Turning Up Old Computer to A NAS

[Martin Noronha]

Hey Family,

 

I tried installing FreeNAS on the old computer but it gets stuck on the boot screen. So is there any low-end operating system which can work on this Server.

 

Specs:

CPU: Intel Pentium D Series

Memory: 2GB DDR2

Power Supply: 450 Watt

HDD: Seagate 160GB

 

[SCHISCHKA]

use the debian net installer

[desertcomputer]

You cant install FreeNAS you need at least 8GB ram and 64 bit system for lastest version or 9.2 should work on 32bit system but you still need at least 8GB. I would suggest running a linux or debian distro 

[ChalkChalkson]

yeah, try to go with your favourite flavour of desktop or server linux...Mint, or Ubuntu Server might be worth consideration.

If you want something tailored towards NAS, try the unraid trial version, it will be fine with the RAM but it might not like the CPU

[domandric034]

Try unRAID

[Jarsky]

Are you planning to add more drives? Otherwise seems really overkill for a single 160gb hdd, id just put it in your main pc or an external bay and save power costs 

[Martin Noronha]

10 hours ago, Jarsky said:

Are you planning to add more drives? Otherwise seems really overkill for a single 160gb hdd, id just put it in your main pc or an external bay and save power costs 

Ya I have already added a 500+500 GB hardrive

[Phate.exe]

11 hours ago, ChalkChalkson said:

yeah, try to go with your favourite flavour of desktop or server linux...Mint, or Ubuntu Server might be worth consideration.

If you want something tailored towards NAS, try the unraid trial version, it will be fine with the RAM but it might not like the CPU

I just put desktop Mint XFCE on my server, then set up some samba shares on the mass storage drives.  It acts as a Plex box, network storage, Repetier host to run my 3d printer, and soon will likely be used for backups as well.  Running desktop linux means that when I feel like playing around with it, all I have to do is plug a monitor in.

[Blebekblebek]

Windows 10

Set up user name, password, and share the drive/folder, done.

 

Any linux distro wouldn't make any differences with that hardware, and if you think it will make it perform better, it will not.

 

Also any NAS distro is never recomending 2GB ram or less simply because most NAS distro is using ZFS.