Topic: Computer guys am I wasting my time with this

I know the answer to this already but I need re-assurance from other computer folks because I'm cheap and I hate to toss perfectly good working stuff out.

I have an Alienware Aurora with whatever the hot AMD processor was at the time I bought it (May 2005), 4 gb of ram, 250 GB HD.  I build all my computers but they had a rebate deal at the time that made it cheaper to buy their build of what I want vs build myself.  Anyway obviously this computer has since been replaced, but is sitting in my apartment that I'm moving out of.  I can't bring myself to toss it out, but I literally have 0 use for it.  The case is enormous so it takes up a ton of space, and its nearly 10 years old. 

So I got a house and I have a nice closet where my electrical panel, alarm, cable/internet, router/switches, patch panel, DVR for cameras, etc all are mounted.  I would like to attach a NAS in there or a server, so I'm thinking gut this old Alienware, buy a rack mount case, mount some good drives, install Ubuntu, and go.  I don't really have a lot of downloaded media, but I would use it for file backup/sharing with our various computers and stuff like that. 

Am I wasting my time and money using such old equipment (yes I am), and I should just let this one go?  The computer worked perfectly fine when I disconnected it.  Obviously I can put it in the attic but then it just becomes more outdated and worthless junk. 

(Yes I know that I can solve this problem with a $200-$400 NAS from WD or whoever depending on size, just need someone else to tell me its worthless junk and to toss it.  Unless you think its a good idea.....)

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Re: Computer guys am I wasting my time with this

I'm kinda in the same boat, but don't have time for it at the moment.

From a tinkering/project perspective, if you haven't already done something like this, I say go for it (btw, Xubuntu is a pretty slick, small-footprint version that runs great).  Will it work as well as a new purpose-built NAS? Probably not, but it could be an interesting project.

But if you've done it before, or don't have time/interest for it, then I think you have your answer.

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Re: Computer guys am I wasting my time with this

Mike98036 wrote:

I'm kinda in the same boat, but don't have time for it at the moment.

From a tinkering/project perspective, if you haven't already done something like this, I say go for it (btw, Xubuntu is a pretty slick, small-footprint version that runs great).  Will it work as well as a new purpose-built NAS? Probably not, but it could be an interesting project.

But if you've done it before, or don't have time/interest for it, then I think you have your answer.

Don't exactly have the time, but more so I've built well over 100 computers over the years.  This is more of a cost/benefit analysis.  In the end it would likely cost me more money to build off old parts than to buy one (especially if I want to rack mount it).  Just hate to toss out working stuff.  But its all so old I can't even ebay it probably.

Thanks for the suggestion on Xubuntu, I'll have to check it out.

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Re: Computer guys am I wasting my time with this

Not totally related but some of the old Alienware cases from before the Dell buyout are collectable. I sold a bare case a few years ago for $200.

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Re: Computer guys am I wasting my time with this

RogueLeader wrote:
Mike98036 wrote:

I'm kinda in the same boat, but don't have time for it at the moment.

From a tinkering/project perspective, if you haven't already done something like this, I say go for it (btw, Xubuntu is a pretty slick, small-footprint version that runs great).  Will it work as well as a new purpose-built NAS? Probably not, but it could be an interesting project.

But if you've done it before, or don't have time/interest for it, then I think you have your answer.

Don't exactly have the time, but more so I've built well over 100 computers over the years.  This is more of a cost/benefit analysis.  In the end it would likely cost me more money to build off old parts than to buy one (especially if I want to rack mount it).  Just hate to toss out working stuff.  But its all so old I can't even ebay it probably.

Thanks for the suggestion on Xubuntu, I'll have to check it out.

I think you just answered your own question.  Motherboard and chipset are OK for a NAS setup, nvidia is a PITA under linux.  By the time you pay for rack and storage you are way over an off the shelf unit..
Maybe you can donate it some place.  We have after school programs in my city, like the Boys and Girls club, that are hurting for cash and resources.

Re: Computer guys am I wasting my time with this

Second the donation idea.   I have a friend who is a social worker and took about 15 old PCs, parts and monitors that we were going to throw away.    He got them in working order and gave them to a bunch of kids in the foster care program that he works with.   Said they were ecstatic to get them, and felt it was a very worthy thing to do.

Re: Computer guys am I wasting my time with this

Go for it. I run a plex media server off an old dell slim tower with a core 2 duo and a bunch of ram added, runs flawlessly. At some point I'll upgrade so it can trans-code multiple streams at once, but for now it's perfect. The laptop would be perfect to experiment and figure out what you want it to do, and then if you really need to upgrade the hardware it will be easy to move over. I just have plain ubuntu installed.

P.S. I hid my server inside an old large speaker case. Sits in plain view and no one knows.

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Re: Computer guys am I wasting my time with this

File servers don't take a lot of power so a 10 year old computer at a lower spec than most alienwares would work especially with linux on it.  Now once you start down the path of a computer in the closet is where you end up going down the rabbit hole.  I mean why just use it for files.  Most new tv's can play directly from a pc, and if yours doesn't there are plenty of cheap options for that, so instead of just a file server it can quickly also become a media tv, and according to whether it is play they devices or streaming them from there too your tv the 10 year old hardware may start causing an issue.  I remember seeing some intel proprietary  streaming format that makes it possible to play games on the tv directly from the pc, all you'd need is a wireless keyboard mouse and controller as long as the closet is close to your computer.  So to start it should work fine until you start thinking of all the other stuff you can do with it.

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Re: Computer guys am I wasting my time with this

Hmm all good ideas.  The computer is currently disassembled mostly so donating it would require me to put it back together and install an OS on it (I removed the hard drive to move data over, then I needed the PSU for something, etc you know how that goes), but I may have an old case at my folks house to be able to do that.  I'll look into if any of the local charities accept them.

Sounds like money wise this is the best way to go as to buy the rack mount case, put a bigger hard drive in (250GB is way too small) etc I may as well go full hog and have something I can build a media streamer off of.  Also would likely want to have a RAID setup like my home PC for backup purposes, and IIRC the board I have doesn't support it. 

mhrir wrote:

Not totally related but some of the old Alienware cases from before the Dell buyout are collectable. I sold a bare case a few years ago for $200.

Good call on the case, I see the one I have going for about 80 bucks on ebay.

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Re: Computer guys am I wasting my time with this

The board is an Asus A8n-SLI - and uses the nVidea  nForce 4 chipset for the SATA drives - that gives you at least Raid 0,1, and 10.  Not sure about Raid5

Re: Computer guys am I wasting my time with this

You can buy a 4 tb USB 3.0 Western Digital drive on Amazon for $129.  If all you're looking for is simple file storage, then I'd say you're wasting your time trying to update a 10 year old box.  Will a 10 year old box support huge drives?  What's the power consumption?  You need to keep a display, keyboard, and mouse hanging around?  Got any cooling or ventilation in that closet?  How much noise does the thing make?

Toss it, sell it for scrap, donate it, whatever, and move on.

bs

Re: Computer guys am I wasting my time with this

You don't need a lot of computing power for a NAS, especially if you're not  transcoding video.  I've seen instructions on how to do it with a Raspberry Pi, so I'm sure your 10yo desktop CPU is way above that, even if it's 32-bit.  What might make the most difference is if it has a gigabit ethernet port (assuming your network is gigabit) and SATA, not guaranteed for mobos from that long ago.

If it has those, then set it up with FreeNAS and a 2TB drive and see how it works.  You won't be spending all that much time on it, and even if you end up replacing it later, it would be a good practice run.

So I say go for it, just call it version 1.

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Re: Computer guys am I wasting my time with this

I have an old box that runs in the corner that serves video on my network to my HTPC and acts as my home print server. It also serves as a quick computer to look stuff up online if a tablet/laptop isn't handy. I run an old copy of Windows server and use RAID 1 with pairs of whatever consumer grade SATA drives are the cheapest at the time (I think the last set was a pair of 2TB drives).

Even though this isn't the most cost efficient way to maintain storage (4TB of HDD => 2TB of mirrored space)
a) I don't ever have to worry about a data loss b/c if one drive dies I still have all the data duplicated on the second drive.
b) in the event of a power loss I don't have to wait forever while the drives rebuild themselves.

TIP: leave the system drive as an old HDD and put your data on the mirrored drives.
If the system drive dies, it's no big loss and the wear & tear on the mirrored drives will be strictly reading/writing the data you store.

Right now, I think I'm running >40% free space on my mirrored drive. If I ever need more space, I'll just buy a new pair of drives of whatever's cheap as needed. If I need more SATA ports, a simple SATA card is cheap.

I think I've had a similar setup running like this for ~12 years now and just replace the HDDs and power supplies as needed. Running 24/7, I think the drives tend to last ~4-6 years before one dies or I decide that I need more space. The survivor gets repurposed to life as an offsite backup (in a USB case) or a spare system drive. The PS tend to last ~5-7 years and finally, I think I've also replaced the system board/memory/CPU once with whatever's cheap at Frys. I'm also consistently surprised with how cheap stuff gets every time I have to replace something in this system.

-g

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Re: Computer guys am I wasting my time with this

shouldknowbetter wrote:

The board is an Asus A8n-SLI - and uses the nVidea  nForce 4 chipset for the SATA drives - that gives you at least Raid 0,1, and 10.  Not sure about Raid5

Its not that board.  The processor is an AMD Athlon 64, and IIRC the board was like an MSI or Gigabyte.  It's definitely not nForce I can tell you that, it was a lower model Aurora without SLI (after the discount deal it was like around $1000, $1600 before it, the SLI machines were like $3300 at the time).  I'll have to check it out when I go there again to be sure.

The truth is I should just do the math to build what I have (the case is too huge to fit in the closet so for example I would need that) vs just buying a NAS or a cheap server.  Off the top of my head it would probably cost me more, but then if I can sell the old case it may break me even.

Windows Home Server seems nice to use as well but it appears to not be sold anymore.

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Re: Computer guys am I wasting my time with this

I don't know about windows home server but
Windows Server 2000, 2003 and 2008 R2 support SW Raid mirroring

Windows 7 Pro and Windows 8 apparently support it as well:
http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-1838 … dancy.html

You can also look at some of the cheapo SATA cards that support RAID mirroring... but you need to be aware that some of these cards have a limitation as to how large a HDD you can use with them (often 2TB). I'd go over the reviews in close detail though just to see if anyone has had an issue with them. I'm personally not sure how the mirrors get re-verified if the OS is unaware that the drives are being mirrored (must be some management SW).

While it's not as efficient processor wise or speed wise, if I'm willing to trust Windows to be the host OS for my data I'm personally willing to trust Windows to do the SW RAID mirroring. The few times i've had to deal with abrupt power failures, the rebuild process for the mirrored volume went without any issues (it does it right when the machine is restarted). Only ONCE did I have to do anything more involved. In that situation, I merely unplugged one drive in the mirror, booted up, ran chkdsk /F on that drive, shutdown, changed which drive was plugged in, ran chkdsk on the other drive, shutdown, plugged both drives in, and rebootted to allow the mirror to be rebuilt.

IMO, if you have the CPU/ram/MB, the only cost you would incur would be the drives. If it turns out you don't like the windows setup, try FreeNAS and/or buy a real NAS system and throw your new drives inside.

-g

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Re: Computer guys am I wasting my time with this

There are some really low-power systems out there, I'd dump the AW and look for something else. My media server that lives behind the TV is a dual-core Atom 2.0GHz from ~2009, and it's got hardware h.264 acceleration so it still plays 1080p content perfectly fine. It's party piece is its 12W idle power consumption... it actually uses less power than most of the USB hard drives connected to it. It's also tiny and runs very cool, both very useful things for a fileserver. I'd look for something like that, you should be able to get something similar for pretty short money.

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Re: Computer guys am I wasting my time with this

So of course now this has gotten my wheels turning and churning.  Money wise I need a case and drives to do my current stuff.  For another couple hundred bucks I can get a faster setup and fit it in a smaller case (basically I want to get a rack mount to keep it out of the way, a 2U case only fits MicroATX really, otherwise I need a 4U case).

I priced it out and for a good microATX with a Celeron dual core, case, 2 2TB drives, 8gb of ram and a copy of windows home server 2011 I can do the whole deal for about $550.  then I have a server, I can do all sorts of crap.

This is how it spirals out of control doesn't it lol

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Re: Computer guys am I wasting my time with this

RogueLeader wrote:

This is how it spirals out of control doesn't it lol

Yes, soon you will have a detachable disk array, and UPSes and routers with cat 5 routed throughout the house because it is faster and more reliable than wireless.

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Re: Computer guys am I wasting my time with this

I don't know why, but I want to drop this in here:
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/rack_unit.png

Merry Christmas all!

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Re: Computer guys am I wasting my time with this

BoB wrote:
RogueLeader wrote:

This is how it spirals out of control doesn't it lol

Yes, soon you will have a detachable disk array, and UPSes and routers with cat 5 routed throughout the house because it is faster and more reliable than wireless.

Already have it, house is wired with a patch panel going to 23 cat 5 wall jacks, to a 24 port switch, then an 8 port PoE switch going to 4 cameras and 2 WAPS (one on each floor), then to my router.  And I have a Tripp Lie rack mount UPS just not hooked up yet.

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Re: Computer guys am I wasting my time with this

RogueLeader wrote:
BoB wrote:
RogueLeader wrote:

This is how it spirals out of control doesn't it lol

Yes, soon you will have a detachable disk array, and UPSes and routers with cat 5 routed throughout the house because it is faster and more reliable than wireless.

Already have it, house is wired with a patch panel going to 23 cat 5 wall jacks, to a 24 port switch, then an 8 port PoE switch going to 4 cameras and 2 WAPS (one on each floor), then to my router.  And I have a Tripp Lie rack mount UPS just not hooked up yet.

All this networking crap and not a single server yet? Color me surprised.

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Re: Computer guys am I wasting my time with this

RogueLeader wrote:
BoB wrote:
RogueLeader wrote:

This is how it spirals out of control doesn't it lol

Yes, soon you will have a detachable disk array, and UPSes and routers with cat 5 routed throughout the house because it is faster and more reliable than wireless.

Already have it, house is wired with a patch panel going to 23 cat 5 wall jacks, to a 24 port switch, then an 8 port PoE switch going to 4 cameras and 2 WAPS (one on each floor), then to my router.  And I have a Tripp Lie rack mount UPS just not hooked up yet.

Sounds like you already started spiraling out of control and this is just continuing down that path.  To late for you so might as well continue on.

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Re: Computer guys am I wasting my time with this

gunn wrote:
RogueLeader wrote:
BoB wrote:

Yes, soon you will have a detachable disk array, and UPSes and routers with cat 5 routed throughout the house because it is faster and more reliable than wireless.

Already have it, house is wired with a patch panel going to 23 cat 5 wall jacks, to a 24 port switch, then an 8 port PoE switch going to 4 cameras and 2 WAPS (one on each floor), then to my router.  And I have a Tripp Lie rack mount UPS just not hooked up yet.

All this networking crap and not a single server yet? Color me surprised.

I only moved in 2 weeks ago, give it time haha. 

BoB wrote:

Sounds like you already started spiraling out of control and this is just continuing down that path.  To late for you so might as well continue on.

I have now priced out about $1000 in building a 2U rack mount server, utilizing precisely 0 pieces of the old computer.  Yeah I'm shot.

Hmm what if I bought an arcade cabinet and turned the old motherboard into a MAME emulator....  Fiancee will kill me... maybe.......

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