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Can I turn an old PC into a NAS with Windows Instead of FreeNAS OS?

InstaFire42
By InstaFire42
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Go to solution Solved by Nick7,
On 1/31/2020 at 4:41 AM, InsaneFire10YT said:

1. Is there a quick easy way to turn a Windows PC into a NAS server

2. Can I store games onto said laptop NAS and run them off of it?

1) In short: yes, just make a share, and off you go. However, usually you want redundancy with NAS, in case HDD dies or similar.

 

2) Mostly - yes. Some games/programs might have issues with using share. I'd suggest you map share to letter on your windows client.

There is 2nd option though, but more complicated - and that's iSCSI.

 

I've seen someone commented 'it will be bad' - which is not really the case. You will generally be limited to 1Gbit, so max speed you get is at best 110Mbytes/sec - this isn't that bad compared to standard HDD.

 

In my case - I have similar scenario. Currently running my VM's and games over iSCSI disks from my NAS. I do have SSD caching (bcache) for those iSCSI volumes, and honestly - it works really good, even over 1Gbit network.

 

Posted

Want to turn an old HP laptop with gigabit Ethernet into a NAS server for storing large files that I access infrequently (Mostly ISO files and gameplay recordings)

1. Is there a quick easy way to turn a Windows PC into a NAS server

2. Can I store games onto said laptop NAS and run them off of it?

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1. Yes, just create a folder to store thinks and share it. 

 

2. Yes but no, you can store some games onto the NAs but running them from it will be bad.

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1 minute ago, Danioki said:

1. Yes, just create a folder to store thinks and share it. 

 

2. Yes but no, you can store some games onto the NAs but running them from it will be bad.

Can I set AMD ReLive to record to a NAS and have no problems or will it be bad?

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Just now, NZgamer said:

Why do you want to use Windows and not FreeNAS?

I dont really know how to use FreeNAS and I felt that it would be easier using some software in windows

I tried researching your map network drive thing, and Im gonna try that tomorrow sometime

 

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1 minute ago, NZgamer said:

I use FreeNAS, honestly it's simple to use and it will make transfer times a lot shorter over using windows since FreeNAS is dedicated software, and will not waste the computer's resources on unnessesary background tasks or a GUI that you won't need as a nas.

Only program I have installed on that laptop is Mcafee and Chrome. Plus I set the PC to "Do nothing" when I close the lid so no displays are connected, but the PC still runs in the background. Will it still affect speed?

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23 minutes ago, InsaneFire10YT said:

Only program I have installed on that laptop is Mcafee and Chrome. Plus I set the PC to "Do nothing" when I close the lid so no displays are connected, but the PC still runs in the background. Will it still affect speed?

well mcafee will tank your speeds if it starts a disk scan.

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I would use FreeNas as the above nerds mentioned, just watch a couple YouTube videos and you're golden. 

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You already have Windows on it. Just create a network share and map it on your other computer. Takes 3 seconds.

 

I don't know why people are recommending to install another OS (FreeNAS) that you've never used just to share a folder. It's a laptop, I doubt you're going to install many drives in it.

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On 1/30/2020 at 8:06 PM, NZgamer said:

I use FreeNAS, honestly it's simple to use and it will make transfer times a lot shorter over using windows since FreeNAS is dedicated software, and will not waste the computer's resources on unnessesary background tasks or a GUI that you won't need as a nas.

Speed is really the same. I have ran many nases and servers on windows, and the overhead doesn't really matter. Your normally just disk or network limited for a basic nas. The overhead of windows is pretty small.

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On 1/31/2020 at 4:41 AM, InsaneFire10YT said:

1. Is there a quick easy way to turn a Windows PC into a NAS server

2. Can I store games onto said laptop NAS and run them off of it?

1) In short: yes, just make a share, and off you go. However, usually you want redundancy with NAS, in case HDD dies or similar.

 

2) Mostly - yes. Some games/programs might have issues with using share. I'd suggest you map share to letter on your windows client.

There is 2nd option though, but more complicated - and that's iSCSI.

 

I've seen someone commented 'it will be bad' - which is not really the case. You will generally be limited to 1Gbit, so max speed you get is at best 110Mbytes/sec - this isn't that bad compared to standard HDD.

 

In my case - I have similar scenario. Currently running my VM's and games over iSCSI disks from my NAS. I do have SSD caching (bcache) for those iSCSI volumes, and honestly - it works really good, even over 1Gbit network.

 

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  • 4 years later...
Posted
On 2/4/2020 at 1:29 AM, Nick7 said:

1) In short: yes, just make a share, and off you go. However, usually you want redundancy with NAS, in case HDD dies or similar.

 

I Dumping an old post so i dont have to make a new one. In win11 now dont re have the option to setup raid now? Like i have an extra PC with 10 bays i might slap all my drives in and make it w11 raid (software) and just use that as local NAS only... Trick to getting around Backblaze personal backup.

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9 hours ago, JBizz said:

I Dumping an old post so i dont have to make a new one. In win11 now dont re have the option to setup raid now? Like i have an extra PC with 10 bays i might slap all my drives in and make it w11 raid (software) and just use that as local NAS only... Trick to getting around Backblaze personal backup.

You could do that since pretty much forever. (at least back to windows nt) raid has long been supported on windows.

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9 hours ago, JBizz said:

I Dumping an old post so i dont have to make a new one. In win11 now dont re have the option to setup raid now? Like i have an extra PC with 10 bays i might slap all my drives in and make it w11 raid (software) and just use that as local NAS only... Trick to getting around Backblaze personal backup.

Windows has been able to do striped and mirrored partitions for decades, and if you want to get fancier than that you can use Storage Spaces.

 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/storage-spaces-in-windows-b6c8b540-b8d8-fb8a-e7ab-4a75ba11f9f2

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