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Don't throw away your old PC—it makes a better NAS than anything you can buy

⁨169⁩ ⁨likes⁩

Submitted ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨excel24@feddit.org⁩ to ⁨technology@lemmy.world⁩

https://www.howtogeek.com/turned-old-windows-pc-into-inexpensive-nas/

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Comments

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  • Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world ⁨31⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

    And as usual everyone is saying NAS, but talking about servers with a built in NAS.

    I’m not saying you can’t run your services on the same machine as your NAS, I’m just confused why every time there’s a conversation about NASs it’s always about what software it can run.

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  • deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    OK. Science time. Somewhat arbitrary values used, the point is there is a amortization calculation, you’ll need to calculate your own with accurate input values.

    A PC drawing 100W 24/7 uses 877 kWh@0.15 $131.49 per year.

    A NAS drawing 25W 24/7 uses 219 kWh@0.15 $32.87 per year

    So, in this hypothetical case you “save” about $100/year on power costs running the NAS.

    Assuming a capacity equivalent NAS might cost $1200 then you’re better off using the PC you have rather than buying a NAS for 12 years.

    This ignores that the heat generated by the devices is desirable in winter so the higher heat output option has additional utility.

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    • Auth@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

      my gaming pc runs at like 50w idle and only draws a ton of power if its being used for something. It would be more accurate to consider a PC to be 1.75x more power than a NAS but then account for the cost of buying a NAS. I’d say NAS would probably take 2-4 years to pay off depending on regional power prices.

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    • brrt@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

      Assuming a capacity equivalent NAS might cost $1200

      Either you already have drives and could use them in a new NAS or you would have to buy them regardless and shouldn’t include them in the NAS price.

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  • Sv443@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Highly doubt it’s worth it in the long run due to electricity costs alone

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    • brucethemoose@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Depends.

      Toss the GPU/wifi, disable audio, throttle the processor a ton, and set the OS to power saving, and old PCs can be shockingly efficient.

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      • cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        You can slow the RAM down too. You don’t need XMP enabled if you’re just using the PC as a NAS. It can be quite power hungry.

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    • Damage@feddit.it ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      So I did this, using a Ryzen 3600, with some light tweaking the base system burns about 40-50W idle. The drives add a lot, 5-10W each, but they would go into any NAS system, so that’s irrelevant. I had to add a GPU because the MB I had wouldn’t POST without one, so that increases the power draw a little, but it’s also necessary for proper Jellyfin transcoding. I recently swapped the GPU for an Intel ARC A310.

      By comparison, the previous system I used for this had a low-power, fanless intel celeron, with a single drive and two SSDs it drew about 30W.

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      • lectricleopard@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Ok, im glad im not the only one that wants a responsive machine for video streaming.

        I ran a pi400 with plex for a while. I dont care to save 20W while I wait for the machine to respond after every little scrub of the timeline. I want to have a better experience than Netflix. Thats the point.

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    • leftascenter@jlai.lu ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      A desktop running a low usage wouldn’t consume much more than a NAS, as long as you drop the video card (which wouldn’t be running anyways).

      Take only that extra and you probably have a few years usage before additional electricty costs overrun NAS cost. Where I live that’s around 5 years for an estimated extra 10W.

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      • Damage@feddit.it ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        as long as you drop the video card

        As I wrote below, some motherboards won’t POST without a GPU.

        Take only that extra and you probably have a few years usage before additional electricty costs overrun NAS cost. Where I live that’s around 5 years for an estimated extra 10W.

        Yeah, and what’s more, if one of those appliance-like NASes breaks down, how do you fix it? With a normal PC you just swap out the defective part.

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    • ImgurRefugee114@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I’m still running a 480 that doubles as a space heater (I’m not even joking; I increase the load based on ambient temps)

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      • SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works ⁨32⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

        A 486, eh?

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      • thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        I am assuming that’s a GTX 480 and not an RX 480; if so - kudos for not having that thing melt the solder off the heatsink by now! 😅

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    • 9point6@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      If they’re gonna buy a nas anyway, how many years to break even?

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  • ashenone@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I started my media server with an e-wasted i7 3770 dell tower I snagged out of the ewaste pile. Ran jellyfin, audiobookbay, navidrome, calibre-web and an arr stack with about a dozen users like a champ. Old hardware rules if you don’t use windows

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  • CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    My NAS draws about 25w (without drives). Show me an old PC with 6 3.5” drive bays that draws 25w.

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    • lectricleopard@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

      At idle or under normal load? Im tempted to get the killawatt out.

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      • CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

        Idle. Under load a bit more. It’s a mobile chipset, so it is efficient. Not as powerful as a desktop for sure but totally handles my basic workloads.

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  • linkinkampf19@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

    And of course I see this after I bought (and received) a miniPC. Picked up a"beefier" n305 unit with 16GB and a 256GB NVMe, as I wanted some headroom in case I have loftier goals. So far have have horrible luck with it in the first 3-4 hours of attempting install of some Linux flavor. Started with Proxmox, as I want to run LXCs and containers of HA, PiHole, and Jellyfin, and there are some boots where I can’t even get past the installer. Booted up a LiveISO of Mint, and even that froze after a few minutes. Reading around about possible NIC driver issues, C-states, temperature throttling, etc… and what a headache so far. I can’t be sure it’s the device, me, or the images. /vent

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  • spongebue@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    How about a Raspberry Pi? I’ve got one (Raspberry Pi 400) running my Home Automation setup with a couple USB 3.0 ports. Was thinking there’s gotta be some add-ons for Home Assistant to put some external storage to good use.

    Don’t need anything too fancy. Just looking for some on-site backup and maybe some media storage

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    • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

      For backups it will be fine. Same for media storage. But if you want media streaming from the device (like plex) then you’ll want something better.

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      • spongebue@lemmy.world ⁨7⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

        Yeah, I guess I should have been clear that’s part of what I was thinking (although to be honest I’m mostly a schmuck who pays for a few streaming services and uses that)

        What exactly would be the main choking point? Horsepower of the Pi to take that stored file and stream it to the client?

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    • Damage@feddit.it ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I think you can install OpenMediaVault on that, at least I used to run it on a Pi 3 and an USB drive. Then just run whatever docker container you wish to.

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    • WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      You can use it as a smb server and mount it with your other devices. They have an official addon for it with samba in the name.

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  • MudMan@fedia.io ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I mean... my old PC burns through 50-100W, even at idle and even without a bunch of spinning hard drives. My actual NAS barely breaks that under load with all bays full.

    I could scrounge up enough SATA inputs on it to make for a decent NAS if I didn't care about that, and I could still run a few other services with the spare cycles, but... maybe not the best use of power.

    I am genuinely considering turning it into a backup box I turn on under automation to run a backup and then turn off after completion. That's feasible and would do quite well, as opposed to paying for a dedicated backup unit.

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  • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    My old PC locks up every 4 to 48 hours. It would make a terrible NAS.

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    • ScoopMcPoops@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      My pc did that when my almost 10 year old SSD with my OS started to die. Switched it out and haven’t had an issue since.

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  • CosmoNova@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    My old PC and laptop are too loud to use for anything really. It‘s unfortunate but the noise is too much.

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    • leftascenter@jlai.lu ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Clean the PC and change the fans. Fans make noise when old.

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      • SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works ⁨30⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago

        More dead spiders=more whirrrr

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      • CosmoNova@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

        It‘s squeaky clean. I think it has more to do with either preference or you severely underestimate the noise of 10 year old gaming hardware.

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      • Dima@feddit.uk ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        And repaste it if you’re going this far

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  • BorgDrone@feddit.nl ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Better to build it from scratch, your desktop PC does not have server-grade hardware. No ECC, no IPMI, not enough SATA ports, etc.

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    • fry@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

      Hardware is boring. Doing some research is boring. People don’t care about boring stuff. Or their data.

      “Let’s put every single family photo taken between 1976 and today on this and only this one shitty drive. And let me spin up an Immich container on my trusty raspberry. I have watched a YouTube video or two in my days. I think I know what I’m doing.”

      Bonus points for “but ssh is all you need”, “static electricity has never been a problem for me” and “what gpu do you recommend for jellyfin?”.

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    • MudMan@fedia.io ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I think the self-hosting community needs to be more honest with itself about separating self hosting from building server hardware at home as separate hobbies.

      You absolutely don't need sever-grade hardware for a home/family server, but I do see building a proper server as a separate activity, kinda like building a ship in a bottle.

      That calculation changes a bit if you're trying to host some publicly available service at home, but even that is a bit of a separate thing unless you're running a hosting business, at which point it's not a really a home server anyways, even if it happens to sit inside your house.

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      • BorgDrone@feddit.nl ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

        You absolutely don’t need sever-grade hardware for a home/family server

        Server-grade hardware makes a lot of sense even for home use. My NAS is tucked away in a closet, having IPMI is so much more convenient when you can’t easily hook it up to a keyboard and mouse.

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    • ahornsirup@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      None of that really matters for a home media server. Even the limited SATA ports, worst case you have to grab a cheap expansion card.

      Power consumption is a much bigger concern, a purpose built NAS is much more efficient than a random old PC.

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      • BorgDrone@feddit.nl ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        Even the most expensive Synology only has space for 8 drives with only one 10Gbit ethernet port.

        You can build something yourself for less with much better performance.

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    • fuckwit_mcbumcrumble@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

      HBAs are cheap, IPMI isn’t at all needed under normal uses cases, and ECC is way overkill.

      For most people a halfway decent PC that isn’t failing is plenty.

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  • Quazatron@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I see what you mean, and I have that (old PC with a bunch of 2.5" HDDs formatted as ZFS).

    For me power consumption is more important than performance, so I’m looking for a lower power solution for photo sharing, music collection and backups.

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