I’m considering replacing my Desktop and / or NAS… Here’s my thought process.

Current state:

  • I have a very old Desktop Machine which was somewhat replaced in function by this NAS a while ago. The desktop is used for Scanning purposes (only now).
  • Netgear READYNAS 104 – Approx 6 years old.
  • Total of 4x 2TB drives, in RAID 5 config offering 5.44TB of usable disk space.
  • 4.09GB of 5.44TB free space – I’ve used only 24.8% of my available space.
  • This services my important business files for Splodge.
  • Additionally, it helps to service two home users.
    • Stores photos and documents.
    • Stores music.
  • It was bought as a storage replacement for the desktop machine as it’s less hungry on power and running a desktop for it’s network storage 24/7 seemed to be a little overkill. – Also it had no redundancy whereas the NAS does.

I’m keen to run a shared scanner from this but I’m concerned about adding load onto this unit given that it does struggle a little with performance. – Given it’s age, I’m considering replacing this with a newer unit (and disks), moving all of my critical content off it and onto the newer unit and then loading this up with guff.

Plan? I have options:

  1. Replace the NAS with a newer one, shift all of the content off it and onto the newer on.
    • Load the newer one with all of the content, then run guff on the older one.
    • Replace the old one entirely with the new one, simply move off it, run guff on the new one.
  2. Replace the Desktop machine with a newer desktop. – Why? What type? PC / Mac? Hmm…
  3. Move all content off the Desktop onto the existing NAS, load Ubuntu onto the old desktop, see what I can get going in the way of scanner software.

Why do I need to replace the NAS? It’s not failed, it still runs storage functions fine…

  • Simple concern over age.
  • Performance is ok if I don’t add additional types of usage to it.
  • Capacity is fine.
  • It’s not failed.
  • It’s supported and still being updated.
  • It’s very functional.

Ok, so the old desktop is a 32 bit machine, it’s got limited RAM, it’s running Vista. It’s virus definitions are out of date as it’s not been fired up in almost a whole year.

  • I’m moving content off it now onto the NAS into a folder called ‘Dell-Desktop-Final’.
  • I’m going to load Ubuntu onto this machine then get Scanner Drivers loaded and see if I can share them from there.

There are instructions online for getting the ReadyNAS sharing the scanner using SANE. – https://community.netgear.com/t5/New-to-ReadyNAS/Duo-Sharing-a-scanner-using-Sane/td-p/659762

This should equally apply to an Ubuntu image also capable of using APT.
Let’s go with the Ubuntu-desktop route instead. 🙂