Office video file storage solution

[carbonracingsolutions]

Hey guys, I've been tasked with coming up with a solution to store and access what is right now 172TB (and counting) of video files for the company I work for. We have a Mac Pro in the office that is no longer being used and want to turn it into our file server to save on costs. My thinking behind it is to connect a PCIe enclosure via Thunderbolt 2 (20Gbps) and then have a SAS card to an external HDD expansion enclosure. Then we would run FreeNAS on a VM and use a RAID 6 configuration. I'm very new to all of this and have mostly only watched Linus' videos on file servers. We would also want a solution to remotely access the server, I've heard of NextCloud but don't know anything about it.

 

(1) PCIe Enclosure: https://www.newegg.com/p/181-007D-00207
$200

(1) PCIe SAS Card: https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16816118147
$100

(1) 15-Bay Expansion: https://www.newegg.com/p/1UW-0038-00012
$1,300

(15) 14TB NAS Drives: https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16822234360
$6,000

(1) Mini-SAS Cable 1m: https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16812117663
$10

(1) Thunderbolt 2 3m: https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16812400134
$50

Grand Total: $7,660

 

Any and all help/recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[emosun]

well youve definitely come up with the most expensive possible solution I have ever seen.

On the opposite end of the spectrum you can just build a regular pc into a 24 bay server chassis and use sas cards which would be like half the price and do the same thing.

what it lacks in complexity it make up for in lower cost and redundancy.... as in you could build two of these 240tb units for the cost of what you're planning

[Electronics Wizardy]

Di probably just get some premade nas boxes. There cheaper than this, and will work better and be simpler to setup and use. Id just get a big synology nas.

 

You probably want someone here that knows where their doing with storage. There is a lot to know and mess up and having someone help that knows what their doing can help a lot.

 

Why freenas in a vm here?

 

You can run zfs on osx directly if you want, and doing pcie passthrough in osx is a pain.

 

What is your network config? Do you have 10+gibit?

 

 

[Slayerking92]

Post them on youtube?

[jake9000]

Just gonna throw this out there, a 16-drive Synology RS2818RP+ is around $2800. When you run out of drive bays they sell plug n play expansion modules, too. 

 It'll cost a little more over pure DIY but you get warranty, support, and a decently engineered product which as someone who is "very new to this" is something you should place a lot of value on.