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Run a NAS OS on an old Compaq laptop? (self.selfhosted)
submitted 3 months ago by Imaginary_Stand4909 to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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The model is an HP Presario CQ57 Notebook PC:

  • AMD C-50 Processor (1 GHz)
  • 2 GB of DDR3 RAM (obviously I need more)
  • 64-bit
  • Ralink RT5390 802.11b/g/n WiFi Adapter (It also has an Ethernet port but I'm unsure of how to find the details for it)

Currently I'm running Cockpit in Proxmox, which works fantastic by the way. But I saw this guide where they suggest splitting your compute and NAS, so I figured I could finally put this dusty win7 laptop to work.

The battery definitely has an issue, as it only works when plugged in. Should I bother with this laptop, or should I just buy a Pi or something? If I do use this, should I stick with Cockpit, or switch to something else like TrueNAS or Openmediavault? I have my 4 drives in a ZFS striped mirror configuration, with data traveling over USB (which sucks considering the non-USB 3.0 ports on the laptop...)

Once again, thanks for your guidance!

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[-] anamethatisnt@sopuli.xyz 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

While splitting Compute and Storage is nice I think the main takeaway should be having your opnsense/router on it's own physical hardware.
Having your storage separated won't stop a Jellyfin interruption if you reboot your compute.

For a NAS solution the cheap way would be a used desktop with at least 4 SATA ports, a Linux distro you're used to and Cockpit installed.

[-] Imaginary_Stand4909 1 points 3 months ago

Oh I definitely want to have a dedicated machine for the opnsense, I was planning that and a small switch as a gift to myself for my birthday. I just wanted to figure out if I could do something with this poor laptop lol.

I'll keep your NAS setup in mind.

this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2026
17 points (100.0% liked)

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