Due to a recent system upgrade I am looking at turning the hardware below into a cheap, and preferably low power, NAS and would appreciate any and all advice on the topic
C2D e6600
Abit AB9-Pro mobo, has 9 SATA and 1 eSATA on various controllers
4x1GB DDR2 667
Old Thermaltake case, plenty of HD space
Old PSU, 400W I believe
Need a very cheap PCIe gfx card just to get system access
Will be grabbing 3+ 1-2TB HD's but plan to run the OS off a pendrive if poss
Now I do have experience using Ubuntu which I use on my revo HTPC and I'm guessing a linux OS is the best option to keep this going, however I would prefer some form of desktop gui as my skills are not that strong. My primary concerns are;
How do I make this system as low power as poss, can I drop the e6600 consumption?
Do I drop 2GB of the 4GB for further savings?
Is there a good Ubuntu (or other) app that can provide NAS features or do I just take the dive for freenas?
TIA
d3fiant