Is it worth reusing my old hardware?

[NJMorf]

Hi there.

I'm looking to get some home network storage, preferably also including a backup and Plex server. Both of those tasks are currently running on my media centre PC, but it's a passively-cooled low-power machine and not really up to the task, I think (not to mention seriously cooking the hard drive).

Given that the NAS will be on 24/7, my first thought was to get a cheap-ish 2-bay NAS, slap a couple of WD Reds into it and then move my Plex server across. I've been looking at the options from Synology, QNAP and the like but they all seem a little underpowered for my needs. Next thought was to repurpose my last gaming PC, probably using Ubuntu (cos it's free) or Win 10 (cos I mostly know what I'm doing with it), but then I thought about FreeNAS as well.

I've downloaded FreeNAS 11 and had a quick go at setting it up but without any luck. Based on some searching here and elsewhere, it seems that the problem might just be the age of my old kit:

• Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R motherboard (standard ATX, circa 2009. BIOS, not UEFI)
• Intel Core i7-920 CPU
• 10GB DDR3-1600 RAM (3x2GB in triple channel, plus 1x4GB to fill the last slot)
• Zotac GeForce GTX 560Ti 1GB
• Some assorted hard drives in the 500GB-2TB range (totalling up to about 4-5TB of mixed ages and manufacturers) to be added to/replaced as my needs expand

I won't go into the detail of the problem I'm having here, since I've not spent a lot of time trying to fix it yet, but even if I get the system working reasonably well, I'm not particularly keen on the amount of power it pulls (idles over 100W thanks to the i7 and the ridiculously hot and noisy GPU) or the size of the case it inhabits. I've looked into creating a new system, again cheap-ish, and likely based on mini-ITX so it'll fit in a fairly small case and ideally be pretty quiet.

My questions are:

1. Is the motherboard/CPU/RAM combination likely to be too old to really work well with FreeNAS?
2. If I were to choose some pretty-much bargain basement hardware that's relatively up-to-date, would that be just as bad?

As an example for question 2, I've used PCPartPicker to pick out a £60 LGA1151 mobo, £45 Pentium G4400 and £60 for 2x4GB of DDR4-2666 RAM (the mobo won't take ECC). I suspect it's more intended and suited for light web browsing/office work than as any kind of server, but it looks to pull few enough watts for my liking.

Any and all advice is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[danb35]

I've been recommending this system a lot lately: take a look at the HP Proliant ML10--with the i3-6100, it's under US$200, and it sounds like it's available very inexpensively in other parts of the world as well. It's proper (albeit low-end) server-grade kit, and would need only some more RAM and a boot device (USB stick will do) to be ready for FreeNAS use.

 

[NJMorf]

I've seen several recommendations for that machine. Like most electronics, it's not as cheap here in the UK as it seems to be in the US, and since HPE don't seem to sell direct to ordinary folks like me, I can't seem to be able to find a configurator to play around with specs/prices. Trying to find specific versions like the one you recommend via third-party dealers is pretty hit and miss (closest I can find so far is a Pentium G4400 4GB version for £300, about $390). I do kind of like the look of the ProLiant Microservers, though, in terms of size, aesthetics and purported noise levels.

I really just want to reuse what I have. It feels wasteful having it just sit there or throwing it away when an i7-920's still reasonably powerful compared to current low-end stuff.

 

[nightshade00013]

Her is the big issues with your existing hardware. It's enthusiast stuff. An i7 does not support ECC, the board has audio on it which is a waste (also a power waste) not to mention the network controller may just plain not work right (realtek), the video card is going to plain be a waste since 99.98% of the time you will not be sitting in front of the screen so it will just waste power, the ram is not ECC and the drives while the may be fine for a regular system probably won't work the way you think.

Might I also mention that you actually crippled the i7 by throwing odd sticks of ram to just "fill the slot" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-channel_memory_architecture

 

[NJMorf]

The video card's only in there because I need to be able to see what I'm doing. Plan was to install whatever OS I ended up using, then pull the card and run without GPU, if possible, or replace it with the cheapest (probably passively cooled) card I could find. Damn thing is a huge power draw and makes a noise like a vacuum cleaner pretty much constantly.

The PC was a gaming machine. I went for an i7 because it was shiny and I figured it'd last me longer than an i5. As it was, I ran it for seven years as a gaming rig and would probably still be using it if I hadn't been itching for newer features on the motherboard (SATA 6GBps, USB 3, UEFI, M.2, etc.).

I ran with only the three sticks of RAM for most of that time, until I decided I needed more. The fourth stick was as identical in properties to the other three as I could find. According to the mobo's manual, it's still able to work in triple channel with four sticks if they're all of the same capacity, brand, speed and chips. I clearly didn't quite adhere to that, but nothing in the manual suggests this would be a significant issue. I can't say I noticed any difference in performance before and after adding the fourth stick, not that I was looking out for it.

As I said, I'd really like to use as much of the existing hardware as possible rather than throw it away and spend unnecessary cash. If anyone has experience running a NAS on this hardware or something like it and can tell me whether it's a reasonable thing to do or too much of a pain in the bum to bother with, I'd appreciate it. In the long run, it's entirely likely that I'll think it's just too power hungry for my liking and I'll take another approach, but it would be wasteful of me to dismiss it out of hand.

 

[nightshade00013]

tl:dr

It is your choice to do what you want with reusing stuff but simply put if you care about your data you will not do it for the reasons already stated.