Monday, January 21, 2019

This Old PC Gets a New Life as a NAS


This Old PC

We had an aging PC in our office that ran a version of MS that Microsoft was going to stop supporting so instead of getting rid of it I decided to find a new function for it.

I examined our IT needs and decided that I needed to improve our internal data storage by adding a NAS to the network (NAS – Network Attached Storage).
I made the NAS by:

1) Replaced the hard drive with a new larger drive.
2) The RAM was already sufficient, but it never hurts to add RAM if possible.
3) Installed a copy of Linux on the PC as the Operating System.
4) Updated the BIOs on the PC hardware.
5) Downloaded a copy of Free NAS onto the PC then configured it.

The end product is a NAS with decent processing power that fulfilled the needs of our office. Obviously this won’t work on an Enterprise level, but for our boutique office in Shanghai, China this was a great low cost solution and admittedly a fun project for me.
  

Years ago I wrote another blog post about utilizing an old PC in your small business.
I labeled it “This Old PC part one”, I was living in Shanghai at the time and unfortunately soon after that the Chinese blocked all non-Chinese blogs, the Great Fire Wall of China severely stopped my blogging.

I am spending a little time back in the USA after a decade in China and I am cleaning up an old laptop and I came across some old blogs and I have decided to go ahead and post some of them, though they might be a bit dated I hope they are some value to you.

David Nealis President of Ceres Ltd
In the past if a PC wasn’t up to task for its current role I would clean them up and try to repurpose them while using the old operating system. But in the current age that we live in with additional cybersecurity concerns that is no longer a feasible thing to do, even if this PC isn’t directly connecting to the internet it still is a security risk as hackers scan your network looking for the weakest link. When Miscosoft stops supporting an operating system  it becomes more of a liability on your network because security updates for it  end as well as for third party venders. This makes it a massive security liability on your network.



Previously I wrote about utilizing older PCs for print servers and DNS Servers, but we no longer have any PCs in the office so as I look to the future of my legacy IT equipment my imagination is at work thinking about what can I repurpose those laptops , tablets and smart phones to do.

This brings back memories of a fail project using an old palm pilot to be the brain of a very very simple robot. This makes me hope that I sent that to the e-waste collection place and it’s not rusting away in my basement or garage.

Here are the links to previous tech blogs of mine: