is an old laptop ideal as a NAS

[fierygohan]

Hi,
After days of work, i finally got my freenas up and running.
But now i am concerned about one thing. I read at one place the laptop arent ideal for use as a nas 24/7.

My question is will I have a fried laptop if its on 24/7 on stock cooling.

Laptop is toshiba c655d s5200
Ram is 3gb
Hdd is 500gb hitachi

Thanks in advance
Bye

 

[jgreco]

No, they're not designed for 100% duty cycle. A well-built laptop might manage to survive awhile, but even if it did, 3GB and non-ECC limit you to not running ZFS, or running it and risking losing your data.

 

[cyberjock]

If you searched the forums at all you'd have found that using a laptop(old or new) is not fit for the task for various reasons...

 

[fierygohan]

Hi,
Thanks for your replies.
What if I use a laptop cooler? Will that help it? And I found that the laptop was not very hot after running for hours.
Do u mean damage to the processor or hdd.

And one more thing, I am thinking of making it as a print server also for the printer hp p1007 laser printer. Is it possible?
I am thinking of following this : http://m.instructables.com/id/FreeNAS-as-a-Print-Server/

And does wake up on lan work. Incase I have a powercut , and if my lan shuts down then the nas also shuts down right, will it restart when the lan connection is restored. And is there a way to do so.

One more question, if I temporarily run freenas from a 16gb pendrive and install the plugins and configure it fully, and if i want to later transfer all this to another pendrive which I have ordered, will all present configs amd plugins and data go or will I be able to use it as the old one itself.

Thanks
Bye

 

[Yatti420]

A laptop isn't cut out for a freenas box.. I't just wont survive.. A print server is possible.. WOL has to be added with a modified driver I believe.. UPS is advised for freenas.. Ususally jails are on disk so usb doesn't matter.. The USB you use for booting is dedicated.. http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Hardware_Recommendations

 

[fierygohan]

A laptop isn't cut out for a freenas box.. I't just wont survive.. A print server is possible.. WOL has to be added with a modified driver I believe.. UPS is advised for freenas.. Ususally jails are on disk so usb doesn't matter.. The USB you use for booting is dedicated.. http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Hardware_Recommendations

Does that mean that i can use one usb now and later use another.
And do u mean damage to the processor or hdd.

 

[Yatti420]

Damage to electrical components from 24/7 stressed use.. You need to use server hardware if you want a reliable freenas box you will trust.. The lappy is probs 10/100 it's not going to have the speed you want.. Repurpose it doing something else.. Perhaps take a look at nas4free.. Edit: Nas4Free uses less resources so if you do intend to try something like that I'd be using nas4free.

 

[jgreco]

Running NAS4Free on it is going to kill it just as readily as anything else. As I said before, laptops are not designed for 100% duty cycle. They typically have one fan to cool them that's been modified in the most horrifying ways to be thin, quiet, and unnoticeable, rather than reliable. The drives aren't rated for continuous duty. The stress from constant use will age the components as Yatti420 noted. Etc. If you don't mind the thing failing and taking everything with it when it does, then by all means, go ahead.