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Using my old PC for a Home File Server

post #1 of 10
6/4/12 at 10:22am
Thread Starter 
Alrighty, I need some recommendations for a Linux OS that is very light weight. Here are the Following Specs

MSI K8MM3-V

AMD Sempron 3400+

256MB Kingston HyperX

Western Digital Caviar 80Gig

Samsung 40Gig HDD

I want a version of linux that would be suitable for these specs, also easy to setup SAMBA and the other few things. My family does use windows 7, I bounce between Windows 7 and Ubuntu 12.04 on my laptop. I will be getting some systems from my friend, two HP's but I won't know what specs they will have. I would also like to get cloud storage just for my family using the server I'll have set up. I'm still a dummy when it comes to networking. The main purpose is that my mom needs to back some of her stuff up for her business. As for me, I continuosly use up my hard drive space and my backup drive on my desktop is nearing over the brim. So I really want to find a Linux Distro that will work good for the specs stated above. It dosen't matter what version it is. I also want a distro with a user interface. Thank you!
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post #2 of 10
6/4/12 at 10:54am
FreeNAS or Ubuntu Server might be good.
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post #3 of 10
6/4/12 at 12:59pm
You could do it on most linux distros, just shut off un needed services and make sure to run in init 3.
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post #4 of 10
6/4/12 at 1:09pm
There is a minimal version of CentOS (Red Hat with the branding removed) that is about 250--300Mb for the whole OS I believe. Memory usage is generally about 24Mb in my experience. That would be rock solid and should support older hardware well. I would stay away from Unix with that processor though. I had quite a few issues with a similar setup (Barton 2600+) on FreeBSD many years ago. Memory would likely not be an issue, but I might have some old DDR laying around. If I can find it I'd be glad to send it your way if you pre-pay shipping.

One thing I would caution you on would be to use Linux SOFTWARE RAID 1/10 when you set up your NAS. You don't want to have to scour the internet for that exact board if/when your fakeRAID card goes out! Linux soft-RAID works as well or better than most built in "RAID" cards anyway.
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post #5 of 10
6/4/12 at 6:46pm
Thread Starter 
I don't have any money for shipping right now. If I do get some, I'll probably send it in the mail to you
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post #6 of 10
6/4/12 at 7:19pm
No worries. Just saying that if memory is a huge issue I would bet someone has some DDR laying around that they would be willing to just give you. Myself included.
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post #7 of 10
6/7/12 at 9:22am
Thread Starter 
Another one that popped in my head. Would slackware linux work for a home file server?
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post #8 of 10
6/7/12 at 9:52am
In my opinion Arch, Debian or CentOS (in that order) would be your best options as all three give you a minimal base which you can build up from.

The draw back being you wont have an out of the box solution - so there will be a bit of a learning curve in installing the OS (if you're not already familiar with Linux). But sadly that's the cost you have to pay when building a lower powered purpose-built NAS as opposed to buying beefier hardware and running an "off the shelf" storage solution.
Quote:
Originally Posted by felladium View Post

FreeNAS or Ubuntu Server might be good.
I wouldn't recommend Ubuntu Server on this occasion. FreeNAS might work though as it is optimised, but you'd also have the web server daemons running which isn't ideal. Plus on that spec hardware ZFS is out of the question, so FreeNAS's biggest selling point can't be used.
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post #9 of 10
6/7/12 at 9:58am
I'd go with CentOS or Debian.
IIRC my file server uses around ~200 MB of RAM on CentOS 6.2 just mainly running samba and maintaining the mdadm array.

It might also be worth learning how to administer something from command line. A lot of the services you will set once and then not worry about.
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post #10 of 10
6/7/12 at 9:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Plan9 View Post

I wouldn't recommend Ubuntu Server on this occasion. FreeNAS might work though as it is optimised, but you'd also have the web server daemons running which isn't ideal. Plus on that spec hardware ZFS is out of the question, so FreeNAS's biggest selling point can't be used.


Obviously, I am not a "server" guy. That's why I got a ReadyNAS Ultra 4. lol

Thanks for the info. I learned something today. thumb.gif
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