Your opinion for a NAS project

[tTIKA]

Hi,

At home, I have an old motherboard, with cpu, ram, psu and graphics card. However, these parts are very old.(They all work fine and post, but thats about it). I was wondering if this would make a good NAS for my home network? I do not need one currently, but I just don't like to not use working hardware also. On the other hand, if these are too old to make a NAS with decent performance for Plex and iTunes streaming (and maybe as a personal VPN server) I will just not bother buying a case and hard drives. Here are my specs:

 

Mobo: gigabyte ga965p-s3 (http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=2457#ov)

CPU: an intel core 2 duo -- not sure of exact model -- with stock clooer

RAM: 2x2GB DDR2 (https://www.amazon.com/Kingston-KVR667D2N5-2G-ValueRAM-PC2-5300/dp/B00ZUIGXCG)

GPU: msi rx1600 pro (https://www.msi.com/Graphics-card/RX1600PROTD256E.html#hero-overview)

PSU: frisby 400W, is this a trustable brand?

 

I am open to any comments/sugestions

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

4 minutes ago, tTIKA said:

I do not need one currently,

Then don't get one. Your gonna be paying for power if you run this.

[tTIKA]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Then don't get one. Your gonna be paying for power if you run this.

How much of a difference can it make? is it a lot, compared to a regular pc? 

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 minutes ago, tTIKA said:

How much of a difference can it make? is it a lot, compared to a regular pc? 

not that much power, but running this all the time can easily add 10 dollars or more to the powerbill

[The Sloth]

get a pi nas http://www.techradar.com/how-to/computing/how-to-build-your-own-raspberry-pi-nas-1315968

[The Sloth]

9 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

not that much power, but running this all the time can easily add 10 dollars or more to the powerbill

not really depends on the nas, plus for the benefit its worth the money. 

[knightslugger]

i was facing a similar conundrum with what to do with old hardware so I did what you did. I made a NAS with a 3.2GHz dual core with a 65W TDP.

 

It lasts 15 minutes on UPS. My UPS is connected to my router and AP bridge so that i do not loose internet when i loose power. Power outages last longer than 15 minutes at times, and my NAS emails me when the UPS goes on batt and off batt, which tells me how long the power was out. This is important as i have freezers outside that cannot thaw in the summer and water pipes and animals inside that cannot freeze in the winter, and i work a minimum 25 miles away. Power is a HUGE problem for me, and so i am buying an Ultra Low power motherboard and converting the NAS to Low Power to maximize on batt time so that i am kept appraised of the power status.

 

You do not need a lot of horsepower to run a video streamer.

[tTIKA]

2 minutes ago, nerdslayer1 said:

get a pi nas http://www.techradar.com/how-to/computing/how-to-build-your-own-raspberry-pi-nas-1315968

I actually have a pi that I use for programming, but the purpose for this nas is to reuse old electronics. 

[The Sloth]

1 minute ago, tTIKA said:

I actually have a pi that I use for programming, but the purpose for this nas is to reuse old electronics. 

than make a nas out of old electronic its worth it, also pi nas is badass. 

[tTIKA]

3 minutes ago, knightslugger said:

i was facing a similar conundrum with what to do with old hardware so I did what you did. I made a NAS with a 3.2GHz dual core with a 65W TDP.

 

It lasts 15 minutes on UPS. My UPS is connected to my router and AP bridge so that i do not loose internet when i loose power. Power outages last longer than 15 minutes at times, and my NAS emails me when the UPS goes on batt and off batt, which tells me how long the power was out. This is important as i have freezers outside that cannot thaw in the summer and water pipes and animals inside that cannot freeze in the winter, and i work a minimum 25 miles away. Power is a HUGE problem for me, and so i am buying an Ultra Low power motherboard and converting the NAS to Low Power to maximize on batt time so that i am kept appraised of the power status.

how was the performance of the NAs

[knightslugger]

3 minutes ago, tTIKA said:

how was the performance of the NAs

performance of playback was fine. no complaints. but power consumption was entirely too high and i was paying a Watt-penalty for power i didn't need or use.

[vrod]

That setup should be fine. It doesn't take a lot of cpu power to move around files, it mostly comes down to the drives. However if you want to use features like compression or encryption, get something newer. 

 

If you decide to get something like freenas, nexenta or similar, beware of their minimum specs. If you just want to run a simple share on ubuntu or debian you are good. Most people use their NAS'es to host backups, video or music. I use my own NAS for keeping rips of my blu-rays as well as plex so i can watch them where i want. Plus many other things. Nobody really needs it, just very nice to have.

[FullBoat]

That's about what I had before I upgraded mine so I could run VM. I never had an issue streaming any movie I had. 1080P and music at the same time at times. I had mine running Gentoo Linux just because I knew it. You could toss Ubuntu on it if you need/want that GUI interface.