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Don't throw away your old PC—it makes a better NAS (home server) than anything you can buy (www.howtogeek.com)
submitted 10 months ago by to c/technology@hexbear.net
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[–] 13 points 10 months ago

If you can snag old mini PCs when a company upgrades or goes under, you can build a decent little kubernetes cluster for like $300 too. They usually have socketed i5s and a PCIEx1 slot with 3-4 SATA ports and 2 NVME slots. I've set one up with like 8TB of storage and 64GB or ram for under $100 all in

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    [–] 13 points 10 months ago

    Important caveat: REPLACE YOUR POWER SUPPLY! If your power supply dies it can take your hard drives with it, so it's important to get a good one and replace it when the warranty runs out (usually 5 to 10 years, but if you're using a pre-built or an old PC then you might be out of warranty).

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    [–] 9 points 10 months ago (3 children)

    Well, assuming you live in an area with cheap electricity. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not have computer running 24/7 that idles at 60 Watts.

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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

    My 44 core dual Xeon doesn’t idle at even 50 watts.

    An old i5 isn’t gonna break the bank, especially on nas duty where a bunch of drives will draw more power just waiting to spin up and access some data than the cpu will waiting to get instructions to do so.

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  • [+] 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 child)
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  • [–] 2 points 10 months ago

    It’s a uhh haswell ep I think. They really throttle down to like 1ghz when left alone. Without the drives, about 47 or so.

    That’s reported from the power management controller, so it’s on the high side.

    If you’re not already, use some kind of kill-a-watt style inline meter to make your measurements it’s a good investment. Just figuring out what leaving a lamp on during the day costs is cool.

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