I have an old Alienware r8 and several 2-4 TB HDDs gathering dust in a closet. The Alienware actually runs remarkably quiet and it occurred to me I could turn it into a DIY NAS.

I’m not entirely sure where to start though. Some immediate questions:

  • What’s a good NAS OS to install?
  • Any fun things I can do besides plex transcoding with a 1080 GPU?
  • Would it make sense to run a Pixelfed/Mastodon server off this guy?
  • Can I run a RAID on it without buying a separate HDD bay?

Background:

I already have a Synology NAS running Plex. It transcodes 1080p fine which is really all I need it for.

Other than a Plex port forward, I have zero experience putting services out on the public web (but would like to learn!).

  • vfshEnglish
    2·
    18 hours ago

    I did something similar with an old Alienware, I slapped a 4TB drive in it and put unRAID on it and it became my general server for pretty much everything. I’ve moved to a Dell R510 for now though.

    With a 1080 you could do some pretty decent models with Ollama, or other AI projects. I have a 1650 in the server I use for my LLM stuff.

    Seems like itd make a fine server for fedi verse stuff

    Unsure about the RAID question, theoretically if you have enough SATA slots and drive bays in the case it should at least be doable with software? But that’s another reason I recommend unRAID, especially if you’re not buying drives in a preconfigured storage size configuration

    • TacoEvent@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
      2·
      16 hours ago

      I see the appeal with unRAID! My drives are pretty straight forward though I pretty much only plan to use the 2 4TB drives. Will probably skip the RAID for now (it’s not going to store anything SUPER important) and just use it as a hobby test server.

      Ollama of course! Looks like the 1080s should be able to handle most 7B models. Exciting! Thanks for the help and suggestions!