS, "URE" is real, and it will make you cry .

 

[aigomorla]

So, as soon as I rebuild this machine with my new processor/mobo and then reconfigure my other server with a total overhaul and fresh windows install I will get on this thing. It appears all I need is an IDE to Compact Flash or IDE to SD adaptor and I will have all I need to install the software using an old machine I have in the closet with an IDE port.

NO.. DO NOT INSTALL WINDOWS FOR A NAS.

TrueNAS
NAS4Free
XigmaNAS

Paid options:
Unraid

Youtube has excellent videos on how to setup the OS of each on a unit.
And that unit can handle all the listed.

 

[Ronstang]

I would definitely R10 this unit... set up a raid 0 on 2 drives

I am not going to RAID at all, no need doesn't make sense in my case. I collected a lot of 4TB drives on my journey. I buy year old units from server farms with 5 year warrantees and the oldest are 2 1/2 years old and I have 4 for each 16TB drive I have so I will use them for 1:1 offline back up. I have way to much time and work into all this media to chance it. and Buying extra 4TB drives to go with new 16TB drives is still cheaper than buying 2 16TB drives and having them spin all the time.

NO.. DO NOT INSTALL WINDOWS FOR A NAS.

I have no intention of installing Windows. This unit only has 512Mb of RAM which I will upgrade to it's limit of 1Gb.....which wouldn't run Windows or FreeNAS so I will probably use OpenMediaVault like someone else in the thread over at SNB is doing.

 

[mikeford]

I have two or three generic consumer level NAS units from that era that for no apparent reason lost access to all the data or just stopped working. With many options for older NAS units so cheap, the cost is for drives and 24/7 power.

Biggest weakness for all the older NAS, is dead support channels, only update option is a new OS.

I'm doing it myself with a variety of end of life Lenovo NAS units, latest an enterprise grade 12bay with dual PS, look for one of my threads about the adventure in these forums.

 

[Red Squirrel]

If it supports drives over 2TB I'd say it's still usable. Buying that new today would cost more than what it cost back then, so may as well find a use for it. It seems like a weird design though, no hot swap bays. It looks kind of tedious to switch drives out. Suppose it could be purposed for something less important where downtime is less of an issue. Maybe just backups or movies or something.

 

[Ronstang]

If it supports drives over 2TB I'd say it's still usable. Buying that new today would cost more than what it cost back then, so may as well find a use for it. It seems like a weird design though, no hot swap bays. It looks kind of tedious to switch drives out.

From my research it has no drive size limit once you change out the software to OpenMediaVault or similar, which I will do.

The drives actually take seconds to change out. there are two folding wings with two drives in each that flip up and the drives have little screw in rubber bungs so they just slide in place so they come out and go in in under a minute. The unit comes with enough bungs to have extra drives ready to go in before taking any out. The top of the unit comes off just like the side of a computer case so it's easy too.