Build FreeNAS system from old hardware

[northenosprey2]

I want to build NAS from old hardware, here's the specification:
ASUS P2B-F
Pentium II 350 MHz
512MB SDRAM
S3 Trio3D AGP
Quantum Fireball lct 10GB (not too noisy)
3x Seagate Barracuda 80GB
Seagate Barracuda 160GB
Realtek 100M LAN Card
Cheap PCI SATA RAID Card
ASUS 52x CD-ROM

Is it worth for FreeNAS build?

Second question, I have planning to buy two 256MB SDRAM. But they was PC133, meanwhile 440BX only support PC100. Is it okay?

Third question, can I access the CD drive from NAS?

Sorry for my bad English

 

[northenosprey2]

There's no someone to give the advice to me.... :(

 

[bollar]

I doubt anyone has tried with that type of hardware.

FreeBSD needs a 486 or better, so your Pentium II is likely not supported. FreeNAS 8 wants 4GB minimum or 8GB or better to use ZFS.

If the Pentium will actually boot FreeBSD, perhaps FreeNAS 7 will work. It has lower memory requirements than FreeNAS 8.

Then you need to decide what you would actually put on it. The LAN card is slow and I don't think the hardware could get faster throughput with a new NIC/LAN Card

 

[northenosprey2]

I don't using ZFS because I'm still noob in FreeNAS

 

[jgreco]

A Pentium II is a 586-class CPU.

The P2B-F is an awesome board for running FreeBSD, or at least it was back in FreeBSD 4.* days (party like it's 1999?). It will go up to 1GB of RAM, if I recall correctly. We still have some P2B-DS's floating around but haven't powered most of them on in a few years, I think

If you're not running ZFS, you may actually be fine with 512MB of RAM. We've run some virtual machines with 512 and 1024MB configurations with iSCSI on both UFS and ZFS.

The PC133 will probably work in the 440BX just fine. However, you may have trouble with memory that isn't a supported density. The boards are a bit finicky about it. I have eight sticks here of PC133 256MB that won't work in BX boards (or will work as 128's).

 

[northenosprey2]

Now I wanted to choose power supply, I have two heavy and old 200W ATX PSU. But I am doubt to use them because it will not enough to powering all hard drive. So, should I choose new PSU or use two as redundant PSU?

Not Pentium II is 686-class CPU? 586-class CPU is Pentium classic (P5, P54C, P54CQS) and Pentium MMX (P55C)

 

[cyberjock]

Look less at the 586-class, 686-class, etc. and more at how much RAM you need. You almost certainly will want 8GB minimum which means a core 2 duo/quad or newer for Intel. Not sure about AMD.

Old CPUs just don't support high density RAM to support 8GB+.

 

[jgreco]

Not Pentium II is 686-class CPU? 586-class CPU is Pentium classic (P5, P54C, P54CQS) and Pentium MMX (P55C)

Possibly, but my point was addressed at bollar who appeared to be suggesting that it was not supported because FreeBSD needs a 486 or better. The Pentium II is definitely in that "or better" spectrum. You're in a better position to identify what FreeBSD classifies your particular CPU as, but it'll be 586 or maybe 686.

Intel's numbering scheme fell apart right around that time, prior to that we had 8086, 80286, 80386 (sx! dx! fun!), 80486, and then 586 and 686 in reasonable progression, with the last two being the original "Pentium" and "Pentium Pro", but then it got pretty messy from there, and even today a modern Xeon E3-1230 gets recognized as a "686-class" CPU, 17 years after the PPro150. So if FreeBSD is identifying your P-II as a 686-class CPU then it's effectively identifying it similarly to a modern CPU.

I thought the jump to 686 was for PPro (obviously) and then not again until P-III (definitely 686) but who knows, it was 15 years ago, maybe the P-II's were 686 as well.

 

[northenosprey2]

Possibly, but my point was addressed at bollar who appeared to be suggesting that it was not supported because FreeBSD needs a 486 or better. The Pentium II is definitely in that "or better" spectrum. You're in a better position to identify what FreeBSD classifies your particular CPU as, but it'll be 586 or maybe 686.

Intel's numbering scheme fell apart right around that time, prior to that we had 8086, 80286, 80386 (sx! dx! fun!), 80486, and then 586 and 686 in reasonable progression, with the last two being the original "Pentium" and "Pentium Pro", but then it got pretty messy from there, and even today a modern Xeon E3-1230 gets recognized as a "686-class" CPU, 17 years after the PPro150. So if FreeBSD is identifying your P-II as a 686-class CPU then it's effectively identifying it similarly to a modern CPU.

I thought the jump to 686 was for PPro (obviously) and then not again until P-III (definitely 686) but who knows, it was 15 years ago, maybe the P-II's were 686 as well.

Yeah, that's mean the processor still support FreeBSD?

OK, let's talk about power supply. I have two old (and heavy) 200W ATX PSU, but I think it was not sufficient for NAS. But I have 300W Codegen ATX PSU, it is okay? Or I joint the 200W PSU to 400W Redundant PSU?

 

[jgreco]

Look less at the 586-class, 686-class, etc. and more at how much RAM you need.

He's already looking at the 686-class...

You almost certainly will want 8GB minimum which means a core 2 duo/quad or newer for Intel. Not sure about AMD.

Old CPUs just don't support high density RAM to support 8GB+.

Not so much an issue of the density as it is address lines. We had an L440GX based server board here with 4 512MB DIMM's, 2GB was lots of memory back then. Density was mainly a problem if the BIOS didn't know how to configure the chipset correctly, or the chipset didn't support the density. Fortunately a lot of that compatibility cruft has rotted out of my memory. ;-)

 

[jgreco]

Figure out your wattage based on the components you've selected.

CPU
Probably can't find numbers for that motherboard anymore but figure 25 watts.
Add 10 watts per stick of memory.
Look up the power requirements for those drives. (In particular pay attention to start-up current required; add the start-up currents and see how much overhead your supply offers. This is a separate calculation you need to do to assure you won't burn up the supply.) Add the running watts to the system total.
Add some more overhead for the other cards and stuff.
If it's 150W or less, then you're probably fine with a 200W power supply.