Building a SATA NAS pc - freenas - some questions!

lmfy2k · 5 Feb 2008 at 15:32

hi guys

i have an old p4 hp desktop pc that i want to use as a file server/nas on my home network

ive heard about freenas and i want to give it a go

thing is i have a 500gb sata drve that i want to use and the pc hasn't got sata ports

if i was to get a sata pci card, would this setup work?

when booting up freenas would i have to specify sata drivers for freenas to see the sata hard drive?

thanks!

Paul11 · 5 Feb 2008 at 16:00

if the NAS box says it takes sata drives, you dont need anythign extra.

I have a dlink NAS just plugged in the hard drive and off it went.

nice and neat to have a NAS box instead of a whole pc sitting there as a server, imo..

lmfy2k · 5 Feb 2008 at 16:04

aye. i would love a ll in one unit, but i have this pc doing nothing, so might aswell make use for it

i will be using freenas.org, which is FreeBSD based OS for NAS

il have a look on the their website to see if can find any info

thanks

Paul11 · 5 Feb 2008 at 16:09

sorry i misunderstood.

start again.

if you want to run your NAS software on your old pc then yes you can get a sata controller card to add your sata drive.

decto · 5 Feb 2008 at 18:04

It depends on a number of factors.

Easy way.. just get an IDE - SATA converter for a few £
The throughput of ATA 133 MB/sec far exceeds the 30MB/sec typical of gigabit and 8MB/Sec typical of 100Mbps Lan

You can use an SATA card, drivers shouldn't be required provided the card is supported by freeBSD but I have't yet found a list so I just used and adaptor.

The best freenas installs are via a USB key of the motherboard supports USB booting. This gives most options with the drive if you want to raid it later.

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