Hello

[grimofdoom]

Greetings. I am very new to FreeNAS and have yet to actually install it. I have an old laptop and an external hdd/adapter I am going to begin my adventures into home server stuff. I would like to build it up very much into the future, but I am at a start. I installed Ubuntu Server to begin with- and I totally flopped on that due to it's more complex nature (command line based, requires a lot of knowledge I do not have) and will be installing FreeNAS tomorrow.

I am experienced(self taught, been a long while) in Python, C, C++, HTML/CSS, Basic(Arduino). I have done a bit of 3D modeling/animation, but my mac air laptop w/ Win10(not the server to be) does not have the power for me to continue.

One big thing I want to do the home server for is for streaming music/movies(A lot of DVD's I want to digitize for personal use) and backup on the "cloud" of any/all devices I can(A few laptops are in constant use in my house). I have yet to figure out anything really before hand (like how to stream music/movies. and if I can stream it with the new TVoS Apps on the Apple TV 4), but I will get there when the bridge hits me face first.

 

[gpsguy]

Welcome to the forums!

I don't know where you learned about FreeNAS, but we don't recommend installing it on a laptop, much less an "old laptop". Please read the hardware recommendations in the manual - http://doc.freenas.org/9.3/freenas_intro.html#hardware-recommendations or in one of the stickies on the forum - https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/hardware-recommendations-read-this-first.23069/

At a minimum, you'll need 8GB of RAM (preferably ECC). Most "old laptops", don't meet that requirement. FreeNAS may not recognize/support the NIC and/or other components.

If you're on a budget, consider either a Dell Poweredge T20 II or Lenovo TS140. Base models will cost from $175 - 265, which generally include 4GB of RAM, so you'd have to add additional RAM. We have forum members using FreeNAS on both machines. It looks like you might be able to get the Dell for $139 for the next couple of days, see - http://slickdeals.net/f/8385655-dell-poweredge-t20-server-g3220-dual-core-139-free-shipping?v=1

 

[joeschmuck]

First, welcome to the FreeNAS forums.

Second, I hate to burst your bubble but the hardware you listed above very well may not support FreeNAS. You must have a minimum of 8GB RAM to start with and not many older laptops have that. And you could possibly play around with FreeNAS if you had the RAM but you would need to boot from a USB flash device and then use your internal drive for storage. It's not safe storage either.

My advice would be to run a VM of FreeNAS in VMWare Player or Virtual Box, play with it and see if you like it. If you like it, then you need to build/purchase true hardware to run FreeNAS on.

If you really want to run on your laptop then I'd suggest checking out NAS4Free, although I think the folks there will tell you that your hardware is just not enough to run a reasonable NAS.

Good Luck.