DIY NAS for small business - I need your help(PART LIST UPDATE)

[desynct]

Hello everyone!

 

I am going to build a NAS that will be used in a small business working with video production and I could need some opinions and recommendations. I recently got into this and I am still learning and researching. My intention for this thread is to learn more about this and hopefully end up with a list of what I should buy and build. I thank you in advance for taking the time reading this and helping me, it really means a lot to me!

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/jPKGm8

 

In short this is what I would want to get from the NAS:

1. Storage,raid and ZFS. I plan to start with between 16 and 20 Terabyte usable storage but with possibility to increase it in the future with ease.
2. I want to be able to use PLEX without any issues for up to three multiple streams at the same time(1080p) but would be nice if we also could stream at least one 4k video without issues.
3. Be able to send a download link to customers so they can download a specific file. Using a torrent client or even winrar is usually too advanced for the customer
4. 10gb connection between the NAS and two PCs

Parts.

Budget: about 3000 USD maximum but less is much prefered.

 

I was considering using Ryzen 5 1600 as it comes with a cooler, cheap and the new Ryzen is about to come out soon and I heard that they should be compatible with the motherboards for the first Ryzen cpus we have today, so we could upgrade the cpu in the future if so required. But I read that there is issues with NAS and ryzen but maybe that is no longer the case? What CPU would you recommend would be enough for what we need the NAS for? Seems like Xeon is the way to go?

 

Form factor the the motherboard is nothing we do care about as it could just as well be a full tower even as long as it does what it is supposed to do and we can upgrade it in the future.

 

ECC ram is probably good to have and I read that for ZFS it is basically required but I still see some people not using it. But I want it. Starting with 32gb with the possibility to have a total of 64gb in the future if it would ever be required. Possible to start with 16x2 and just add another kit of the same type into it in the future?
For ZFS it's recommended that we have 1gb ram per 1T storage. FreeNas requires minimum 8gb ram. So is it 8gb + 1gb ram per 1T storage that I should follow strictly?

 

It seems to be a bit of jungle as you need to really choose the right combination of cpu, motherboard and ram for a NAS. Recommendations for this would be extremely appreciated.

 

Plan is to start with between 16-20gb usable storage.

 

I will go with WD red or Seagate Ironwolf as it seems to be the best for what we need. Do they have to be 7200rpm or can they be 5400rpm? Will mechanical hard drives be the bottleneck in 10Gbps Ethernet? 

 

mirrored or RAIDZ2?

 

As we do not require the NAS to be small we do not care about the case of it that much and I will pick the cheapest one that fits whatever motherboard we go with that has a lot of space for HDDs. But if you have a good recommendation on this please share!

 

PSU I guess I will just add cheapest random from a reputable brand.

 

My plan is to build up a part list based on what I learn from you and what you recommend and post it here for final opinions before I make the purchase.

[desynct]

14 hours ago, RandomGuy13 said:

I guess you want something rackmount? You should look for a rackmount case that can support a lot of drives. If you only need 20TB, then you only need 6 x 4TB + 1 for redundancy drives.

 

You could use SAS drives because a lot RAID cards will use SAS, but you can get sata options and this would allow you to use cheaper Red, SE or Ironwolf drives and is easier to work with.

 

I would go with 4TB, 5TB, or 6TB drives, you could go with higher capacity drives, but realy you want a minimum of 5-6 drives for a RAID array for speed and redundancy.

I don't know how much ram you would need so I would follow the 1GB for every 1TB rule.

 

PSU you should just look for something redundant, where there are two PSUs, If one fails, all is good.

 

10GBe cards, you should realy be looking second hand for these, If the business already has 10GBe infrastructure then use whatever standard they are using whether that is copper or SFP. If they don't then you need to decide how many workstations need 10GBe access. If it's just two then you might be able to do it without having to buy a switch. This isn't very scalable and not realy the done thing in a business, but it is the cheapest option. I Linus has done a video on it.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

If you did this then You will a cheap 2 port SFP card, and two cheap 1 port SFP cards for the two workstations. You will also need a cheap gigabit ethernet card for the rest of the network to have gigabit access to the NAS. I recommend the Intel PRO/1000 PT cards, either the E1G42ET, D33682, X3959 or NC360T (They are all different names for the same card)

Thank you!

 

I think I will go with 5x Seagate Ironwolf ST6000VN0041 128MB 6TB or 5x Seagate Ironwolf ST6000VN0033 256MB 6TB (Will I benefit from having 256mb cache disks instead of 128mb? Something I have to look into) as it seems to be the cheapest I can find at the moment and will give me 24 terabyte usable storage to start with. SAS seems to be very expensive and not give me any increased performance for what I would use the NAS for.

 

It seems like using 10GBe network cards would be the best way for us as we do only need two workstations with 10GBe connection. So I will try to find a dual 10GBe port network card for the NAS and two single port ones for the workstations.

 

I have a few questions:

Why SFP instead of RJ45? 

 

Why buy a gigabit Ethernet card for the rest of the network? Does not most motherboards these day already have a gigabit Ethernet port already in them? 

[desynct]

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/jPKGm8

 

This is what I made so far. But I see this issue: 

• Some Intel C236 chipset motherboards may need a BIOS update prior to using Kaby Lake-S CPUs. Upgrading the BIOS may require a different CPU that is supported by older BIOS revisions.

So I need to buy another CPU to update for this CPU work in the board? What CPU should I buy to do this? I see that I can pick the v5 version to not have any issues with this but.. It's less powerful

 

Do I need 2400MHz memory instead of 2133MHz?

 

Please give me your opinions about these parts I picked.

 

[desynct]

7 hours ago, RandomGuy13 said:

I don't particularly like the case you have chosen, I can't see mounting for rails, and It does not support the drive configuration that he wants to use. Also it doesnt look to be the full width and I can't find out what PSU it takes. 

 

And I would suggest changing the PSU out with a redundant one, but it's not super necessary, but I would suggest at least using an EVGA G2 or G3 rather than the Gq because they are a little more reliable.

Form factor: Mini ITX, mATX, μATX, ATX

Dimensions (h/w/d): 48.5 cm x 48.3 cm x 17.8 cm

max. Motherboard size 305mm x 270mm (12" x 10.6")

it is supposed to take a standard ATX psu

19" rack 4-U

 

It was the cheapest one I could find where I live and I thought it would fulfill all the requirements?

DRIVE BAYS
5.25" external	3x / 2x¹
3.5" external	/ 1x¹
3.5" internal	8x
2.5" internal	7x²

What do you mean with does not support the drive configuration? I think I am misunderstanding something here

 

I will listen to your recommendation about the PSU. What do you think about EVGA SuperNOVA G3 650W instead? Getting a redundant one seems to be at 300+ USD minimum in price. I think this is something that we could upgrade to in the future.

 

EDIT: Maybe I should go with a 500W PSU instead?

 

 

[geo3]

On 1/11/2018 at 1:21 PM, desynct said:

I recently got into this and I am still learning and researching

IMO you shouldn't be doing this for a business then...

[desynct]

12 minutes ago, geo3 said:

IMO you shouldn't be doing this for a business then...

Doing this for this business is basically me doing it for myself.