Hey ALL,

              I just received a donor PC (minitower) and was wondering if it will meet my needs as a NAS for XBMC.

Budget Single dad of two should explain my budget...free is good but will look at all options ( Drives are required)

Usage XBMC on the following; PC, raspberry pi and two android devices.

Storage Currently I have about 500 gigs of data and growing    , Too Start I'm thinking on purchasing one 2 terabyte drive and expand as my budget allows (I believe I should have two too start for proper backup. As I indicated I will see how my budget is.

Addons Would like to run Sabnzb,Couch Potato,Sickbeard and Headphones

 

Donor InfoAspire T320 Series Specifications

Part Number: AspireT320 Aspire T320

 

Feature Description

Processor Intel® Pentium® 4 processor, up to 2.80GHz, 800MHz system bus or

Intel® Celeron® processor up to 2.80GHz, 400MHz system bus

 

Cache In CPU - Pentium 4, 256KB or 512KB L2 Cache, or Celeron 128KB L2

depending on the CPU

Memory 256MB or higher 266/333/400 DDR

 

BIOS Flash BIOS

 

Supported Protocols PCIX 1.0,PCI 2.2,APM 1.2,VESA/DPMS (VBE/PM V1.1), SMBIOS 2.3, E-IDE 1.1, ACPI 1.0b,ESCD1.03, PnP 1.0a, Bootable CD-ROM 1.0, USB 1.1, UHCI 1.0, ANSI ATA 3.0 ATAPI

System Chipset Intel 865GV + ICH5

 

I/O Controller Hub W83627HF

Expansion Slots 3 PCI v2.2 slots

Audio Integrated Realtek 655 audio codec with AC97 codec, 20bit with amplifier

 

Speakers Optional on selected models

 

Video Xabre200 32MB, ATI Radeon 9200 64MB or higher

(Varies by system)

Storage 3.5" 1.44MB Floppy Disk Drive

CD-ROM Drive, CD-RW Drive or Combo Drive (selected models)

Up to 120GB Hard Disk Drive (selected models)

Modem GVC F-1156I(+)/R12(EU) ATX

V92, 56K Fax/Modem  (selected models)

Networking Embedded Realtek 8100C (RJ-45 LAN connector)

 

Ports 1 PS2 Keyboard, 1 PS2 Mouse port, Audio line in, line out, headphone out, and Microphone in, 6 USB 2.0 ports (2 front, 4 rear), 1 Parallel, 1 Serial, 1 RJ-45 Network Interface, 1 VGA,

 

Environmental

Temperature:

Operating: +5oC ~+35oC

Non-operating: -10oC ~ +60oC

Relative Humidity:

Operating: 15% - 80% RH Non-condensing

Non-Operating Storage: 10% - 90% RH, Non-condensing at 40° C

Maximum Vibration:

Operating: 5 ~ 16.2Hz: 0.38mm (peak to peak) 16.2 ~ 250Hz; 0.2G

Non-Operating Storage: 5 ~ 27.1Hz: 0.6G  27.1 ~ 50Hz; 0.4mm (peak to peak) 50 ~ 500Hz: 2G

Chassis Desktop, 180mm (W) x 360mm (H) x 420mm (D)

Power Supply Industry Standard 230 Watt

 

Any advice always greatly appreciated...Just want to know if this unit is heading in the right direction

 

Thanks

I don't think I'd want to try putting this minitower to use as an unRAID server, as it is so old as to probably cause some significant frustration.  However, you can always download unRAID onto a USB stick and boot it up.  I doubt this motherboard is so old that it can't boot from USB, but you never know.

 

One issue is that there only appears to be a parallel ATA (IDE) controller, no serial ATA (SATA).  Your options for buying new drives will be very limited, both in variety and drive capacity.  Plus there's probably only two IDE connectors so you are limited to 4 drives max.  And the biggest IDE drive you can find will probably be 320 GB.

 

If all the parts are functional and the components are supported by unRAID then you should be able to boot up and set up a server.  Don't forget though that even free items cost some money to power up.  If you opt to run it 24/7 then you'll be looking at something in the ballpark of the following in a year...

 

120 watts x 24 hours x 365 days = 1051.2 kilowatt-hours

 

In my neighborhood that costs me $0.13 per kWh for an annual cost of about $135.56 per year.

 

Actual costs may be higher but probably not lower.  Older systems and older drives aren't very smart about spinning down when idle.  I don't mean to be too much of a downer, but you should know going into it what this thing is going to cost you in the way of limitations and electricity.

 

Do try to put this thing to good use, but don't invest anything other than time in it.  See if you can't score another donation or a Craigslist deal that offers at least some SATA drive ports and maybe DDR2 RAM.  Heck, there's probably guys on this forum with plenty of spare gear that you could get for the cost of shipping.

Thanks Chugiak,

                          That was the exact information I was looking for. My search and education continues