Repurpose Old desktop as SAN or NAS

[Chiyawa]

Hi,

 

I have some old computers at my local 2nd hand shop, and I thought maybe I can buy one of the decent desktop and convert it as a NAS. In my search, I have narrow down a few:

 

Generic self build desktop:

- 4th Gen Core i5 (I think 4600)

- 8GB DDR3 12800 RAM

- 2 SATA 3, 2 SATA 2

- The case can hold 3 3.5inch HDD and 3 5.25 inch ODD

 

Another one:

- 2nd Gen Core i5

- 8GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM (System limit to 1333MHz)

- 1 SATA 3, 3 SATA 2

- mATX tower (can hold 2 3.5inch HDD and 1 5,25 inch ODD)

 

There's also one:

- Core 2 Duo T8600

- 4GB DDR3 (That's the time where DDR3 just launched and some motherboard has DDR2 and DDR3 slots)

- 1 IDE header

- 2 SATA 1 header

- Classic Beige ATX mid tower chasis

 

I only use them to archive something, using Gigabit Ethernet for transferring between devices. The device is quite cheap, where the 4th Gen Core i5 one cost me about USD150 while Core 2 Duo is about USD 50. Do you think it worths for the price? Or do you think I should go for single board computer like Raspberry Pi?

[SenKa]

An RPie 4 with a 6 port SATA hat will do you just fine

[Samfisher]

A Rpie4 even with all the various bells and whistles will max you at about 40MBps transfer speeds.  That's a third of Gigabit speeds.  With even an i3 you'll do much better, save money on power costs and easily hit the 100-120MBps transfer speeds that Gigabit will get you + overhead.

[Chiyawa]

5 hours ago, SenKa said:

An RPie 4 with a 6 port SATA hat will do you just fine

Hmm... I don't seems to recall RPie 4 has SATA ports. It only has USB 3.0. Do I need to buy SATA to USB converter?

 

11 minutes ago, Samfisher said:

A Rpie4 even with all the various bells and whistles will max you at about 40MBps transfer speeds.  That's a third of Gigabit speeds.  With even an i3 you'll do much better, save money on power costs and easily hit the 100-120MBps transfer speeds that Gigabit will get you + overhead.

Hmm... I see. Okay, I'll try to find some Core i3 system then. Should be a little cheaper.

[Samfisher]

5 minutes ago, Chiyawa said:

Hmm... I don't seems to recall RPie 4 has SATA ports. It only has USB 3.0. Do I need to buy SATA to USB converter?

 

Hmm... I see. Okay, I'll try to find some Core i3 system then. Should be a little cheaper.

In fact a lot of the mid range SMB commercial NASs use i3's, athough the slightly newer 4 core variants, although very low clock speeds.  Probably OEM SKUs.