Installing FreeNASīefore you begin your FreeNAS installation, obtain a USB thumb drive with a capacity of at least 2GB. You’ll find everything you need to know in this guide. And side from being free, FreeNAS is easy to install, configure, and run. Those are just two of the roles that an older PC can perform that are of far more benefit to your business than having the machine collect dust or head for the dump.īest of all, the software–FreeNAS–that will power this machine is exactly what its name describes: a free operating system for network-attached storage. You can use it as a repository for automatic PC backups, or set it up as a file server that you and your employees can access while you’re on the road. You could e-recycle it–hand it off to a responsible company that will dismantle it and recycle the parts–but what do you gain from that aside from feeling good about being environmentally responsible? Allow us to suggest another solution: Repurpose the old hulk as a local server. Now you need to decide what to do with the old clunker. Your old desktop PC gave you years of reliable service, but eventually it couldn’t keep up with modern tasks and applications so you went out and bought something newer and faster.