An Old Computer Turns Into A FreeNAS Device Part 1

This was the Keykeeper's old computer. It had been sitting since 2005 when he got a newer one (a Deskpro EN, not that you were wondering or surprised to hear that). I held onto it, waiting for the perfect project. And finally it came--this computer has now become a FreeNAS device providing "Time Capsule" services to Macintosh computers running Mac OS X 10.5.

This part talks about the hardware and what I changed or added.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• computer
• DIY
• FreeNAS
• 07.RC2
• HP
• Vectra
• VA
• Series
• 6/200
• reuse
• useful

[Matthew55904]

i was thinking of using one of theseCF to IDE adaptors in my Desktops to remove heat and go "Solid State" with a hot-swappable HDD Tray in my computer to use the HDD only for data when needed i run Linux Mint 9 on my machines and i was wondering what luck preformace wise you have had with these over HDDs? Faster? Slower? please let me know

[uxwbill]

@Matthew55904 I would say that "most" CF cards are slower than hard disks and proper SSDs. There are some higher speed models available, and those may well do better.

I have not done any hard and fast benchmarks to compare the two.

[Dreambro1]

I had to throw out a Computer I bought new last month. It went obscolete! ;-( Somebody told me it was old, A month old, and there was no use for it. All I used it for was internet, Documents, and gaming. Maybe downloading music and such. I guess there is a time that computers expire. A month after you bought it or something!

[uxwbill]

@Dreambro1 I really hope you're kidding.

[TableWolfMusic]

Great project and video. Worth noting that flash memory (e.g. CF cards) have a limited number of write cycles.

[uxwbill]

@TableWolfMusic I did not end up using the CF card due to issues with the onboard ATA controller. As it is, it would be only rarely written to here...it only boots the OS and then sits idle for most of the time after that.

[calvindurandt]

Nice vid, but for the love of God, please clean your Kitchen!!!

[uxwbill]

@daniellikahong To put it very simply, this project (or "junk", if you'd rather) actually turned out very well. It's much more stable than the product Apple sells for this job. The only thing that ever restarts it is a power failure and power draw is the *same* as my Linksys NSLU2 with two drives.

It does not run with a monitor attached, only a terminator plug on the video card. When you get a computer like this, sometimes you do have to fix it in creative ways due to its value.

[Matthew55904]

@uxwbill this sounds like its perfect for this kind of application am i mistaken? Team 8GB CompactFlash: High compatibility High read/write speed Stores data, music, image and video files Compatible with ATA Full IDE operation mode Supports operations at 3.3V/5V

[Dreambro1]

@uxwbill yeah, Im kidding. LOL,, Im still running 10 year old computers that are surfing the net fine. I do office type things, list on ebay, Message. Ive actually had less problems with the older computers than the newer ones.

[TableWolfMusic]

@uxwbill This is a cool server you've made. I saw somewhere in the comments that you ran it through a electricity meter. Now that is a good! If you have the OS only on the flash, then, as you say it would be written to rarely, maybe with the exception of a swap partition which would suffer very excessive wear. Also possibly the VAR folder depending on how old the *nix system is and how it's partitioned. For example, in older Free BSD setups, one might partition var to avoid DOS attacks.

[uxwbill]

@HardTrancid Oh, that's just the thing. If I throw something out, I know that I will soon find just the thing that would have been perfect to do with it. Such is life I guess...