NAS out of old PC?

[TheUltimateMC]

Hey everyone,

 

I'm looking into getting a NAS for mass storage of video files. However, since I do require about 10TB with the possibility to upgrade later on, I thought about building a system myself.

I believe it's cheaper than buying one, especially when i get an old PC to run the system and install WD blues. (http://tinyurl.com/y7cb42le)

Im pretty confident this will work, if you see a mayor flaw in my plan, please be so kind to let me know,

 

What I need some assistance with is the Software part of this. The work is done on MacBook Pros, so it needs to be compatible with MacOS. From my limited point of view this shouldn't be any problem thought, since im connecting via the network. Is there any software you can recommend?

 

I would love if someone can point out any mistakes i made and/or give me useful tips.

 

Your help is highly appreciated.

 

Best regards,

 

Markus

[WereCatf]

If the system you're using as a NAS has a 64-bit CPU and 8GB RAM, you could use FreeNAS -- I hear it's a pretty good NAS OS, though I don't personally use so I can't offer help in setting it up.

[manikyath]

few things here:

- define "old pc"? because if its truly ancient, its probably not a good idea

- i wouldnt recommend doing this with WD blues, they arent quite meant for being squeezed into a box together

- if you have to ask help on "the software part" i'd say you would be MUCH safer just getting an off the shelf solution

- off the shelf solutions are usually MUCH more power efficient

[WereCatf]

10 minutes ago, manikyath said:

- if you have to ask help on "the software part" i'd say you would be MUCH safer just getting an off the shelf solution

Tbh, FreeNAS is pretty much an "off-the-shelf solution" -- it's got an easy, web-browser-based UI and it makes it easy enough to just click a few times to set up a pool and share it with Windows-, OSX- and Linux-clients.