Questions About DIY NAS

[Epic_Smile]

I recently been running out of space on both my main editing and gaming rig as well as my lap top. I thought that a NAS would be a good idea for mass storage and back up. (and i hate just buying things when i can make them which is so much more fun ) 

1) first question I still live with my family and was hoping the NAS could be my own. I was wondering if i could use FreeNAS and use it offline (without cnnecting it to my router) or could i create a mini network within my room) (In short can use my NAS without connecting to a router?)

 

The Specifications for the Nas                                                                                                   Price (In AUD)  

Case                   Fractal Design Node 804 (Because it looks cool and offer 8X 3.5" bays)                    $149

Motherboard      Asrock C2550D4I (Because of the Price the 12 stata connections)                            $ 438.51

Power-Supply    Corsair VS350 (Because i have read and seen alotof people use it in DIY NAS)        $49

Hard-Drive          4X WD red 3TB (I was planing to use 3 in RAID 5 then one for backups)                   $676

Ram                    G.skill 2X8GB DDR3 (It  Is ecc and ddr3)                                                                    $109

                                                                                                                                                     Total   $1,421.51

 

Questions

2) Does the Hard-drive configuration work/ is good

3) Is their anything I have overlook and or any tips/advice you could offer

 

Thank in advance for you response

Regards Epic_smile

 

[zMeul]

21 minutes ago, Epic_Smile said:

I was wondering if i could use FreeNAS and use it offline (without cnnecting it to my router)

you could just use the same IP class but not use a gateway and DNS - that way the NAS can't connect to the internet, but still be discoverable from withing the LAN

[Epic_Smile]

18 minutes ago, zMeul said:

you could just use the same IP class but not use a gateway and DNS - that way the NAS can't connect to the internet, but still be discoverable from withing the LAN

I meat so that i was the only one that could see/access the nas But thanks for the response

[zMeul]

1 minute ago, Epic_Smile said:

I meat so that i was the only one that could see/access the nas But thanks for the response

just put a password on login

[Epic_Smile]

1 minute ago, zMeul said:

just put a password on login

Cool thanks i didn't think of that  

[minutellim]

The build looks good for the most part. I ended up just going for the 2TB version of the Reds. If you need more storage, it might be good to shell out for the 4TB version. It seems that the 3TB version of the Reds have a much higher failure rate than the other versions.

 

As for the separate LAN, you can do this fairly easily. You can buy a router or a switch that supports VLAN. Then it would just be a matter of setting up your room to be on a separate VLAN. The two networks wouldn't have any way of talking to each other, so you wouldn't be able to use a network printer or get files off of other computers that aren't connected to that network without additional configuration. I think this is what you want, though. You'd still have internet access through your personal LAN.

[DrDray]

What CPU are you using? I ran Freenas for about a year. The build is good and the 4x3tb drives can be used together as basically a raid 10 (although, Freenas doesn't use raid, it uses ZFS) But just a word of advice, Freenas is a cunt of a thing to get set up properly with plugins etc for novice users that don't know Linux code. I spent hours on end trying to get the damn thing running. Also do some maths on how much usable storage you're getting per tb on how much you're spending on the drives; can work out to be cheaper to get 4tb drives etc.

I wouldn't bother about putting it on a separate lan, just chuck a password on the user and that should be more than enough.

Also potentially look at getting a big tower air cooler like the hyper 212 so you can run it at very low rpm and not worry about noise if it's going to be in your room and on 24/7
 

[DrDray]

Also if you're not running any plugins then you'll only reaaaaaally need 8gb of ram, it's only really *needed* with things like plex. That's only if you're trying to cut corners but I'm just throwing it out there. Also you'll need either another small drive or flashdrive to install the Freenas OS onto

[Epic_Smile]

 

4 minutes ago, Josh.Drayton said:

Also if you're not running any plugins then you'll only reaaaaaally need 8gb of ram, it's only really *needed* with things like plex. That's only if you're trying to cut corners but I'm just throwing it out there. Also you'll need either another small drive or flashdrive to install the Freenas OS onto

to your previous comment the mother Board comes with a built in cpu (Intel Avoton C2550 Quad-Core Processor)

and I was planing to use a usb as a boot drive (is that a bad idea?) 

and the ram comes in a pack of 2 and it is cheeper and for the future is i upgrad i beloive it would be good to have

Thanks for the help

[DrDray]

1 minute ago, Epic_Smile said:

 

to your previous comment the mother Board comes with a built in cpu (Intel Avoton C2550 Quad-Core Processor)

and I was planing to use a usb as a boot drive (is that a bad idea?) 

and the ram comes in a pack of 2 and it is cheeper and for the future is i upgrad i beloive it would be good to have

Thanks for the help

Ahhh okay makes sense, scrap the heatsink idea then. Ahhhh yeah usb is alright, just make sure you set up backups of the flashdrive so if it does fail, you can just copy all your settings back over and you're away. Just stick to 16gb then