Old G5, thinking of NAS

[noodle654]

So few months back I acquired a DP 1.8GHz G5 and as of today it is now being retired. However, I am in the market for a home NAS solution. I already have the drives and I am considering a bunch of options...maybe someone can point me in the right direction.

• 
  Use G5 as NAS and load it up with as many drives as I can

• 
  Build a freeNAS system for $200

• 
  Buy a Synology NAS

Using the G5 for NAS seems like a really big waste from a power perspective. My next option is building something myself, which I am leading towards just because I want to be in control of my hardware. Or, I can just buy a solution from Synology.

Does anyone have experience with any of these? If so, what would you recommend? It will primarily be used for backups, 1080p movies (over 2TB), pictures, etc. I put together a build on Newegg using an Intel Celeron 1.1GHz mobo/cpu/gpu combo...really looking for low power consumption on this one.

Opinions?

 

[Intell]

If you're looking for low power consumption, a G5 isn't it. They can idle around 250-500 watts. They also aren't well suited to be a NAS with only two SATA I bays that can be fussy with SATA III drive and one or two IDE drives.

 

[CptSky]

I have a ReadyNAS which make a really good job. It can easily stream several 1080p around the house and I think the power consumption is around 32W (I don't know with the drive spin-down), which is really far from the ~200W idle of the G5. Else, two bays like the G5... (But SATA2)

Making a NAS yourself is an idea, but I still prefer to buy a professionally designed one. So, I would go for Synology or Netgear (which recently updated their NAS, so I don't know how it is compared to Synology).

 

[MisterKeeks]

Power consumption rules out the G5.

 

[noodle654]

Okay so G5 is definitely a no. Well I guess it just comes down to buying a solution or making one. Anyone have any experience with building an NAS?

 

[Jethryn Freyman]

Ha, you and I are kind of in the same boat, I just replaced my dual 1.8 G5 with a late 2007 15" MBP... I've got the G5 set up over Ethernet at the moment with all my photos and movies and iTunes library and a stack of USB drives attached to it.

Still not sure what exactly I'm going to do with it or my gigantic iTunes collection, I'd rather have it on me but I just don't have the storage on my MBP, it's got the 240GB OWC SSD that used to run as boot drive for the G5. Now the G5 is running on some ancient 80GB drive I found controlled from Remote Desktop.

Backups are on a 2TB USB drive plugged into the PCI card on the back of the G5, done with Carbon Copy Cloner over Ethernet from my main MBP, and then the 1TB internal storage drive with my photos and music backs up with CCC to a different folder on the same drive. And somewhere else on the same drive is the Time Machine backup from a week or so ago before I started all this mucking around.

Blah. Shiny new toys, I'm happy.

And yes, I do notice the heat now that the G5 is in quite a small space, it idles around 350W, or at least it did before I replaced the little SSD with the 7,200rpm 3.5" drive, and the big graphics card which is no longer used for anything is still probably not helping my cause.

 

[wobegong]

I have a recently installed D-link DNS-320L and slotted 2 x 3TB drives on RAID1 into it(I'm using it as a backup drive rather than for streaming but it supports RAID0 as well).
Too early to say how reliable it is but it's quiet (even sitting in a room which during daytime when I'm out gets very hot) and so far does the job fine.

 

[noodle654]

Ha, you and I are kind of in the same boat, I just replaced my dual 1.8 G5 with a late 2007 15" MBP... I've got the G5 set up over Ethernet at the moment with all my photos and movies and iTunes library and a stack of USB drives attached to it.

Still not sure what exactly I'm going to do with it or my gigantic iTunes collection, I'd rather have it on me but I just don't have the storage on my MBP, it's got the 240GB OWC SSD that used to run as boot drive for the G5. Now the G5 is running on some ancient 80GB drive I found controlled from Remote Desktop.

Backups are on a 2TB USB drive plugged into the PCI card on the back of the G5, done with Carbon Copy Cloner over Ethernet from my main MBP, and then the 1TB internal storage drive with my photos and music backs up with CCC to a different folder on the same drive. And somewhere else on the same drive is the Time Machine backup from a week or so ago before I started all this mucking around.

Blah. Shiny new toys, I'm happy.

And yes, I do notice the heat now that the G5 is in quite a small space, it idles around 350W, or at least it did before I replaced the little SSD with the 7,200rpm 3.5" drive, and the big graphics card which is no longer used for anything is still probably not helping my cause.

I was considering doing the same thing, I have a bunch of enclosures that I guess I could use, but I am already using a 2.3GHz DC G5 in the same room (I replaced the 1.8 with it). It kinda just seems like a waste...I might be better off selling it to a friend or someone on CL.

It is just coming down to Synology or a custom build that I put together. I am leaning towards the custom build running freeNAS. Right now the running total on it is $160 and I will be able to throw 3 3.5" drives into it...compared to 1 in the synology or 2 if I spend more money.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811154091
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128585

Always love building stuff, and I have never done a small build like this before so I am intrigued.

 

[CptSky]

I was considering doing the same thing, I have a bunch of enclosures that I guess I could use, but I am already using a 2.3GHz DC G5 in the same room (I replaced the 1.8 with it). It kinda just seems like a waste...I might be better off selling it to a friend or someone on CL.

Well, if your DC is in great shape (not scratched, etc) and if the price is reasonable. Also, if you're ready to ship to Canada and the price is not to high too (USPS?). Send me a PM. My CPU A of my Quad is failing, and I'm thinking to move to an air-cooled G5 for reliability and as I don't develop on it enough for building with 4-core instead of 2. (Mainly on testing phase)

It is just coming down to Synology or a custom build that I put together. I am leaning towards the custom build running freeNAS. Right now the running total on it is $160 and I will be able to throw 3 3.5" drives into it...compared to 1 in the synology or 2 if I spend more money. [...]

Well, I didn't post before, but I would have suggested you to buy this motherboard, or another motherboard with on-board CPU ranging between 13 - 17W for the TPD. I think you could achieve great performances with something like that.

 

[noodle654]

Well, if your DC is in great shape (not scratched, etc) and if the price is reasonable. Also, if you're ready to ship to Canada and the price is not to high too (USPS?). Send me a PM. My CPU A of my Quad is failing, and I'm thinking to move to an air-cooled G5 for reliability and as I don't develop on it enough for building with 4-core instead of 2. (Mainly on testing phase)

Think I am going to be keeping the 2.3 DC...rather get rid of the 1.8 though!

Well, I didn't post before, but I would have suggested you to buy this motherboard, or another motherboard with on-board CPU ranging between 13 - 17W for the TPD. I think you could achieve great performances with something like that.

I pulled the trigger on that board...hopefully all works great.

 

[Frost7]

The best you can do for PowerPC NAS is grab a Synology DS213+. Uses a Freescale PPC.

Allows you to be a PowerPC luddite while still being superfast!