Tricky Dick
Cadet
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2016
- Messages
- 1
A LONG time ago I used to build computers so I have a few parts laying around the house. Haven’t been involved with it for a while so please pardon my terminology. When one of the external hard drives I was using to backup data crashed I came across FreeNAS and thought it would be a great way to put some of this old equipment to good use and create a better and more reliable backup system. But the more I read the more I think I may be barking up the wrong tree.
The motherboard I have is a Tyan S5101, even though it’s 10 years old it still seems like an amazing motherboard (ok, “amazing” may be too strong of a word and “seems” is the key word there). It has some limitations by today’s standards but it can still do a lot. It’s a P4, 478 socket so it’s limited to 32-bit. Most people say there’s no such thing as a 478 socket 64-bit, you’d have to at least go to a 775 socket to get 64-bit. But I have found a few 64-bit 478 socket processors out there (SL8JX, Step G1 for example), but even so, I would still be limited to 4GB of RAM. It has 4 SATA ports, two IDE ports (standard at the time), even a built in RAID controller. I may be mistaken here, but it appears that the RAID port can even be turned into an additional IDE port. I have 4 Promise SATA300 TX2 controller cards, each will allow me to add two IDE drives and two SATA drive. From what I’ve read this card will handle both at the same time. So, in theory, this system will handle up to 26 drives!
So, here’s what I have…
Super Tower case that has 6 external 5.25 bays, 2 external 3.5 bays and 4 internal 3.5 bays.
Tyan S5101 MB, w/P4 (Extreme Edition) 3.2Ghz (SL7AA) CPU, 4GB RAM.
2 200GB SATA Drives
1 250GB EIDE Drive
1 200GB EIDE Drive
3 80GB EIDE Drives
1 45GB EIDE Drive
I also have a few older “cable/DVR” boxes (COMCAST/DTV/DishNetwork) laying around that I could harvest the hard drive out of (not sure of the size and type).
Plus 3 more EIDE drives 5GB and under.
I know I’m limited to FreeNAS version 9.2.1.9 because of my 32-bit limitation and the UFS file system because of my 4GB RAM limitation. With all this equipment I REALLY don’t want to spend any money on this, so… am I on the right track here or am I wasting my time? What’s my best solution? It’s hard to find documentation on UFS and multiple sized drives.
The motherboard I have is a Tyan S5101, even though it’s 10 years old it still seems like an amazing motherboard (ok, “amazing” may be too strong of a word and “seems” is the key word there). It has some limitations by today’s standards but it can still do a lot. It’s a P4, 478 socket so it’s limited to 32-bit. Most people say there’s no such thing as a 478 socket 64-bit, you’d have to at least go to a 775 socket to get 64-bit. But I have found a few 64-bit 478 socket processors out there (SL8JX, Step G1 for example), but even so, I would still be limited to 4GB of RAM. It has 4 SATA ports, two IDE ports (standard at the time), even a built in RAID controller. I may be mistaken here, but it appears that the RAID port can even be turned into an additional IDE port. I have 4 Promise SATA300 TX2 controller cards, each will allow me to add two IDE drives and two SATA drive. From what I’ve read this card will handle both at the same time. So, in theory, this system will handle up to 26 drives!
So, here’s what I have…
Super Tower case that has 6 external 5.25 bays, 2 external 3.5 bays and 4 internal 3.5 bays.
Tyan S5101 MB, w/P4 (Extreme Edition) 3.2Ghz (SL7AA) CPU, 4GB RAM.
2 200GB SATA Drives
1 250GB EIDE Drive
1 200GB EIDE Drive
3 80GB EIDE Drives
1 45GB EIDE Drive
I also have a few older “cable/DVR” boxes (COMCAST/DTV/DishNetwork) laying around that I could harvest the hard drive out of (not sure of the size and type).
Plus 3 more EIDE drives 5GB and under.
I know I’m limited to FreeNAS version 9.2.1.9 because of my 32-bit limitation and the UFS file system because of my 4GB RAM limitation. With all this equipment I REALLY don’t want to spend any money on this, so… am I on the right track here or am I wasting my time? What’s my best solution? It’s hard to find documentation on UFS and multiple sized drives.