Wanting to add NAS and HTPC to my current setup *need help*

[CountCrackula]

At the end of the day, I would like to have a NAS (mainly for storage and backup, but also some streaming), an HTPC able to handle 4k (video playback, not necessarily gaming), and I already have my gaming rig that is capable for 4k gaming as well as VR. I am not sure of the smartest or most cost efficient way to do this, and am getting lost ready forums, watching videos, etc... I would like this to be as seamless as possible, and would like to not spend too much while still building a very solid setup.

 

Current Rig

Windows 7

3x512 SSDs

1x4 TB HDD

2x3 GB external HDD

ASUS ROG Maximus VII Hero

980TI hybrid

CX750M power supply

i5-4690K OC'ed to ~3.9 (water cooled by Corsair H115

4x8 GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600 RAM

 

This is currently being shared between my Samsung SUHD 4K TV, and several other monitors for gaming and regular use. I have thought about the Steam Link and other things but feel that a NAS and HTPC are a better long term solution.

 

Ideally I would like to be able to spread out my systems through the house, and not suffer from wifi latency or anything like that. With a NAS is it essential to go with such a high end drive like a WD red or green? I would prefer cloning (Raid 0?) with slightly cheaper drives and then if one dies it isn't the end of the world. I would like to start off with around 4-8 TB for my NAS with room to expand. Being able to steam to other devices (phone, kindle, ipad) from NAS would be kinda nice but not essential.

 

One thing I have been thinking about it (although it is a bit over my head ATM), would be to use virtualization to simply turn my gaming rig into a NAS (per the linus video), and then just build a reasonable HTPC but am just not sure if that is the way to go. I would like this to be reasonably simple to setup, with as little maintenance over time required as possible.

 

Extra Parts I have to work with:

EVGA 960 superclocked

Corsair 500W psu

256 GB SSD

i5-4690K

 

Thanks for any help that you guys/gals can give! I'd be grateful from anything from common knowledge/tips, to complete build guides, or even options that I am not aware of!

[Electronics Wizardy]

8 minutes ago, CountCrackula said:

would be to use virtualization to simply turn my gaming rig into a NAS (per the linus video), and then just build a reasonable HTPC but am just not sure if that is the way to go. I would like this to be reasonably simple to setup, with as little maintenance over time required as possible.

No reason to use vms here, just install windows on the box, make a raid with windows storage spaces and share it.

 

Storage spaces is easy to upgrade and works well as a nas.

 

Id just get a used board and a case, install windows and your good.

[ucrbuffalo]

10 hours ago, CountCrackula said:

Ideally I would like to be able to spread out my systems through the house, and not suffer from wifi latency or anything like that. With a NAS is it essential to go with such a high end drive like a WD red or green? I would prefer cloning (Raid 0?) with slightly cheaper drives and then if one dies it isn't the end of the world. I would like to start off with around 4-8 TB for my NAS with room to expand. Being able to steam to other devices (phone, kindle, ipad) from NAS would be kinda nice but not essential.

Well for starters, Greens have never been known as a "high-end" drive as far as I know.  My understanding is that they are more optimized for low power consumption at slightly lower speeds than the Blues.  If you're wanting to stream, no OS is just going to do that, you'll need something installed on it (like Plex or Kodi)

 

In my NAS, I have FreeNas 9.10 running Plex in a jail.  Plex handles the encoding and streaming when you watch remotely.  I am using 4x HGST NAS drives (4TB each).  But if you wanted WD, Reds or even Blacks should be fine.  Reds (or NAS drives) are just designed for 24/7 operation rather than typical read/write scenarios.

 

If you go the FreeNAS route, you would be using ZFS and you would need at least one drive (preferably two or more, but I'm a risk-taker) to designate as parity.  It wouldn't technically be the only one running that, but its the simplest I can think to explain it right now.  This means you can have 10 1TB drives running a a total of 9TB if you wanted.  Its really just dependent on what you want to do with how much your willing to spend.

[CountCrackula]

I'm currently thinking 2xReds to start, then later bump it up to 4 and clone/mirror the drives basically. Is wi-fi actually fast enough if I have solid Wi-Fi or should i still plan on ethernet or some kind of adapter/extender, etc?

 

Any recommendations on what MoBo would work well with a NAS? also should I use the i5 4690K in the NAS or is it pointless? Should I save that for the HTPC and buy like an i-3 or perhaps even a Ryzen (even though I'm not much of an AMD guy)?