If I could trouble you for some opinions...
I really need to get a NAS solution for my home/home-office and after some research, I was nearly ready to order a QNAP TS-219P+ with two 2TB hard drives. But with a price tag of over $350 for the QNAP unit and money being very tight right now, I just couldn't pull the trigger.
Having successfully built two SmoothWall linux-based firewalls out of old PC's (which have been working great for several years now) I wondered if there was a similar solution to make an old PC into a NAS unit. After searching I found out about FreeNAS and initially it sounded like just the ticket.
However, the only old PCs I have available right now that I'd be willing to turn into a NAS unit are all P4's or less. Only one has SATA onboard. I know I could look into buying a used PC or used hardware and building a PC, but I think the cost of doing that is going to be $100+ dollars at least. If my cost starts getting too close to the TS-219 (which would have a warranty and would hopefully be easier to set up) then I'd have a hard time going w/ FreeNAS.
I guess what I'm wondering is, with FreeNAS can I build something equal (or better) than a unit like the QNAP TS-219 with a P4-based PC? Or is FreeNAS more likely to save me money if I was looking for a higher-end NAS that was going to cost me many hundreds (or thousands even) of dollars?
I really need to get a NAS solution for my home/home-office and after some research, I was nearly ready to order a QNAP TS-219P+ with two 2TB hard drives. But with a price tag of over $350 for the QNAP unit and money being very tight right now, I just couldn't pull the trigger.
Having successfully built two SmoothWall linux-based firewalls out of old PC's (which have been working great for several years now) I wondered if there was a similar solution to make an old PC into a NAS unit. After searching I found out about FreeNAS and initially it sounded like just the ticket.
However, the only old PCs I have available right now that I'd be willing to turn into a NAS unit are all P4's or less. Only one has SATA onboard. I know I could look into buying a used PC or used hardware and building a PC, but I think the cost of doing that is going to be $100+ dollars at least. If my cost starts getting too close to the TS-219 (which would have a warranty and would hopefully be easier to set up) then I'd have a hard time going w/ FreeNAS.
I guess what I'm wondering is, with FreeNAS can I build something equal (or better) than a unit like the QNAP TS-219 with a P4-based PC? Or is FreeNAS more likely to save me money if I was looking for a higher-end NAS that was going to cost me many hundreds (or thousands even) of dollars?