Now that your old desktop is obsolete and puttering away at its last breaths, there are still ways to get the most out of the old hardware instead of throwing it all away. With FreeNAS, a variety of useful possibilities exist to give new life to your old PC.
I have combed the Internet and asked around iXsystems headquarters to come up with the most popular uses for FreeNAS to get you started:
1) Secure Storage for Your Files
Here’s a little bit of history: FreeNAS was originally created by Olivier Cochard-Labbé as a method to store his family photos in a secure network-attached storage (NAS). Furthermore, media is stored on a network which allows sharing among all connected users.
Check out these articles for instructions:
“How to convert an old pc into a modern server” – PCWorld
“How to set up a home file server using FreeNAS” – Engadget
2) Streaming Movies Throughout the Entire House
One of our employees mentions that he uses DLNA to stream videos to his various TVs at home. He can walk to another room and still be able to watch the same movie playing on a different screen.
FreeNAS 8.2 features a miniDLNA plugin with instructions on the initial set up: here
3) Remote File Server
With a simple setup, FreeNAS can be used to access your files from anywhere over the Internet using the encrypted secure FTP over SSH option. It requires a dynamic DNS address, which you can get for free at DynDNS.
More resources:
“How to set up FreeNAS server to access files” – MakeUseOf
A video tutorial from the FreeNAS team: here
4) Dedicated Bittorrent Device
Who doesn’t enjoy downloading free, public media? FreeNAS can turn an old machine into a dedicated torrenting device that can download files while you sleep or work.
The online FreeNAS guide: here
5) Backing Up Your Files
Not only does FreeNAS allow for easy storage and sharing of files, but it also ensures your data is not lost. With the ZFS filesystem, FreeNAS has the ability to create periodic and cumulative snapshots, as well as local and remote backups.
Furthermore, the most recent version of PC-BSD®, an operating system based on FreeBSD, supports backing up to FreeNAS natively. Here at iXsystems headquarters, we will be able to automatically store every PC-BSD desktop backup in FreeNAS.
For Windows users: “Using FreeNAS to create an iSCSI target for Windows 7” – Trainsignal
For Mac users: Setting up Time Machine
A video tutorial from the FreeNAS team: here
Lisa Liang
Marketing Assistant
