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Should I reuse my current PC with these specs as a NAS?

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Shoda

New Around Here
Hello Everyone,

I am new here and I was wondering if folks could help me out. I have been thinking of getting a NAS for a while now. I started to learn CAD, Fusion360 specifically, and my custom built PC simply is not able to handle this so I am going to be upgrading. I was going to reuse my current PC for a NAS with NAS4Free, but I am wondering if my PC would be overkill and I am better off repurposing it for something else and getting a two bay, or even 4 bay, NAS from someone else instead?

I am guessing my CPU and RAM is most important so I am only listing those two. If any other specs are needed let me know. I have an Intel 2500k overclocked to 4.5ghz, and 16GB of RAM.
 
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If you're talking about a predominately single-user setup then that spec is way over the top.

I have a HP Microserver with 8GB of RAM and a CPU 7 times slower of yours and I can easily saturate the gigabit network connection between it and my PC.

Mind you, it's better to have over-spec'd hardware than one of those pathetic consumer NAS's with a 600MHz processor and 256MB of RAM (yes, I'm looking at you Buffalo).
 
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I am guessing my CPU and RAM is most important so I am only listing those two. If any other specs are needed let me know. I have an Intel 2500k overclocked to 4.5ghz, and 16GB of RAM.

It's good - might consider under clocking that CPU - save some power, as NAS's tend to be on 24/7...

Check out the DIY thread - lots of good stuff there, and since NAS4Free shares DNA with pfSense, might check out some of the threads over there for tips and tricks...

Make sure your ethernet interface chipset is compatible with FreeBSD - some are more compatible than others....
 
Thank you for two for replying. I was pretty sure that a NAS would not be as intensive as what this PC can do, but I was mainly wondering if this was overkill and I am better off saving this computer as a regular desktop instead of turning into a NAS.

Question about underclocking though. The CPU already throttles itself to 1600mhz when it is not under load and on average I think it draws only maybe 50watts, would it still be worth it to undervolt and underclock instead of just leaving it as it is now and letting it have some extra horsepower in case it needs/can use it?
 
you have a good system for what you plan to run, it really depends on what you run on it. I can tell you for a fact that CPU does play an important role if you use sftp, plex and programs like them. My phenom ii file server is just fast enough for me to use it as it will only do 3 1080p streams before buffering starts and sftp uses 80% CPU for 1Gb/s of file transfer. Ram is good for caching for some types of file systems and raid setups.

My file server specs are like this:
phenom ii x4 20 (a 3 core unlocked to 4 core and overclocked)
16GB of DDR3 ram
Raid 5 of 6 WD reds
WD black for OS
SFP+ for NIC
creative soundcard with dedicated CPU (for no reason other than programming)
Runs opensuse and i optimised it as best i could in both bios and setup, stuff into a 2U chassis with ATX PSU.

I am planning on moving my file server to a highly overclocked 6 core xeon and stuff 2 GPUs in it if i can fix a specific motherboard and add more drives all stuff into 2U. Xeons overclock very very well and you dont have to worry about underclocking intel CPUs as they have speedstep. The only way you can underclock intel CPU is via the bus but i suggest looking at the ultra low power settings. If you use a program like throttlestop it lets you tweak CPU and even manually enable such features and force it to stick.

My file server is also part of my gpgpu cluster so it performs various other tasks too as i use as much as i can of the hardware i have.
 

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