Given the current ridiculous prices on all things computer, I’ve been shifting some things around internally to make better use of certain components, namely SSD storage. Because storage had gotten incredibly cheap over the years, I’m very fortunate to have an abundance of 1 TB SSDs and multiple high-density spinning drives. Now that you’d need to take out a bank loan to build a desktop, if you’re able to even find components to buy thanks to shitty AI companies buying up everything, I figure it makes some sense to look at how I’m using the components I have.
Last year I wondered if the original FreeNAS Mini can run the latest version of FreeNAS. Turns out it can, as long as you replace the original USB storage used for the OS with a larger drive. At the end of that article I said “Coming up next, a detailed step-by-step guide of the hardware installation of the mSATA card in the FreeNAS Mini. Well folks, welcome to life with ADHD. If you look at any of my posts since then you won’t find that detailed post. So uh… let’s make it shall we?
I built a new storage server for myself two years ago to replace my existing FreeNAS Mini storage server that I purchased in 2013. The FreeNAS Mini was still perfectly OK, I had just outgrown the system to continue using it as my main storage. Since then the FreeNAS Mini has been sitting idle, but it still has 8TB of storage and can be upgraded to 16TB. I figured that with a little bit of updating it would be a perfect companion to have next to my main computer in my home office.