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Can I use this old desktop for NAS ?

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megatron99

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I have a old desktop computer with Windows 10 connected wirelessly to cisco dpc3941t 802.11 router. I just purchased TP-link Archer T9E wireless card for it and getting good 560Mbps connection.

My primary computer is macbook pro retina with 512 GB of SSD, wireless N connection of 450 Mbps. Essentially, what I want to do is save all my videos, pdf books, photos on my desktop and be able to stream it on my macbook. I recently bought two 3TB WD red drives. I have considered two options: Put the drives in RAID1 and,

My desktop components: http://postimg.org/image/hs560l0a9/

Option 1) Download the media on my macbook, transfer it to the internal drives of my desktop via wired network (how?) or wirelessly but I am getting only 8 Megabytes/sec of transfer speeds since both desktop and macbook are wireless. Finally, stream the content on macbook whenever I need it.

For offsite access: Create an FTP server on Windows and use a client to access it on my macbook on an outside network. My upload speed is around 12 Mb/sec. Would that be enough for streaming 720p mostly ?

The advantage of the first option is that I don't have to dedicate the desktop to FreeNAS. I can still use Windows 10 on it.

Option 2) Dedicate the desktop to FreeNAS, take it to my living room and directly connect it to router via ethernet.

I don't want to keep the computer on 24/7, only during the day when I need to access the files. I am afraid that my computer would run too hot and both drives would fail overtime - should I be worried ?

Also, how power hungry is my current desktop for my usage ? I would prolly keep it on for 12 hours.

P.S - having plex would a plus but not necessary.
 
How to copy the data? Share the drives then map a network drive & copy.

Offsite access via internet is possible but risky. Personally I don't think it is worth the risk.

I would go NAS4Free which is less hardware demanding vs FreeNAS but either is a good product.

Running 24 X 7 is no big deal assuming proper airflow and cooling. NAS4Free will monitor the drive temps, FreeNAS most likely does as well.

As for how power hungry is the desktop, I missed the specs. Most likely you are looking at less than $10 per month to let it run 24 X 7. Less than $5 is possible as well.
 
I have a old desktop computer with Windows 10 connected wirelessly

For a NAS, wireless is a bad way to go, other than that - it's really down to how old the machine is - reliability is pretty important for a NAS box.

As @KenZ71 mentions - it's also the power usage - so might consider other options.

NAS4Free - decent solution - bit of a learning curve to climb, but that's due to it's very nature - FreeNAS is another, and there are plenty of other solutions as well...
 
Going cheap... 129 for the main box, 124 for the external USB3 for 4TB USB drive... faster than it looks, it can pull 120MB/Sec plus over gigabit ethernet on SMB - a bit of tuning on Linux ;)

(underneath all that, and don't mind the cobwebs, is a QNAP NAS acting as an iSCSI host for the box you see here)

None of it is wireless...

IMG_1061.JPG
 
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