Inherited PC - use as NAS?

[hpp8140]

i agree with AdvHomeServer.

the machine you are working with might barely pass for a router. that cpu is going to drink electricity and give you no performance for it.

junk it and buy a cheap NAS if you want/need it.

+1 electric hog

get a $25 pogoplug E02 and run debian wheezy, minidlna

 

[microchip]

You stated you're running a laptop. The Dell is a desktop and uses multiple times more power. Your P4 has approximately a 2x higher passmark score. You are comparing apples to oranges.

Actually, I'm not comparing any apples with any oranges. I wanted to show that since my T1300 CPU on the lappy can run a full-blown KDE Linux distro with no hiccups, a P4 which is more powerful, certainly can run a Linux with no issues at all, and be used as a media server. That's all. So in essence, the P4 is more than enough for his needs. Whether it's a good idea, that's another question. and please stop throwing your synthetic benchmark numbers. I can tell you that a P4 on Linux is very capable for specific needs.

 

[AdvHomeServer]

Actually, I'm not comparing any apples with any oranges. I wanted to show that since my T1300 CPU on the lappy can run a full-blown KDE Linux distro with no hiccups, a P4 which is more powerful, certainly can run a Linux with no issues at all, and be used as a media server. That's all. So in essence, the P4 is more than enough for his needs. Whether it's a good idea, that's another question. and please stop throwing your synthetic benchmark numbers. I can tell you that a P4 on Linux is very capable for specific needs.

My mistake again. Your passmark is in the low 400s. The other is in the 3xx range. The gap isn't as large as I thought, but yours is still more powerful than his. You haven't addressed power requirements, throughput, or skills transferability. For a hobby, skills don't matter, it's only for fun. For employability, what sounds better ... "Familiar with economically using current technology for maximum benefits at minimum cost" or "Got a power hungry very old desktop to limp along as a slow file server at moderately high cost using obscure technology and I can do the same for you"? Opinions there?

 

[microchip]

My mistake again. Your passmark is in the low 400s. The other is in the 3xx range. The gap isn't as large as I thought, but yours is still more powerful than his. You haven't addressed power requirements, throughput, or skills transferability. For a hobby, skills don't matter, it's only for fun. For employability, what sounds better ... "Familiar with economically using current technology for maximum benefits at minimum cost" or "Got a power hungry very old desktop to limp along as a slow file server at moderately high cost using obscure technology and I can do the same for you"? Opinions there?

That's not the point of this thread. People already pointed out, including yourself, that a dedicated NAS is the better option, and I agree with that 100%. But the OP clearly wants to do something with the Dell and is asking help on that so I try to provide it.

Also, a P4 isn't as power hungry in idle (which is what it'll most do in a media server) as you might think. The fastest P4 has a TDP of 88W at full load https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CPU_power_dissipation_figures#Pentium_4_2 but since it'll stay at 2-5%, if not less, most of the time, your argument doesn't hold much here. If we need to take account on how Intel uses the TDP, the fastest P4 will probably need a max of 100W at full load which will virtually never happen if the PC is a media server streaming films to a TV

Again, it's up to the OP to decide, but from what I read in his few posts, he wants to do something with that PC instead of throwing it out

My FX8530 can be considered as a huge power drain at full load (125W). Should I throw it out too? I'm not so inclined in doing so as I need some of its advantages, specifically in multi-threading (I encode lots of films myself)

EDIT: the fastest P4 672 has a TDP of 115W so it'll prolly use 130W or so. I don't think the OP's Dell has one of those. Looks like it has a Northwood @ 3GHz, so it won't slurp that much power, but again this is for full load which won't happen often as media server

 

[stevech]

It's a software functionality issue. Else it becomes an inadequately capable power consumer.

 

[azazel1024]

That P4 is likely to idle at 40w though, just for the CPU. A modern processor might have an even higher TDP, but it'll probably idle at 3-8w for the CPU. You also have to deal with old motherboard technologies, old PSU, etc.

The system as a whole is likely to idle at 80-100w, where as a 2-bay NAS is likely to idle at 10-15w and a new, inexpensive, low spec PC is probably going to idle at 20-30w.

That is $50-100 a year difference in electricity.

You also have the issue of reliability and functionality of the old equipment. The machine is not likely to have the processing power or memory to handle concurrent connections well, which actually probably won't matter because it only has a fast ethernet port...which is also a huge knock, because it is going to server files very, very slowly, even over the wire.

As a project, its fine just to do a bit of learning.

However, functionality wise, you are massively better off either getting even a super low end $60 single disk or diskless USB NAS, or spending a little more for building a new low end PC or 2-bay NAS to serve files and such forth. The cost of ownership over a couple of years is going to repay the upfront cost and it'll be head and shoulders faster and more functional (plus probably taking less space, being quieter, etc, etc).

This is very, very similar to answering the question "I have the option of taking a 40 year old hand-me-down refridgerator. Should I use it after replacing the ice tray?" The Answer would be...NO, get rid of the power hog and just buy a new one. Even if it costs more upfront than free, it'll save you money within just a couple of years because it is sooooo much more efficient. Plus, it'll probably do a better job of making ice and might have a water dispenser and better dividers.

 

[paranoised]

I have tried FreeNAS on my pentium 4 years ago which worked very well at the time. FreeNAS is a well maintained project so would be worth trying.

I would try installing it on the existing hard drive to see how it performs and whether it suites your needs, then would make a decision on whether to go for the dedicated NAS (which is likely to perform better at lower power consumption).

 

[microchip]

That P4 is likely to idle at 40w though, just for the CPU. A modern processor might have an even higher TDP, but it'll probably idle at 3-8w for the CPU. You also have to deal with old motherboard technologies, old PSU, etc.

The system as a whole is likely to idle at 80-100w, where as a 2-bay NAS is likely to idle at 10-15w and a new, inexpensive, low spec PC is probably going to idle at 20-30w.

That is $50-100 a year difference in electricity.

You also have the issue of reliability and functionality of the old equipment. The machine is not likely to have the processing power or memory to handle concurrent connections well, which actually probably won't matter because it only has a fast ethernet port...which is also a huge knock, because it is going to server files very, very slowly, even over the wire.

As a project, its fine just to do a bit of learning.

However, functionality wise, you are massively better off either getting even a super low end $60 single disk or diskless USB NAS, or spending a little more for building a new low end PC or 2-bay NAS to serve files and such forth. The cost of ownership over a couple of years is going to repay the upfront cost and it'll be head and shoulders faster and more functional (plus probably taking less space, being quieter, etc, etc).

This is very, very similar to answering the question "I have the option of taking a 40 year old hand-me-down refridgerator. Should I use it after replacing the ice tray?" The Answer would be...NO, get rid of the power hog and just buy a new one. Even if it costs more upfront than free, it'll save you money within just a couple of years because it is sooooo much more efficient. Plus, it'll probably do a better job of making ice and might have a water dispenser and better dividers.

I agree with everything, except of serving files "very, very slowly". A compressed 720p film averages at about 5000-7000 kbps (that's 0.8 MiB/s for the 7000kbps). A 1080p averages between 15000 and 20000 kbps (that's 2.5 MiB/s for the 20000kbps). Even a dump of a 1080p Blu-ray is encoded at between 20000 and 35000kbps, so a 100 Mbps NIC is perfectly capable of streaming that

My LG Blu-ray has only a 100 Mbps NIC in it, and I've never seen it hiccup because it's not able to keep up with the data stream coming into it.

 

[AdvHomeServer]

This is very, very similar to answering the question "I have the option of taking a 40 year old hand-me-down refridgerator. Should I use it after replacing the ice tray?"

I might steal that line, after changing it up a bit to make it look original.

 

[azazel1024]

I might steal that line, after changing it up a bit to make it look original.

You can use it without changing

In respect to fast ethernet, STREAMING files isn't an issue over fast ethernet. What is an issue is serving FILES. Getting the files on/off is going to be pretty darned slow and is probably going to be slower than a decent wireless connection is these days.

I would also question if you loaded up the server with 3-4 concurrent streams, even of just 720p, just how well it could handle it. Bandwidth be darned, that is a fair amount of disk hits and caching to manage it all, over a slow connection (which matters because it can't unload a huge wad of data, move to the next request, send huge wad of data, move back. It has to send it in little slow pieces).

Or add in other concurrent work loads, like if you are trying to stream a video to a device, but then go to pull a file or push a file to the server, is it going to be able to handle it between network connection, CPU and RAM without letting the video stream hiccup? I can tell you, I can get my server to hiccup if I try hard enough and it is running a pair of 2TB disks in RAID0, has two gigabit ethernet interfaces, 8GB of RAM and a Ivy based G1620 in it.

It takes some SERIOUS effort to get it to interupt a video stream, but I can accomplish it. I'd think with 1/20th the network connection bandwidth for the server, something like 1/12th the processing power and probably 1/16th to 1/4 the RAM and also probably half the disk performance the threshold to get it to choke like Eddie's dog (from National Lampoon's Christmas vacation) on a turkey bone is going to be much, much, much lower.

 

[microchip]

I might steal that line, after changing it up a bit to make it look original.

You do know it's a collector's item? It's like cars...

 

[AdvHomeServer]

I would also question if you loaded up the server with 3-4 concurrent streams, even of just 720p, just how well it could handle it.

Thanks for the permissions.

Re concurrency: My home network is a little complicated but it gets light use. It's part hobby, part lab, part home network. So many forum post complain about throughput. Congestion on wireless-n is a likely problem when multiple users want to do big things at the same time. AC is a probable solution but so many PCs don't support it. My HP laptops 'might' have whitelist issues with replacing the card and a Toshiba requires major surgery to get to its card. I chose to deal with it by doing creative things with a 2nd router. So many people like to look at one part of the system and not see how each part fits together, explaining some of their problems.

Re streaming: the subject Dell would eventually stream as well as a thumb drive with a movie attached to a smart TV.

 

[microchip]

You can use it without changing

In respect to fast ethernet, STREAMING files isn't an issue over fast ethernet. What is an issue is serving FILES. Getting the files on/off is going to be pretty darned slow and is probably going to be slower than a decent wireless connection is these days.

I would also question if you loaded up the server with 3-4 concurrent streams, even of just 720p, just how well it could handle it. Bandwidth be darned, that is a fair amount of disk hits and caching to manage it all, over a slow connection (which matters because it can't unload a huge wad of data, move to the next request, send huge wad of data, move back. It has to send it in little slow pieces).

Or add in other concurrent work loads, like if you are trying to stream a video to a device, but then go to pull a file or push a file to the server, is it going to be able to handle it between network connection, CPU and RAM without letting the video stream hiccup? I can tell you, I can get my server to hiccup if I try hard enough and it is running a pair of 2TB disks in RAID0, has two gigabit ethernet interfaces, 8GB of RAM and a Ivy based G1620 in it.

It takes some SERIOUS effort to get it to interupt a video stream, but I can accomplish it. I'd think with 1/20th the network connection bandwidth for the server, something like 1/12th the processing power and probably 1/16th to 1/4 the RAM and also probably half the disk performance the threshold to get it to choke like Eddie's dog (from National Lampoon's Christmas vacation) on a turkey bone is going to be much, much, much lower.

We don't know how many files the OP will stream (I assume just one at a time considering he wants to use such an old machine as a NAS). In my case, my current NAS is an old P4 Northwood @ 2.4GHz (no HT). The max films I'm able to stream is 3 at a time (720p) or 2 (1080p) through its 100Mbps. I'm planning on putting a 1 Gbps NIC in it before I finally let it retire after 6 years of service and buying a modern NAS (2 or 3 bay, maybe 4 if price is right).

And yes, 100 Mbps is very much limited if you push files to the server and at the same time watch a film. I find even 1 Gbps will not be enough if I need to do such things (I usually transfer files to server when I'm not using it)

That said, disk performance has never been an issue for me, but it could be also that I've never stressed it out to the max. We'll see

 

[azazel1024]

I still say, better off with a cheap NAS.

Or if you want super cheap, get a used router and use that. A TP-Link WDR3600 (I have 2) can do better than 100Mbps read/write to USB attached storage. I got mine for under $40.

Consumes 4.5w. You'd save the price of the router in less than a year. Heck, probably in less than 6 months. You can always disable wifi, DHCP, etc and run it litterally as just a file server and have better performance than the P4.

Or better yet, if you have an older wifi router/AP right now, the WDR3600 will probably have better routing/wifi capabilities than what you have right now.

I can't swear it'll take a 4TB drive though. Deffinitely 2, maybe 4.

This is not like an antique car. They still have some value and their performance is probably within a resonable measure of a current vehicle. Heck, likely not even an old junker compared to a new car. It takes quite a set of circumstances where getting a new car is cheaper than using an old junker (like often times cost of ownership over years and years might be lower for a low cost new car/slightly used car over an old clunker).

It really is more like using a really old fridge versus just buying a new one. The performance delta is just so profound between a 9 year old computer (running 10-11 year old technology) and a brand new one, it is hard to put in to words. The pace of technology has slowed recently a bit, but you still have to figure a rough doubling of performance every 2 years. That means 2^5 over 10 years...or 32 times. That makes a 1 year old router more powerful, or heck a 2-3 year old smart phone than that P4.

The levels of efficiency aren't quite of the same scale, but they are up there.

I'd rather invest a litteral handful of dollars on something with better performance and less cost of ownership than bother with something like an old P4. For ANYTHING.

 

[azazel1024]

Oh, as for my file server, I usually have to do something like hit it with my desktop for a big file read, laptop for a big file write and maybe hit it with my tablet at the same time for a directory copy (of small files) as well as 2-3 720p+ streams to get any of the video streams to choke. Probably its the storage sub-system that is choking as it seems to be appropriately assigning priorities over the network interface and the CPU isn't hitting over about 20% utilization and memory is still okay. Disk activity is of course pegged at 99% and really starts to churn.

Usually takes 40-50s of this kind of activity before a video stream will start to hiccup, which means some serious file transfers since even with all that going on, I am probably getting around 200+MB/sec aggregate through the server, which would mean transfering more than one 5+GB files to and from the server simultaneously, plus the directory copy.

Just doing big file transfers (even one large read and one large write at once), the video streams never crumble, its throwing in the directory copy that finally hangs things up. I have used lesser machines where that isn't the case (concurrent file transfers with streaming could cause the streaming to hiccup).

 

[microchip]

I got a Archer C7 sitting here as an AP. Doesn't get much use currently as the AC66U covers up just about all my house. I was thinking of selling it or just keep it as a backup in case the ASUS breaks. Haven't really decided what I want to do with it yet.

But I'm eyeing some NASes from Synology and QNAP. *But* I have here a Phenom II x4 sitting, also got the mobo for it and all I currently need is a GPU, PSU and RAM, then I can make a new NAS but I think it'll consume way more electricity than buying a dedicated NAS. Haven't really made up my mind yet

 

[jcwillia1]

whoo! sorry I missed out on all the back and forth fun today...

looks like you guys had quite a blast.

Anyways, I found another thread where this guy said he has tested a 4TB successfully in the E310.

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/p/19529117/20463360.aspx#20463360

You guys are all correct - I would be better off with something like a MyCloud - people who are suggesting a full blown dedicated NAS however are thinking in a COMPLETELY different price point than I am. I'm looking for 4TB for under $200 and there's no amount of "yah but a NAS does this" that will change my mind

And yes, I was only thinking about using the server for one file at a time. No one else in my house even knows how to use any of this stuff. Although I'm sure my son will figure it out in the not too distant future. The NAS will be streaming BD rips - full 1080p, zero compression. It works awesome right now from my mybook live to me wdtv and the wdtv is only fast ethernet.

how did this thread get so contentious? I've never known this forum to be so painful...I've always gotten great help here before...

 

[stevech]

But I'm eyeing some NASes from Synology and QNAP. *But* I have here a Phenom II x4 sitting, also got the mobo for it and all I currently need is a GPU, PSU and RAM, then I can make a new NAS but I think it'll consume way more electricity than buying a dedicated NAS. Haven't really made up my mind yet

Consider what software for a DIY (that you can't get) that would be nearly comparable to that from Synology / QNAP.

 

[microchip]

Oh, as for my file server, I usually have to do something like hit it with my desktop for a big file read, laptop for a big file write and maybe hit it with my tablet at the same time for a directory copy (of small files) as well as 2-3 720p+ streams to get any of the video streams to choke. Probably its the storage sub-system that is choking as it seems to be appropriately assigning priorities over the network interface and the CPU isn't hitting over about 20% utilization and memory is still okay. Disk activity is of course pegged at 99% and really starts to churn.

Usually takes 40-50s of this kind of activity before a video stream will start to hiccup, which means some serious file transfers since even with all that going on, I am probably getting around 200+MB/sec aggregate through the server, which would mean transfering more than one 5+GB files to and from the server simultaneously, plus the directory copy.

Just doing big file transfers (even one large read and one large write at once), the video streams never crumble, its throwing in the directory copy that finally hangs things up. I have used lesser machines where that isn't the case (concurrent file transfers with streaming could cause the streaming to hiccup).

<DELETED, WRONG QUOTE>

 

[microchip]

whoo! sorry I missed out on all the back and forth fun today...

looks like you guys had quite a blast.

Anyways, I found another thread where this guy said he has tested a 4TB successfully in the E310.

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/p/19529117/20463360.aspx#20463360

You guys are all correct - I would be better off with something like a MyCloud - people who are suggesting a full blown dedicated NAS however are thinking in a COMPLETELY different price point than I am. I'm looking for 4TB for under $200 and there's no amount of "yah but a NAS does this" that will change my mind

And yes, I was only thinking about using the server for one file at a time. No one else in my house even knows how to use any of this stuff. Although I'm sure my son will figure it out in the not too distant future. The NAS will be streaming BD rips - full 1080p, zero compression. It works awesome right now from my mybook live to me wdtv and the wdtv is only fast ethernet.

how did this thread get so contentious? I've never known this forum to be so painful...I've always gotten great help here before...

It happens sometimes on all forums so this one is not an exception. But it's good that we all kept it civil and not thrown some bad words at each others. such discussions I like