Best OS for old HP NAS

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

Hi

 

I have one of the old HP MicroServers, not sure what model but I'm pretty sure it runs an Atom or Celeron.  I believe it is running Windows Home Server (again an old version).  I'm looking to see what use it is to me - the 4 drive bays are damned nice and I'd rather not spend any more money.

 

I am wondering if a better OS would suit, maybe a Linux variant or something less hungry?  My purposes are:

 

NAS for file storage of "working docs"

NAS for file storage of backups

Leaving a torrent client downloading preferably with a web interface

Maybe run XBMC/Kodi as a server

 

Thanks

[Jim K Global Moderator]

FreeNAS?

[Ahazuarus]

FreeNAS:  http://www.freenas.org/  even supports iscsi

[Nick H. Supervisor]

10 minutes ago, Jim K said:

FreeNAS?

I tried that recently and it's a bit of a pain. Although I didn't give it long, I prefer a GUI.

 

As I mentioned here, I just set up a Dell laptop using Lubuntu and Plex. Lubuntu has its issues, and I might look to change that, but it seems to do the trick for now. Not sure how well it will work as a NAS OS.

 

EDIT: My issues with Lubuntu could just be down to not setting it up optimally. This is a side project for me, I'm still working on it.

[Jim K Global Moderator]

FreeNAS has a GUI'ish (web browser). I've used it for many...many years and never had an issue. The only text setup is the initial installation...after which everything is done through the browser.

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

Asking me FreeNas as a question - I should explain, I've no idea! LOL

 

Having taken a look it may be what I need.  One question though, what about data on existing HDDs?  If I've let them be NTFS assume I'm screwed?

[Brandon H Supervisor]

9 minutes ago, Nick H. said:

I tried that recently and it's a bit of a pain. Although I didn't give it long, I prefer a GUI.

FreeNAS has a couple GUIs you can install. the new Web UI in the works is really nice and easy to work with it seems

 

Corral GUI https://github.com/freenas/gui

New Web UI https://github.com/freenas/webui

 

 

[Jim K Global Moderator]

28 minutes ago, Nefarious Trigger said:

Asking me FreeNas as a question - I should explain, I've no idea! LOL

 

Having taken a look it may be what I need.  One question though, what about data on existing HDDs?  If I've let them be NTFS assume I'm screwed?

I'm almost positive you can import NTFS drives and leave the data intact.  At work/on phone so I really don't have the time now to verify. You can probably do a Google for "FreeNAS + NTFS import" and see what it says.

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

Yeah seems like that's certainly an option.  I may just backup each drive to external, wipe the original and let FreeNas do it's thing.

[+BudMan MVC]

What specific model of HP microserver is it.. I have old HP N40L...

 

 

It works just fine - shoot multiple VMs, and yes one of them is my storage/nas  which is running win2k12.. Using stablebit drivepool - since it blows away anything currently out their for drive pools.. And wold allow you to just add your ntfs disks with their data intact, etc.  That vm is also my plex server...

 

Runs multiple other VMs mostly linux, but do have some other windows VM for testing.. But they are not all that fast.. it is older box.. But with a bit of Ram it works just fine - the disks are passed through to the storage vm..