Re-purposing old hardware

[GardG]

Hi all,

I'm looking for some kind of low cost network storage solution for my very small business. The use case will mostly be storage of all kinds of project assets, including some large video files, 3D models and other multimedia stuff. We're just two people at the moment, may expand up to 4, so clearly not a huge operation. We're not in the market for a fast high-end system – just looking for a better option than putting all our stuff on Dropbox, really …

I've looked at some of the low/mid-range units form Synology, Qnap and suchlike, but I'm also curious about building my own FreeNAS solution. (At the moment business is a little slow due to Covid, so I have more time than money).

I happen to have a really old workstation that hasn't been used for a few years, and am curious as to whether there's any point in trying to repurpose it for FreeNAS. The build is:

CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600
MB: Intel "Bad Axe" D975XBX r.304
RAM: 4GB Crucial something (non ECC)
GPU: Some kind of fanless ATI, can't remember which one, guess it hardly matters
PSU: Tagan Easycon 580W
Storage: all EOL

Obviously this is pretty much ancient, but could it do the trick for a simple file server? The motherboard is quite decent; it does support ECC RAM and has an Intel NIC. I'm thinking I might stick in 8GB of ECC RAM (max amount the mobo can handles), a system SSD and some NAS HDDs – thinking two at first, possibly expanding up to 6 as the space requirements grow.

It's currently in an ATX desktop case, could move it over into a 4U rack and possibly use 5.25" hot-swap bays for the HDDs. The PSU is probably approaching end of life, so would need to do something about that as well.

Lots of old tech here – DDR2, SATA 3GB/s, etc – is there any point in trying to breathe life into this, or will it just end up being frustrating? It's a relatively power hungry CPU, but electricity is cheap here. Not very "green", but on the other hand, reusing old hardware must be environmentally friendly. Is it practical though?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[Philip Robar]

This will work fine as a simple file server. More memory would be better, DDR2 ECC memory should be almost free on eBay, I know that DDR3 is.

 

[Jailer]

This will work fine as a simple file server.

No it will not. The minimum required memory is 8GB for a simple file server.

The motherboard is quite decent; it does support ECC RAM

The motherboard may, but the CPU does not. You need support from both for ECC to function.

a system SSD and some NAS HDDs – thinking two at first, possibly expanding up to 6 as the space requirements grow.

Make sure you understand how ZFS works and what it takes to expand a pool. You can't just add drives as you go and retain redundancy unless you add them as mirrors.

Lots of old tech here – DDR2, SATA 3GB/s, etc – is there any point in trying to breathe life into this, or will it just end up being frustrating?

The FSB will hold you back as far as performance goes. IMHO you would be better served getting some used parts off ebay and going that route if your budget is tight. The stuff you have is old enough to be pretty much useless (I have similar hardware sitting here myself with no use). You could use it as a test sytem to get your feet wet but I personally wouldn't trust and valuable data to it.

 

[ChrisRJ]

I would be surprised if a board of that age supported an SSD as a system/boot drive.

The video files could be an issue, unless the system would only be used for cold storage.

Also, since this is for a business, the reliability is like very important. So you should definitely have a decent burn-in time and rigorous testing.

All in all, this does not sound to be an option that I would consider. You did not write about budget. But if you can wait until the right deal comes up, you find really cheap used enterprise gear on ebay. I recently got a Supermicro server with a Xeon E5 1620 v2 (4 cores with HT at 3,6 GHz) for 180 Euros and paid another 80 Euros for 64 GB of ECC memory.

 

[Philip Robar]

I would be surprised if a board of that age supported an SSD as a system/boot drive.

Why? A SATA SSD will work just fine, the system can't tell it from an HDD.

Also, since this is for a business, the reliability is like very important.

Anandtech Review of this board: "stability was superb"

 

[Philip Robar]

No it will not. The minimum required memory is 8GB for a simple file server.

Well, having run a simple ZFS file server for over a year with only 4GB I have objective proof that it will work. And note that I did say that more would be better and that the OP has already said that he's thinking about getting more.

 

[Philip Robar]

The FSB will hold you back as far as performance goes.

How? This system will easily saturate a Gb network. Even as old as this system is it's way more powerful than many of the retail NAS boxes being sold today from the likes of QNAP, etc.

 

[Inxsible]

Install any headless/server linux distro of your choice on it and you can set up NFS shares or CIFS shares from it. It will perform extremely well. Until recently (say about until 7-8 months ago) -- I had a circa 2000 Dell Latitude laptop that weighed a metric shit-ton, had 256MB (yes MB) of RAM -- that I had Archlinux installed on and was using it as a backup for my super important documents as it only had a 60GB PATA HDD.

So yes, a simple file server can be run on pretty much anything

FreeNAS may or may not and that's something you will only find out after you install and use it for a while.

 

[ChrisRJ]

Why? A SATA SSD will work just fine, the system can't tell it from an HDD.

You are right, of course. I had somehow thought about NVME instead of SATA

 

[Dan Tudora]

hello
I have a almost same system with 8Gb DDR2 not ECC on a Intel something MB, a Core2Duo upgraded after some time with a Core2Quad 6600 (just becouse Plex run slow !!) and FreeNAS 9.10, 2xUSB 8Gb stick, 4 HDD 1 TB/RAIDZ1 without problem

I change boot drive with an SSD and upgrade to FreeNAS 11.2 U?, and working

you must try that first and make your skill with FreeNAS, and after that can you buy what you want/can
GO