Can I use NAS drives on my desktop?

Hi there

Easiest way would be to put the NAS drives into a 2 / 3 bay external USB enclosure (quite cheap) and install a small Linux Virtual machine on your Windows system.

You can then attach the USB enclosure to the Linux VM and get access to the drives by mounting them e.g mount /dev/sdx -t auto -o rw /mnt/SHARE1 or whatever.

The NAS drives would probably be formatted EXT3/EXT4 or XFS.

This way you still have access to the data on the drives without having to copy / reformat. Note share the Linux files via samba.

BTW there's nothing intrinsically wrong for HOME users / small networks using consumer / domestic grade HDD's for NAS -- these generally aren't being used for 100's of users --usually most people use NAS for simple file sharing and multi-media sharing / playing on a remote TV / computer. This type of activity doesn't require maga fast HDD's etc -- in fact you will probably be more limited by your Internet speed rather than the HDD's -- especially if you are using wifi. Even with ethernet you should still be OK with domestic type HDD's.

Cheers
jimbo

I have a Seagate Iron Wolf 4TB NAS drive in one of my PCs, removed from a knackered NAS, just needed reformatting.

Ah...I think I know what you're trying to say. That the NAS drives are more sturdy but they aren't mega fast while desktop drives are faster but less sturdy. So, there is nothing wrong with my usage of the NAS drives for my desktop. And the speed probably won't play a factor since I'm going to put them into an old computer to store my movie collection.

I wish I could pay you to come over to NY and do what you just said in your post because it was in a foreign language to me. You sound like a master computer pro with all the mumbo jumbo you said.

I guess I have to just reformat the drives and put them in an old desktop computer. Would it matter that the old computer uses Windows XP? Has pretty old components if I just need to use the drives as network drives? Perhaps, the only thing I need to upgrade is the network adapter so it's nice and modern?

Thanks for your expertise.

PS: Tried to give you reputation points but they said I gave you too much.

jimbo45 said:

Hi there
BTW there's nothing intrinsically wrong for HOME users / small networks using consumer / domestic grade HDD's for NAS -- these generally aren't being used for 100's of users --usually most people use NAS for simple file sharing and multi-media sharing / playing on a remote TV / computer. This type of activity doesn't require maga fast HDD's etc -- in fact you will probably be more limited by your Internet speed rather than the HDD's -- especially if you are using wifi. Even with ethernet you should still be OK with domestic type HDD's.

Cheers
jimbo