Turning old PC in to a server?

krooton · 11 May 2019 at 17:20

I have an old 2700k machine that I am thinking about turning in to a server.

I currently have a DS15j Synology as a NAS, but I am thinking of re-purposing my old gaming rig (minus the graphics card) to be a more flexible machine.

It has Windows 10 Pro installed, and I am thinking of turning it in to an always-on NAS, Plex server, and possibly CCTV "DVR"

100gb SSD OS drive
2TB WD Blue
2TB WD Green
4TB WD Red

I'm thinking of underclocking/volting the 2700k to keep the wattage down.

Are there specific NAS-alike apps I should be looking to run?

The box will be stored under the stairs with pretty much just power and ethernet plugged in, so I am guessing I can just remote desktop on to it to install/manage things right, or is there a better way?

Thanks

bremen1874 · 11 May 2019 at 17:31

There are loads of options, try googling 'nas software'.

FreeNAS and Unraid are popular options.

They'd run in place of Windows, not on it.

You do most of the management using a web interface once the initial install is complete.

krooton · 11 May 2019 at 18:26

I see, do they change the file system type of the HDDs?

One of the annoyances of my Synology is that I can't just bung the drives in a Windows machine, I need to transfer all the data to a normal NTFS HDD first over the network.

To word it another way, is it possible to have FreeNAS installed, and my WD Red formatted to it's filesystem (UFS I believe?), but leave the other 2 drives in the machine as NTFS drives?

I understand that only the data on the UFS drive will be available over the network, but I would like to be able to manage the NTFS drives within the FreeNAS web interface, manually backing up certain data.

I know this goes against the whole redundancy point of have RAID set ups, and I would be looking at getting another WD Red in the future for that purpose, but I would also like to be able to have easily readable HDDs in windows if needed, like grabbing them out of the machine and sticking them in one of the external enclosures I have.

EDIT: Or should I just dual boot as needed? SSD, Green and Blue for windows when needed, and FreeNAS on a USB and Red for NAS duties?

Avalon · 12 May 2019 at 11:22

UnRAID (as suggested above) will use your largest drive for parity, each drive will retain it’s own data and can be read on any OS with suitable fs support, you boot from USB, run Plex in docker, the SSD for VM/docker/cache use. No massive need to undervolt a 2700k, it’s idle will be quite low due to the way power gating works, you obviously can if you prefer to as even a small drop adds up 24/7, but the savings are unlikely to be massive.