Old Packard Bell 133mhz Pentium as a mass-storage system(?)

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2004-05-09 02:07am

I currently have four hard drives in my computer, and I'd like to be able to expand my hard drive storage space without having to try to put more hard drives in the same case. (I'm not really interested in investing in a DVD burner at this point in time, nor do I really want to burn everything to uncounted CDs.)

I recently got an old Packard Bell, complete with a 133mhz Pentium processor, at least 16 megs of RAM, and a real goofy-ass case.

Could I stick a modern IDE controller in there as well as a few big hard drives, and keep the bulk of my media on that system?

It would probably spend most of it's time sitting idly, or streaming music/DivX via LAN to my computer, and on occasion get hammered by my buddies when I host a LAN party.

Also, if this old dinosaur would work for this purpose, I'd like advice as to what OS to use, how best to set said OS up (I'm willing to learn a bit about Linux, if need be), and what IDE controllers would be best for my purposes.

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2004-05-09 02:19am

It'd be slow as hell but it would work. Clunk a couple hundred gigs in there and run a linux distro with low sys requirements. Really fucking low system requirements. Just look here for something that suites you http://www.linux.org/dist/list.html . Or you could run windows 95 on it. That would be easy and you probably have a copy already. Just about everyone does. Hell if you didn't mind it going kinda chuggy you could probably get 98 to run.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-05-09 03:37am

I recommend installing windows NT workstation. Anything newer will slow it down.

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2004-05-09 04:31am

Don't do it! It's a Packard Bell!

They were sent by Satan to plague the world and make miseries of the lives of tech support people.

Burn it at the stake! Kill it, before it can strike!

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-05-09 04:59am

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-05-09 05:05am

Packard Bell's are just plain terrible computers that you shouldn't rely on for anything but migraines. The system would be very damn slow anyway, whatever you throw on those extra hard drives would need to be things you don't really intend to look at, I don't think it could support streaming video or music and your LAN party would be limited to somthing with the system demands of a medium sized Red Alert game.

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2004-05-09 05:08am

If it weren't a Packard Bell, you could use it for Starcraft. But it is, so it'd crash halfway through a game, just to spite you for having fun.

Shark Bait · Post by **Shark Bait** » 2004-05-09 05:26am

I once tried something very similar, it failed miserably. The entier fiasco ended with a baseball bat, a can of gas, and some matches.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2004-05-09 05:30am

When I say "hammered at a LAN party", I mean a bunch of my friends deciding to pull a bunch of files off of it.

This isn't a computer I intend to ever sit at for any significant amount of time once I get it set up. I want to be able to plug it in, turn it on, and access files on it via a network without a single keystroke. I don't care if it utterly lacks a GUI; in fact, I would probably be happier with it that way, as it would probably mean it would boot and run faster and cleaner that way.

How could it not handle streaming? I can't believe a Pentium 133 with a separate PCI IDE controller card running DMA-supported hard drives is unable to transfer a half-meg a second.

Shark Bait: Could you provide any details on what you did and what problems you ran into?

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2004-05-09 05:53am

There are no words in the English language to describe the sheer lack of quality embodied in a Packard Bell product. Find something better.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-05-09 10:13am

Packard Bell sucks and you attempting to do this may end in much pain. That said...

For many years at my home we ran a fileserver with a P5/166 and 32MB RAM. The operating system was NT4 Server SP6a; we used a Promise ATA66 card to drive a 60GB HD. IIRC, the NIC was a good 3Com card. It worked fine.

Mad · Post by **Mad** » 2004-05-09 11:32am

A friend of mine is using a Pentium 120 to act as a file server (not Packard Bell, though). So the machien is fast enough. I'm not sure how it'll perform with 16MB, but it couldn't hurt to try. If it doesn't perform well, just throw some more memory at it and it'll be fine.

(By the way, Windows 95 apparently doesn't start sharing until after the login screen has been bypassed... you may want to use TweakUI to do so if you use Win95.)

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2004-05-09 01:00pm

evilcat4000 wrote:I recommend installing windows NT workstation. Anything newer will slow it down.

It's going to be a server. Anything graphical is a waste of cpu power anyway, Besides, with Linux, one won't even have to waste a monitor,keyboard, etc once SSH is set up. And wouldn't NT still run rather slow?

Linux has lower sys requirements. I was running Linux from Scratch at a usable speed on a HP Vectra P-120, which was more reliable than my current one (had working APM for one thing). Couldn't you put Linux+hard drive controller+10/100/1000? ethernet on it?

As for Linux, use something non-gui and small... as in, do not install Red Hat or Mandrake. I seriously suggest Debian "Woody" or Slackware. Install Samba and SSH, then remove monitor/keyboard after it boots, and SSH for admin from then on (is it safe to hot-remove input devices on computers this old?).

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-05-09 03:09pm

Linux using SAMBA is rather more difficult to learn than NT4.

Vendetta · Post by **Vendetta** » 2004-05-09 03:11pm

Pu-239 wrote:(is it safe to hot-remove input devices on computers this old?).

Yeah, it's a PB, until they want to go wrong, they're indestructible. Evil zombie PCs of doom.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2004-05-09 03:15pm

phongn wrote:Linux using SAMBA is rather more difficult to learn than NT4.

He did say he was willing to learn though... And one can install SWAT for web based admin with Samba (won't help you with other admin tasks). And once it's set up you can forget about it in some corner of your basement.