Jump to content

Pre-built NAS vs. Custom built server?

Hi everyone,

 

I'd like to buy/build a new computer to achieve the following objectives:

* VPN/tunnel - to provide privacy/protection when using public/work WiFi 

* Backup - to backup all PCs on the network with redundancy along with important documents/photos

* Streaming - to stream video (up to 1 x 4k and 3 x 1080p, maximum) to 3 PCs and 1 TV

 

The reason I'm considering custom built is that NAS units seem to be fairly overpriced for what they provide, e.g., this nas which is over $400 for 2 bays of storage. However, if it ends up providing more benefit over a custom built then I'm open to buying a pre-built machine. Overall, I'm trying to maximize value provided for the cost and get the best price to performance ratio. I'm comfortable building a PC and I've built several in the past. 

 

I've not used Linux/unraid/freenas before but if there's significant cost savings over a Windows option then I'd be all for learning. 

 

As far as I understand I won't need the computer to do any trans-coding. 

 

I'm hoping you can provide some general guidance, i.e., purchase WD red pro drives, use an SSD boot/cache drive, etc. 

 

Thanks for the help.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

With those nas boxes your paying a good amount for software and support. Yea you can do that all on your own, but they give you a pretty good solution with less configuration and tweaking compared to most diy software.

 

For what you listed you really won't need much cpu power or ram. Do you plan on transcoding for streaming? If not streaming video is just a slow file read.

 

If you want to do diy id probably go unraid, pretty easy to use, nice web gui, easy to upgrad.e

 

Id probably get those 8tb+ external drives and shuck them.

 

Otherwise, get the wd red or ironwolf drives, I don't see a reason for the pros here.

 

SSD s are great for the boot drive cause there cheap and relalible, I woudln't bother with a ssd cache with your requirements.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

There are pros and cons to both sides. Me personally, have built all of my servers from scratch. The freedom of expandability, customization, and choice of software are appealing to me. However you also take on all the responsibility whenever something doesn't work and when you want to setup a feature such as automatic backup you have to implement it yourself. I like it that way but it's mainly because building computer/servers is a passion for me.

 

If you want the most out of a box you will have the best freedom of expansion going custom but if you aren't building one because you want to that takes a lot of the worthwhile-ness out of it especially as you will have to maintain it in the long term. There's not a 1-800 hotline when the server drops off the network or file transfers stop mid transfer. You have to diagnose and fix it yourself.

 

For you I'd advise going with a pre-build but one that has the room for you to expand the storage. It'll be mostly maintenance free, if something goes wrong you have someone to call, if it dies you have a warranty to replace it no hassle.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

On 12/29/2019 at 3:04 PM, Windows7ge said:

 

 

On 12/29/2019 at 2:41 PM, Electronics Wizardy said:

With those nas boxes your paying a good amount for software and support. Yea you can do that all on your own, but they give you a pretty good solution with less configuration and tweaking compared to most diy software.

 

For what you listed you really won't need much cpu power or ram. Do you plan on transcoding for streaming? If not streaming video is just a slow file read.

 

If you want to do diy id probably go unraid, pretty easy to use, nice web gui, easy to upgrad.e

Id probably get those 8tb+ external drives and shuck them.

 

Otherwise, get the wd red or ironwolf drives, I don't see a reason for the pros here.

 

SSD s are great for the boot drive cause there cheap and relalible, I woudln't bother with a ssd cache with your requirements.

Would you say that most DIY software is more hassle than it's worth? 

No transcoding as far as I know, I have video in 720p/1080p/4k and maybe some worse resolutions, I'll be streaming to either my 4k TV or a computer monitor. Does it have to transcode if the resolution doesn't match exactly?

I saw the 8TB drives, but is there any warranty if the drive is shucked? Also had bad experience with Seagate overall that's why I was thinking of the red pro; longer warranty. 

Appreciate your thoughts. 

On 12/29/2019 at 3:04 PM, Windows7ge said:

There are pros and cons to both sides. Me personally, have built all of my servers from scratch. The freedom of expandability, customization, and choice of software are appealing to me. However you also take on all the responsibility whenever something doesn't work and when you want to setup a feature such as automatic backup you have to implement it yourself. I like it that way but it's mainly because building computer/servers is a passion for me.

 

If you want the most out of a box you will have the best freedom of expansion going custom but if you aren't building one because you want to that takes a lot of the worthwhile-ness out of it especially as you will have to maintain it in the long term. There's not a 1-800 hotline when the server drops off the network or file transfers stop mid transfer. You have to diagnose and fix it yourself.

 

For you I'd advise going with a pre-build but one that has the room for you to expand the storage. It'll be mostly maintenance free, if something goes wrong you have someone to call, if it dies you have a warranty to replace it no hassle.

I have the same sentiments with respect to custom building, love building a new computer. Of course troubleshooting is never fun, thankfully I haven't had to do much.. 

Is long term maintenance with a server significant? I'm hoping for more of a set it and forget it, maybe with minor tweaking now and again. 

Do you have any experience with support from QNAP/Synology? It seems that QNAP doesn't provide much of a warranty only one year it seems whereas Synology is more towards 3. 

I did some research and found these two units, would appreciate some feedback to help refine my search. 

 

https://www.newegg.ca/synology-ds918/p/N82E16822108682

 

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1184488-REG/qnap_ts_451_8g_us_turbo_nas_ts_451_nas.html

 

Appreciate the help. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Raptor21 said:

Would you say that most DIY software is more hassle than it's worth? 

No, I like going diy, but it depends on your goal.

 

3 hours ago, Raptor21 said:

I saw the 8TB drives, but is there any warranty if the drive is shucked?

Yes in the US, but also its cheap enough if you have a drive failure compared to the normal nas drives.

 

3 hours ago, Raptor21 said:

Also had bad experience with Seagate overall that's why I was thinking of the red pro; longer warranty. 

There pretty simmilar, but WD externals are about the same price and a better buy normally cause no smr.

 

3 hours ago, Raptor21 said:

s long term maintenance with a server significant?

Hardware wise, nothing really special.

 

Software wise, keep it updates, and check logs or have it email is best practice. Try to catch stuff that goes wrong before it goes super wrong.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Raptor21 said:

Is long term maintenance with a server significant? I'm hoping for more of a set it and forget it, maybe with minor tweaking now and again. 

You will have to dust it out periodically. Otherwise unless a component fails or you want to give it an upgrade there's not much more maintenance to it. Your choice of OS will determine how much of a hassle network service setup will be.

 

3 hours ago, Raptor21 said:

I did some research and found these two units, would appreciate some feedback to help refine my search. 

I can't really comment. I build all my servers. I have no experience with Synology or QNAP.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

On 12/29/2019 at 2:37 PM, Raptor21 said:

Hi everyone,

 

I'd like to buy/build a new computer to achieve the following objectives:

* VPN/tunnel - to provide privacy/protection when using public/work WiFi 

* Backup - to backup all PCs on the network with redundancy along with important documents/photos

* Streaming - to stream video (up to 1 x 4k and 3 x 1080p, maximum) to 3 PCs and 1 TV

 

The reason I'm considering custom built is that NAS units seem to be fairly overpriced for what they provide, e.g., this nas which is over $400 for 2 bays of storage. However, if it ends up providing more benefit over a custom built then I'm open to buying a pre-built machine. Overall, I'm trying to maximize value provided for the cost and get the best price to performance ratio. I'm comfortable building a PC and I've built several in the past. 

 

I've not used Linux/unraid/freenas before but if there's significant cost savings over a Windows option then I'd be all for learning. 

 

As far as I understand I won't need the computer to do any trans-coding. 

 

I'm hoping you can provide some general guidance, i.e., purchase WD red pro drives, use an SSD boot/cache drive, etc. 

 

Thanks for the help.

Go diy and run unRAID you can get a reasonably priced pre-built with an I7 stuff it with drives and run unRAID it will do everything you are attempting and more see my signature as I built my unRAID box from my I7 6700 and it works like a charm one of the major benefits is it is scale-able over time and has loads of dockers and plugins to work with as a plus if you get into VM's you can go that route too I run Plex, home-assistant and 12 dockers and I'm running less than 50% on the cpu so plenty of headroom

My daily driver: The Wrath of Red: OS Windows 10 home edition / CPU Ryzen TR4 1950x 3.85GHz / Cooler Master MasterAir MA621P Twin-Tower RGB CPU Air Cooler / PSU Thermaltake Toughpower 750watt / ASRock x399 Taichi / Gskill Flare X 32GB DDR4 3200Mhz / HP 10GB Single Port Mellanox Connectx-2 PCI-E 10GBe NIC / Samsung 512GB 970 pro M.2 / ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 STRIX 8GB / Acer - H236HLbid 23.0" 1920x1080 60Hz Monitor x3

 

My technology Rig: The wizard: OS Windows 10 home edition / CPU Ryzen R7 1800x 3.95MHz / Corsair H110i / PSU Thermaltake Toughpower 750watt / ASUS CH 6 / Gskill Flare X 32GB DDR4 3200Mhz / HP 10GB Single Port Mellanox Connectx-2 PCI-E 10GBe NIC / 512GB 960 pro M.2 / ASUS GeForce GTX 1080 STRIX 8GB / Acer - H236HLbid 23.0" 1920x1080 60Hz Monitor HP Monitor

 

My I don't use RigOS Windows 10 home edition / CPU Ryzen 1600x 3.85GHz / Cooler Master MasterAir MA620P Twin-Tower RGB CPU Air Cooler / PSU Thermaltake Toughpower 750watt / MSI x370 Gaming Pro Carbon / Gskill Flare X 32GB DDR4 3200Mhz / Samsung PM961 256GB M.2 PCIe Internal SSDEVGA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti SSC GAMING / Acer - H236HLbid 23.0" 1920x1080 60Hz Monitor

 

My NAS: The storage miser: OS unRAID v. 6.9.0-beta25 / CPU Intel i7 6700 / Cooler Master MasterWatt Lite 500 Watt 80 Plus / ASUS Maximus viii Hero / 32GB Gskill RipJaw DDR4 3200Mhz / HP Mellanox ConnectX-2 10 GbE PCI-e G2 Dual SFP+ Ported Ethernet HCA NIC / 9 Drives total 29TB - 1 4TB seagate parity - 7 4TB WD Red data - 1 1TB laptop drive data - and 2 240GB Sandisk SSD's cache / Headless

 

Why did I buy this server: OS unRAID v. 6.9.0-beta25 / Dell R710 enterprise server with dual xeon E5530 / 48GB ecc ddr3 / Dell H310 6Gbps SAS HBA w/ LSI 9211-8i P20 IT / 4 450GB sas drives / headless

 

Just another server: OS Proxmox VE / Dell poweredge R410

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×