Need help with NAS solutions

[joemc99]

Hello LTT,

 

So here is the situation: I purchased a WD Red 2TB because I wanted to set up a nas. I purchased an old Dell Optiplex 745 from eBay so that I didn't have to buy an expensive nas box. The plan was to make a freeNAS box out of it, after a few hours of trying to get the damn thing to work , I finally got freeNAS on it, however i am a total NAS noob and did not know how to use the thing. So i tried windows home server which was okay but i couldn't get the network drivers to run at full gigabit speeds, so i tried windows 7, same thing happened: connection speed 100mbps.Not enough.To make everything worse i noticed that a small cluster of capacitors on the dell optiplex looked like they were about to explode! (bulged caps) so im not comfortable using it 24/7, What do i do ?

 

 

Get another better pc to use, and buy a gigabit LAN 

 

Get an expensive nas box 

 

Or get a cheap one. 

 

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, Thanks  

 

[Zeke]

HP sells those 4-disk Proliant "microservers", have you looked at them?

[Tda62]

Yes I personally would go and buy a new nas with pre installed software

[ross06187]

first off buying one single 2tb wd red, it never going to be much of a nas.  the 100 mb/s on the Dell Optiplex 745 probably is good enough for your needs.  I don’t think that board has gigabit on board so you would need to get a gigabit card or usb adaptor and have appropriate network hardware behind it   on your network.

 

if you’re just going  for a 1 drive system  i would

1. look at plugging it direly into the router allot have usb ports for this.
2. get a single bay  nas enclosed on ebay.

 

if you want more than one drive stick with the Dell Optiplex 745.  You already have a lot of investment there and its not much more.

[technovore]

I would look into using freeNAS properly....it's really not that hard.

[ForsakenLive]

What mobo is on the server? You might as well get one used and replace it.