Advice needed for what hardware to use in a PC for the purpose of a NAS

[xannax159]

Hey there, just got confirmation from another thread that its possible to game over the network! But I'm completely clueless when it comes down to what hardware to utilize. I'm planning on making a home server NAS to store all of my games and large files since its a pain to try and keep them on every device while my main drive suffers on my pc. If I were to create a NAS that's capable of around 1-2gb speeds. What kind of hardware would I be looking at? I don't need to look at the storage devices itself yet, ill pick those out myself. But what CPU /mobo/ram/ PCIe hardware would be beneficial? If its not a problem, i would like it to be pretty cheap. Unless it needs to cost more (like if the cpu needs to be really fast). Also, what os would i need to run? im completely new to this part of pc's so please go easy on me

[cj09beira]

not too sure myself, but i would start by looking at first gen ryzen 7s, those should be cheap enough, or 1600s, but that will depend on if you plan to run plex on it or something similar 

[xannax159]

1 minute ago, cj09beira said:

not too sure myself, but i would start by looking at first gen ryzen 7s, those should be cheap enough, or 1600s, but that will depend on if you plan to run plex on it or something similar 

Thanks for the feedback, should probably add in the software in the question.

[Electronics Wizardy]

5 minutes ago, xannax159 said:

around 1-2gb speeds.

do you want 1gbit or >1gbit? 1gbit is cheap and easy, >1gbit gets kinda expensive.

 

6 minutes ago, xannax159 said:

I don't need to look at the storage devices itself yet, ill pick those out myself.

Those will be very important. Id personally get those cheap external drives, but if you have the money go ssds.

 

6 minutes ago, xannax159 said:

But what CPU /mobo/ram/ PCIe hardware would be beneficial? If its not a problem, i would like it to be pretty cheap.

How cheap is cheap? Really any modern system can do this. A celeron/althon is more than enough cpu power here, 8gb of ram is fine. Id personally get a used server. Cheap and lots of drive bays.

[xannax159]

3 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

do you want 1gbit or >1gbit? 1gbit is cheap and easy, >1gbit gets kinda expensive.

 

Those will be very important. Id personally get those cheap external drives, but if you have the money go ssds.

 

How cheap is cheap? Really any modern system can do this. A celeron/althon is more than enough cpu power here, 8gb of ram is fine. Id personally get a used server. Cheap and lots of drive bays.

Well, id say under 600 for the system itself with no drives. I plan on getting alot of ssd's in enough raid configs to meet the 1gb goal. If its difficult, ill stick with 1gb. I just dont want to be left with hour-long loading times in games you know! But i dont know what component (except for the storage drives) gets stressed the most in a NAS. Im mostly going for my own build since i want to add more drives in the future, and i cant do that with a NAS built for just 2 lol.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, xannax159 said:

Well, id say under 600 for the system itself with no drives. I plan on getting alot of ssd's in enough raid configs to meet the 1gb goal. If its difficult, ill stick with 1gb. I just dont want to be left with hour-long loading times in games you know! But i dont know what component (except for the storage drives) gets stressed the most in a NAS. Im mostly going for my own build since i want to add more drives in the future, and i cant do that with a NAS built for just 2 lol.

You can fill 1gb with a single hdd, so you really don't need a big raid config.

 

You can get used 12 bay servers pretty cheap on ebay, look for something like a r510.

 

Why do this on a nas? PUtting  the drives in the desktops is cheaper and faster than any nas setup.

 

A nas really doesn't need much cpu or ram power really, normally its limited by network for this use, maybe disk.

[xannax159]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

You can fill 1gb with a single hdd, so you really don't need a big raid config.

 

You can get used 12 bay servers pretty cheap on ebay, look for something like a r510.

 

Why do this on a nas? PUtting  the drives in the desktops is cheaper and faster than any nas setup.

 

A nas really doesn't need much cpu or ram power really, normally its limited by network for this use, maybe disk.

My desktop itself is filled to the brim 1tb Samsung SSD's but its not enough with 100's of games and Ai data i gather (yeah im pretty inefficient but im getting there!). But how would I achieve 1gb speeds with a single HDD? don't they only go to like 70mb/s? scrapping the idea and getting one off eBay is a great idea. But im interested in making a purpose built pc for it. 

[SupaKomputa]

I think a NAS should be low powered as it will turn on non stop.

A sub 35 watt celeron or athlon (am4) would be good for this project.

[xannax159]

1 minute ago, SupaKomputa said:

I think a NAS should be low powered as it will turn on non stop.

A sub 35 watt celeron or athlon (am4) would be good for this project.

I do have 2 computers lying around without a purpose. One has a q6600 and one has an Athalon x4 with 8gb ram already

[SupaKomputa]

1 minute ago, xannax159 said:

I do have 2 computers lying around without a purpose. One has a q6600 and one has an Athalon x4 with 8gb ram already

Not the old athlon btw, the new 35watt  Ryzen Athlon. The old athlon is 95 watt CMIIW.

But yeah you can repurpose those cpu will not be as efficient tho.

Both are good, but i will choose the athlon for it's clock speed.

The problem is both don't have sata3, i don't think it can perform as you expected.

 

[xannax159]

1 minute ago, SupaKomputa said:

Not the old athlon btw, the new 35watt  Ryzen Athlon. The old athlon is 95 watt CMIIW.

But yeah you can repurpose those cpu will not be as efficient tho.

Both are good, but i will choose the athlon for it's clock speed.

The problem is both don't have sata3, i don't think it can perform as you expected.

 

Ah, thanks for the advice.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 hour ago, xannax159 said:

My desktop itself is filled to the brim 1tb Samsung SSD's but its not enough with 100's of games and Ai data i gather (yeah im pretty inefficient but im getting there!). But how would I achieve 1gb speeds with a single HDD? don't they only go to like 70mb/s? scrapping the idea and getting one off eBay is a great idea. But im interested in making a purpose built pc for it. 

modern hdds can hit about 200mB/s easily, thats well over 1gbit/s.

 

What speed and iops do you need from that nas?

 

For your desktop, id just replace the internal ssds with 4tb + drives, you can even get much bigger drives. Or you can get external drive enclosures over something like sas