Reason for not buying PC instead of prebuilt NAS

[xWood4000]

Why would you buy a prebuilt NAS instead of a PC with ECC RAM and good hardrives?

 

It can also double as a processing server if you want but a prebuilt NAS isn't upgradable.

 

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

[samcool55]

Well, a prebuilt nas is, prebuilt. So you don't need to build it yourself.

Software is there, hardware is there, just pop in some harddrives, some quick configuring and off you go.

 

I prefer going the DIY route but that's just not for everybody.

[WickedStarfish]

6 minutes ago, xWood4000 said:

Why would you buy a prebuilt NAS instead of a PC with ECC RAM and good hardrives?

 

It can also double as a processing server if you want but a prebuilt NAS isn't upgradable.

 

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

also if something goes wrong in the building process that is on you where as a prebuilt NAS System its on the company. 

 

[xWood4000]

Just now, samcool55 said:

Well, a prebuilt nas is, prebuilt. So you don't need to build it yourself.

Software is there, hardware is there, just pop in some harddrives, some quick configuring and off you go.

 

I prefer going the DIY route but that's just not for everybody.

But some Tech Youtubers have NASes instead of PCs, even GN had one until recently. They are definitely enthusiasts that probably enjoy building computers and they can make content out of it too. Is it that they don't have time? Hmm...

[WickedStarfish]

Just now, xWood4000 said:

But some Tech Youtubers have NASes instead of PCs, even GN had one until recently. They are definitely enthusiasts that probably enjoy building computers and they can make content out of it too. Is it that they don't have time? Hmm...

they could have been sponsored by someone and received it through them (like origin gaming towers, they give them to a few different users prebuilt)

[xWood4000]

Just now, WickedStarfish said:

also if something goes wrong in the building process that is on you where as a prebuilt NAS System its on the company. 

 

Is that a real concern? I haven't destroyed any computers (yet) so is it likely to do that? 

[xWood4000]

Just now, WickedStarfish said:

they could have been sponsored by someone and received it through them (like origin gaming towers, they give them to a few different users prebuilt)

That's logical. I haven't seen that many sponsored NAS videos though.

[WickedStarfish]

Just now, xWood4000 said:

Is that a real concern? I haven't destroyed any computers (yet) so is it likely to do that? 

neither have i but prebuilt is still a option for me to go down which takes the hassle out of everything. I'm still on the verge of deciding if i go prebuilt or build for my nas setup, and my next desktop might be a prebuilt only due to the fact that a custom loop seems quite difficult especially when you add a loop for the GPU

[WickedStarfish]

2 minutes ago, xWood4000 said:

That's logical. I haven't seen that many sponsored NAS videos though.

It might just be sponsored by say seagate and in the terms and conditions they state that its to only go in "this system" or "in one of these systems"

[xWood4000]

Just now, WickedStarfish said:

 and my next desktop might be a prebuilt only due to the fact that a custom loop seems quite difficult especially when you add a loop for the GPU

Yeah custom loops do seem difficult, I would enjoy the challenge though.

[xWood4000]

Just now, WickedStarfish said:

It might just be sponsored by say seagate and in the terms and conditions they state that its to only go in "this system" or "in one of these systems"

True. Thank you for your activity.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Support and ease of use.

 

I just deplyed a synology at work as a offside backup. I don't want a diy solution i have to explain to the next guy how I set it up. The synology also has a nice remote access program. Yea you can run xpenology, but I don't want updates to brick the system.

 

Also the premade nases are supported in case of a failure, the diy boxes you get to fix.

 

Also power consumption. A premade nas uses less power than most diy builds, and that can add up to 100+ usd a year.

 

 

[xWood4000]

8 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

 I don't want a diy solution i have to explain to the next guy how I set it up.

That's true, it's easier to explain to other people.

Quote

Yea you can run xpenology, but I don't want updates to brick the system.

Why would the updates brick the system? The community probably patches it pretty fast. I've also heard of FreeNAS but don't know that much about it.

 

9 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Also power consumption. A premade nas uses less power than most diy builds, and that can add up to 100+ usd a year.

Why? If you underclock and have a really good PSU it can't be impossible to achieve the same or better power consumption. 

[jkirkcaldy]

the same reason people go to best buy or PC world and buy a desktop computer there. Most people aren't comfortable building their own systems and buying pre-built usually comes with some sort of support system as well as a single place to return the hardware if there is a fault or dealing with warranty etc. 

[xWood4000]

27 minutes ago, jkirkcaldy said:

the same reason people go to best buy or PC world and buy a desktop computer there. Most people aren't comfortable building their own systems and buying pre-built usually comes with some sort of support system as well as a single place to return the hardware if there is a fault or dealing with warranty etc. 

I understand that normal people do that but it seems like some computer enthusiasts also do that.  

[Electronics Wizardy]

6 hours ago, xWood4000 said:

Why would the updates brick the system? The community probably patches it pretty fast. I've also heard of FreeNAS but don't know that much about it.

xpenology is a very hacky nas os. Its basically running synology code on a custom bootloader. You don't just update it.

 

6 hours ago, xWood4000 said:

Why? If you underclock and have a really good PSU it can't be impossible to achieve the same or better power consumption. 

Underclocking doesn't realy help as the chips already do that. They also turn off the cores when idle with c states. Its mainly that premade nas boxes use much more efficent small psus(like 75w or less) and they use atom chips with a tdp of like 6w. 

[xWood4000]

56 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

. Its mainly that premade nas boxes use much more efficent small psus(like 75w or less) and they use atom chips with a tdp of like 6w. 

Oh that makes a lot of sense. Thank you and thank you to all that have answered.

[ImpulseRez]

Space can also be a consideration. a QNAP or Synology NAS is generally only a big larger than the hard drives you put in it, as all the rest of the components are designed with the end goal of a NAS in mind. There isn't a motherboard with extra expansion slots you don't need taking up space for example.

 

In general, a prebuilt NAS is good because it's purpose designed to be a NAS. You trade flexibility for being very good at what it needs to do (i.e, be a NAS) without any superfluous functionality. It will be small, quiet, and power efficient relative to a regular PC. I would say that most people want their NAS to be mostly out of sight and out of mind.

[xWood4000]

Just now, ImpulseRez said:

Space can also be a consideration. a QNAP or Synology NAS is generally only a big larger than the hard drives you put in it, as all the rest of the components are designed with the end goal of a NAS in mind. There isn't a motherboard with extra expansion slots you don't need taking up space for example.

 

In general, a prebuilt NAS is good because it's purpose designed to be a NAS. You trade flexibility for being very good at what it needs to do (i.e, be a NAS) without any superfluous functionality. It will be small, quiet, and power efficient relative to a regular PC. I would say that most people want their NAS to be mostly out of sight and out of mind.

Wouldn't a Mini-ITX computer do the same? Of course as all of you have said, it's not as much hassle.

[ImpulseRez]

3 minutes ago, xWood4000 said:

Wouldn't a Mini-ITX computer do the same? Of course as all of you have said, it's not as much hassle.

It's still going to take up more space than a NAS for the same amount of hard drives. Not to mention that finding a Mini-ITX case with e.g. 4 hard drives can be difficult.

[xWood4000]

21 minutes ago, ImpulseRez said:

It's still going to take up more space than a NAS for the same amount of hard drives. Not to mention that finding a Mini-ITX case with e.g. 4 hard drives can be difficult.

Yeah, that can be difficult.

[Guest]

For me it was time, form factor, warranty, reliability, etc.

 

I LOVE custom building. All of my desktops are built by me. I used FreeNAS for a few years. Wanted something smaller and something I could mess with less. That sounds counter-intuitive, but when I can touch something... I do. It was a big ole tower server. I looked at building mini ITX, but by the time I came up with something I wanted, QNAP already did it and in a smaller footprint. I ended up with two NASes (one is even Ryzen based). 14 8TB HDDs, 6TBs of SSD for cache, 10 gigabit and Ethernet. QNAP's software is pretty nice as well and most things they don't have first party, someone has made or it's not too hard to port.

 

[Salacious B Crum]

Get an old tower pc add some drives and install unRAID very flexible, expandable, lightweight os option to run VM's plex and dockers also has a very intuitive GUI you can load the os for free and run the full version for 30 days to see if it fits your use case without any commitment 

 

[xWood4000]

On 8/15/2018 at 11:15 PM, Densetsu said:

For me it was time, form factor, warranty, reliability, etc.

 

I LOVE custom building. All of my desktops are built by me. I used FreeNAS for a few years. Wanted something smaller and something I could mess with less. That sounds counter-intuitive, but when I can touch something... I do. It was a big ole tower server. I looked at building mini ITX, but by the time I came up with something I wanted, QNAP already did it and in a smaller footprint. I ended up with two NASes (one is even Ryzen based). 14 8TB HDDs, 6TBs of SSD for cache, 10 gigabit and Ethernet. QNAP's software is pretty nice as well and most things they don't have first party, someone has made or it's not too hard to port.

 

That's a really nice product. I think that a custom-built would be cheaper though, even with 10Gb. You wouldn't get the software or compactness though.

[xWood4000]

On 8/16/2018 at 1:48 AM, mrbilky said:

Get an old tower pc add some drives and install unRAID very flexible, expandable, lightweight os option to run VM's plex and dockers also has a very intuitive GUI you can load the os for free and run the full version for 30 days to see if it fits your use case without any commitment 

 

That seems like a good method, you just have to make sure that it supports all the features you may want like 10Gb/s ethernet and fast SATA. I actually have an old workstation as my photo+video archive right now (smallish form factor) with fedora so using that software could level up my game.