NAS Build

[Louritter]

Hey everybody, recently I have come across an issue that has grown more and more annoying. I now work from two computers, my gaming desktop, and my macbook pro, and the files are often shared. The annoying part is transferring data back and forth due to speed and more often than not I end up with way more copies of the files than I need. So to solve my issue I am planning to build a NAS that sits in my office and stores all the files to be accessed by both computers, but I have been having trouble finding the best way to do it. I have several options, the best one but most expensive one is to build one with new parts totaling about $400 which will be the most efficient and reliable option. But even at that cost its still a bit expensive. The next option is finding an old desktop online and shoving new drives in it but I have fears about reliability and efficiency and even noise with that. I was wondering if anyone had any insight on what the best option for me is because I want it to be quiet, expandable, and efficient, and reasonably priced. I was also wondering what software to run, I don' t know if unraid or freenas would be better for my use case since I just need network drives accessible from my machines. Ideally since I am about to move to college as well, I would be able to access the files over the internet instead of dragging a tower to a dorm, but if that isn't reasonable than that is not an issue. The files arent huge, but my portfolio/work archive needs to be accessible from both machines and the majority of the files are PDFs and JPEGs and the occasional vectorworks document. I would appreciate any help!

[Electronics Wizardy]

If your desktop on all the time? You can easily make a file share on there and that would be fasically free.

 

How much storage space do you need? 

 

How much do you want to tinker? Those premade nas boxes are much easier to start using.

[Louritter]

My desktop isnt on all the time, I dont like running it through the night since its kinda loud. I like to tinker with these kinds of systems, but I don't currently need lots of space. As I start to get more work the the need for storage increases. My first phase of a new build would be 2-4 terabytes and expand from there. I was also looking to store my plex files on it and backup my OS drives from both computers to it as well. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, Louritter said:

My desktop isnt on all the time, I dont like running it through the night since its kinda loud. I like to tinker with these kinds of systems, but I don't currently need lots of space. As I start to get more work the the need for storage increases. My first phase of a new build would be 2-4 terabytes and expand from there. I was also looking to store my plex files on it and backup my OS drives from both computers to it as well. 

If you want to tinker, id probalby get a used/low end system. Your really won't need much performance and ram, any cpu from the last 10 years or so will be fine, and 4-8gbof ram is fine. Id probalby put on raid on it aswell.

[Louritter]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

If you want to tinker, id probalby get a used/low end system. Your really won't need much performance and ram, any cpu from the last 10 years or so will be fine, and 4-8gbof ram is fine. Id probalby put on raid on it aswell.

Thank you very much for the help.