Use multiple computers as file storage for 1 PC

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ayjay2016

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Jan 9, 2016
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Besides FreeNAS, which in my opinion. I am not a huge fan of which we shouldn't get into if everyone would please not. I have about 6 unused mid-tower computers. 3 dells, 2, hp and 1 Lenovo. Each one has up to 3 available HDD bays to use. Is there a way besides FreeNAS to have all 6 of these, with all drives filled (18 drives in total) to be used to store files on that i do not want on my MAIN computer i am using now.

If it helps the question. The drives are 80GB, 160GB and 250GB.

They can be all separate or merged into multiple RAID groups.
 
Solution
jsmithepa

I went though a similar dilemma and after running through accounting, the result was more practical and cheaper to retire those old drives and replace the whole "boat anchor-ettes" with a single 4TB.

But in the per-chance that you have some sort of emotional attachment of those drives, you can buy multiple SATA controllers, get a big box, and run them that way with a single Windows OS. Is gonna make some noise.
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4745454b

4745454b

Titan
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Apr 29, 2006
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I don't think I understand something. You could run all 6 computers "headless" (meaning no monitor plugged in.) and put a bunch of old/small drives into them and use the windows networking to run backups/storage on them. But honestly that's a horrible idea. First, as I just mentioned these are old and slow drives. The performance will be bad. Second, 6 towers all in idle mode are still going to need to be powered. Even if each one is only using ~50W, times 6 towers and that's 300W just being mostly wasted.

Considering that 1TB+ drives are ~$50, you are better off just plugging one or more of them into your current tower. Will only add another 5-15W to your setup, and you won't worry about 18 more points of failure in your system. If the avg size of the drives is 160GB, 18 of them is around the size of a single 3TB drive. I'd just get a 4TB drive and call it a day.
 
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jsmithepa

jsmithepa

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Jun 14, 2014
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I went though a similar dilemma and after running through accounting, the result was more practical and cheaper to retire those old drives and replace the whole "boat anchor-ettes" with a single 4TB.

But in the per-chance that you have some sort of emotional attachment of those drives, you can buy multiple SATA controllers, get a big box, and run them that way with a single Windows OS. Is gonna make some noise.
 
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ayjay2016

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The emotional attachment part made me laugh. But in a sense No and Yes. I could go out and get 4TB HDD's yes but to put it easily. I do not want to spend money i do not necessarily need to spend. I am a PC enthusiast so my home is filled with lets put it in the 400TB and up of HDD's of all ages and sizes. From 1985 to 2015 PC's and what-not.

I am also a extremely security conscious pc and internet user. While i do have servers running for multiple uses (both business and personal use) and a complex network infrastructure. I like to have an isolated non-internet connected PC as my main use computer and i have a work-around for connecting to the internet if needed that pretty much prevents anyone ever knowing this PC exists but me----minus maybe some Russian extreme hacker or NSA douche...haha just for the fun sake of name.

But thank you for the answers. I was getting too far into ways to have this done i skipped over the simple and effect solution. Appreciate it.
 
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4745454b

4745454b

Titan
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If you want to use the drives you can also get a USB external dock. Plug them in, use them, pull when done. Won't be online storage, but won't cost you money for the drives. And the docks are fairly cheap.

Keep in mind what I said about the extra 300W. That's a lot of money wasted on power over the years.
 
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jsmithepa

jsmithepa

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Running a museum? :) Careful, fine line from recycler to hoarder.

I am also a extremely security conscious pc and internet user.
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Well this is a secondary and new issue from your original post. But if you don't want it to see the Internet, is simple enough, many ways to accomplish this but I sense you are not really asking a question here.
 
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tiredteck

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Having gone through the same problems one of my solutions was to put as many drives in one computer as possible. I was more concerned about how may drive connections in a particular tower. eg If a tower has 3 hard drive bays but 6 hard drive connections I mounted the other hard drives in the cd drive bays using a bracket made for such use. I have used drive trays made to do the same thing. That may reduce the number of boxes you have running.

I do use FreeNAS 9, but you may want to consider using Linux. I have converted most of my servers to Ubuntu 16.04. I use the smallest hard drive for the OS and run the rest of the drives in there native NTFS. The drives are plug and play I do not have to reformat. I have not had any problems with that configuration. You can run all this headless like a nas or with vnc after it is installed and configured.

 
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