Beefing up old iMac as Time Machine Server

[yrduougyuc]

So today I dropped my external hard drive containing my backups and it's not turning on anymore. This got me thinking, carrying around my backups with me is kind of stupid (I travel quite a lot), so I had an idea: I've got a 2006 iMac at home, as well as a version of 10.6 Server which should run on it, so I could use that as a backup server (and I could also finally have my own VPN).
Now, I think its specs are 1GB of RAM and 250GB HD, which obviously won't fit my backups. The fastest port is FireWire 400, so I really want to upgrade the internal drive to something like 2 or 4TB to get some performance. Now my questions would be

• do current hard drives still work in this old computer? I don't know which version of SATA it supports, but are they backwards compatible? Would a 4TB drive be a problem?
• Would I be able to backup from outside my home network over VPN?
• For the VPN, would the stock 1GB of RAM be enough?

Hope anyone can answer these, very niche knowledge these days I suppose

If anyone's done anything similar, I'd appreciate any kind of input

 

[glenthompson]

That machine runs SATA I at 1.5gbps. New drives should work fine with it.

Remote backups depend on the bandwidth available to you. All too often my connections when traveling are too slow for decent backups.

1gb is going to be a problem with any type of server.

A better option might be a NAS that supports VPN as well as other services. Another option for good backup is one of the on-line services like Crashplan or BackBlaze. I use Crashplan's family plan which covers up to 10 computers with unlimited space. They have multi-year deals that get the price quite low. This is in addition to Time Machine backups to a NAS and a portal drive. When traveling, I use the portable drive along with Crashplan if the bandwidth is adequate.

 

[yrduougyuc]

Thanks for your reply. I'm trying to avoid online providers, but the VPN NAS sounds like an alternative, can you recommend one?

 

[glenthompson]

Thanks for your reply. I'm trying to avoid online providers, but the VPN NAS sounds like an alternative, can you recommend one?

I like Synology. Lots of models to choose from depending on processor power, memory, and expandability.