NAS with OLD pc: energy consumption and performances

[selz]

Hello,
I have some extra parts from old pc's and I would understand if it is possible to use them to create a NAS with FreeNas. I need a solution for backup and streaming audio / video. I do not care performance, but I care low consumption! Here are the components:

MOBO:
asus A7S333
KT7A raid

CPU
amd athlon XP 1800
amd athlon XP-M 2000 (this is a Mobile CPU!)

some IDE hdd
enermax 300w

Is it possible to do something good? I read of the possibility of undervolt / underclock, in order to limit consumption... but I don't know so much about it.

 

[cyberjock]

Yeah... FreeNAS is *not* designed to reuse old hardware unless by "old" you mean 2 year old stuff.

Give our hardware requirements section of the manual a read and decide for yourself. Playing with voltages and clocks is a very easy way to kiss your data goodbye.

In any case, good luck.

 

[SwampRabbit]

Ahh, the good 'ol Socket 462. I ran quite a few K7s back in the day.

Sadly neither of those CPUs will do much for you with FreeNAS like cyberjock said.

Also even though the 1800 is about 67 watts max, you won't get much processing out of it in comparison to something a bit newer.
If you were able to get it to run FreeNAS, it would be running hard all the time, so you wouldn't be able to save any power either way.
Much (not all) hardware is much more efficient then it used to be.

If you can find some hardware within the last few years and cheap, that may be an good option.

Good CPUs, just not for this.