What would it take to host a storage server for personal use?

[GDRRiley]

1 minute ago, KhakiHat said:

This options seem incredibly straight forward and to the point. 

it is but you can only have 2 drives. 4 drive+ cost a few hundred. 

[KhakiHat]

On 11/25/2017 at 11:06 PM, Streetguru said:

FreeNAS is GNU/Linux based as far as I'm aware, it's basically what you want to use for your home storage server due to ZFS not requiring hardware RAID controllers, nor exactly requiring ECC memory. You can even run virtual machines or jails or whatever on it as well.

If you want a new system you can upgrade here's an AM4 build without hard drives, Motherboard has 8 Sata, PSU has 8 Sata. Maybe not the best PSU for 24/7 use but it'd be good enough for now I suppose.

You want about 1GB of RAM per 1TB of storage, preferably more RAM.
 

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/vs9PM8
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/vs9PM8/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD - A8-9600 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($69.94 @ Newegg Marketplace)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-AX370-Gaming ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: GeIL - EVO POTENZA 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  ($129.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - S12II 620W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($48.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $348.91
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-11-25 23:03 EST-0500

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeNAS
FreeNAS is a free and open-source network-attached storage (NAS) software based on FreeBSD and the OpenZFS file system

https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/62d5o4/gnulinux_file_server_equivalent_of_freenas/

 

I also greatly like this option just for the pure thought of upgrading when the times comes. 

[Tiberiusisgame]

3 hours ago, GDRRiley said:

it is but you can only have 2 drives. 4 drive+ cost a few hundred. 

The 4-bay system costs ~$300USD. Consider why you would want 4 drives? Moar betta?! I run a RAID5 (RAID0,1) but this is not an ideal configuration. It would have been cheaper to pick up:

 

$500 for 2 8TB drives https://www.amazon.com/Red-8TB-Hard-Disk-Drive/dp/B01BYLY4DM/ref=sr_1_8?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1511897173&sr=1-8&keywords=8tb+hard+drive

 

$300 for a 2-slot primo NAS (all the bells and whistles) https://www.amazon.com/Synology-DS218-DiskStation-Diskless-2-bay/dp/B075N1BYWX/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1511897241&sr=1-2&keywords=synology

 

Versus what I actually did...

 

$349 for 4-slot DS416

$556 for 4 4TB WD Red drives

 

Same capacity, the 2-drive system is $105 dollars less and likely would perform the same.

 

Part of this was my ignorance, part of this was wanting to experiment with different drive configurations... all of it was a waste of money for my current use-case.

 

The OP was looking for an affordable solution. a Striped RAID configuration on 2 drives sounds solidly in that category.

[Dark]

a hair over $500 but worth the investment.  Don't bother with the ARM based NAS appliances.

 

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1204053-REG/qnap_ts_653a_4g_us_ts_653a_six_bay_nas_enclosure.html