Question about converting an old pc into a budget nas

[billabeasta]

Hey Everyone,

 

So I recently got a dell optiplex 9020 small form factor that was going to get thrown away, and I kind of want to convert it into a NAS. I wanted to not use it for anything too crazy, probably just photos, and maybe a couple movies. Right now it has a core i5vpro inside, dual channel 8gb RAM, 3 SATA ports (one was being used for a DVD drive), and an open PCIE slot. It has a 500gb hard drive as of now but I am probably gonna get a new drive at some point in the future. Would this be a good idea for this machine? Also where would you guys recommend to start? 

[Streetguru]

2 minutes ago, billabeasta said:

 

Toss in some extra cheap RAM, install FreeNAS, and maybe pick up some kind of Sata PCI-e controller.

and buy NAS specific hard drives like WD Reds naturally.

[Salacious B Crum]

1 hour ago, billabeasta said:

Hey Everyone,

 

So I recently got a dell optiplex 9020 small form factor that was going to get thrown away, and I kind of want to convert it into a NAS. I wanted to not use it for anything too crazy, probably just photos, and maybe a couple movies. Right now it has a core i5vpro inside, dual channel 8gb RAM, 3 SATA ports (one was being used for a DVD drive), and an open PCIE slot. It has a 500gb hard drive as of now but I am probably gonna get a new drive at some point in the future. Would this be a good idea for this machine? Also where would you guys recommend to start? 

Not sure as you can by an 8TB easystore for cheaper than the bare drive but if you plan on other options than just raw storage I'm a big proponent of turning outdated pre-builts into useful machines like an unRAID box!

[Olaf6541]

8GB ram is enough for a simple storage system, and with 3 sata ports I would recommend to get a small (32-120GB) sdd for the os and two harddrives in raid 1 for storage.

Have you thought already about what OS you want to run?

[UrbanFreestyle]

I was just going to enquire about the OS.

I have been using OMV on a Raspberry Pi for a while, then got a Seagate business NAS and finally settled on a DIY MITX build running Freenas. I think the main thing depends on the filesystem etc.

8gb should be fine but i saw my 16gb being used during heavy data transfers on a ZFS raid.

[Salacious B Crum]

23 hours ago, UrbanFreestyle said:

I was just going to enquire about the OS.

I have been using OMV on a Raspberry Pi for a while, then got a Seagate business NAS and finally settled on a DIY MITX build running Freenas. I think the main thing depends on the filesystem etc.

8gb should be fine but i saw my 16gb being used during heavy data transfers on a ZFS raid.

Not sure its been awhile but I think its recommended to have 1GB of ram for every 1TB of data storage with freeNAS

[billabeasta]

On 9/24/2019 at 3:51 PM, Streetguru said:

Toss in some extra cheap RAM, install FreeNAS, and maybe pick up some kind of Sata PCI-e controller.

and buy NAS specific hard drives like WD Reds naturally.

 

On 9/24/2019 at 5:12 PM, mrbilky said:

Not sure as you can by an 8TB easystore for cheaper than the bare drive but if you plan on other options than just raw storage I'm a big proponent of turning outdated pre-builts into useful machines like an unRAID box!

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the input, I think I'm going to go that route , it may just be a little while till I implement it so I can save up and stuff but I will for sure keep this in mind.

 

[billabeasta]

On 9/25/2019 at 5:26 AM, Olaf6541 said:

8GB ram is enough for a simple storage system, and with 3 sata ports I would recommend to get a small (32-120GB) sdd for the os and two harddrives in raid 1 for storage.

Have you thought already about what OS you want to run?

 

On 9/25/2019 at 5:42 AM, UrbanFreestyle said:

I was just going to enquire about the OS.

I have been using OMV on a Raspberry Pi for a while, then got a Seagate business NAS and finally settled on a DIY MITX build running Freenas. I think the main thing depends on the filesystem etc.

8gb should be fine but i saw my 16gb being used during heavy data transfers on a ZFS raid.

 

On 9/26/2019 at 5:26 AM, mrbilky said:

Not sure its been awhile but I think its recommended to have 1GB of ram for every 1TB of data storage with freeNAS

Thanks for the assist, that does sound like a plan, i think i'm going to use that smaller boot drive, and I have heard alot of good things with freeNas so I'll probably end up going with that one. And I'll pick up some ram for that bad boy cause it looks pretty cheap which I like a lot when getting parts.