wi-fiplanet.com has 5 point list to make that old PC that’s lying around a bit more useful:
- Install Ubuntu or other distribution to experiment with Linux
- Make it a router with RouterOS or ZeroShell
- Make it a LAN file server with FreeNAS
- Run Web, E-mail, FTP, and other Servers with Linux
- Turn it into a hotspot with ZoneCD
Point 3 (LAN file server with FreeNAS) is the one that we’re most interested in on this website:
If you do a lot of file sharing on your network, you might have looked into using network attached storage (NAS) rather than creating basic shares with Windows. You may have also noticed that NAS enclosures (basically small computers) don’t run cheap, and then you have to buy the hard drives too. However, you can create your own NAS enclosure by installing a Linux-based NAS server, FreeNAS, on your old PC.
Using an NAS server means you don’t have to worry about other PCs being on in order to access Windows shares. Using FreeNAS gives you a central storage place that’s always accessible. It also provides better and easier control over shares. It can store user details and authenticate users. If using Windows shares, you’d have to duplicate every user account on all the computers for similar protection of shares.
Like other NAS servers, FreeNAS gives you recycle bin support. If you delete a file from a Windows share, it’s gone forever. However, if you delete a file from a FreeNAS share, it will go into the trash can, where you can later permanently delete it or recover it.
FreeNAS supports many different sharing protocols: CIFS (SMB/samba) for Windows, NFS for Linux/Uniux, and AFP for Mac OS X. Plus it supports FTP, RSYNC, and iSCSI. It even has an iTunes/DAAP server, so you can share files among your iPods. It also features a built-in BitTorrent server.
