DIY a NAS from old PC

[Devin92]

Hello all,

I would like your knowledge of build a NAS using a old PC.

The old PC have 4 Sata ports, a few PCI-E slots and a 290W power supply. What I have in mind is to buy a PCI-e to Sata adapter like this:

https://www.amazon.ca/IOCrest-SI-PEX40064-Port-Controller-Components/dp/B00ESFEI2E/ref=sr_1_6?keywords=pcie%2Bto%2Bsata&qid=1567027512&s=gateway&sr=8-6&th=1

and have a maximum of 12 hard drives linked to the PC. And I will either upgrade the existing PSU or have a external PSU to provide power. Is this a feasible solution?

 

Also, what kind of NAS os do you guys recommend? I have heard of freeNAS, openmediavalt etc. Is something like freeNas idiot proof enough for someone with minimal NAS knowledge to configure successfully? and how is the stability and performance of these free NAS os? are there any apparent disadvantages when compare to paid NAS os?

 

Thank you very much for your help!!

[mr moose]

For me freenas had a learning curve,  In fact I think anything that is not a windows PC with shared folders will be a learning curve.   However easy that is though really depends on your natural ability to learn new things (particularly abstract concepts with different names). 

 

I have an old PC that I managed to get working with freenas.  It works great for basic storage, you can stream a video from it and copy files to it.  But don't expect lightning fast or snappy results with more than one user if it only has a few G of ram.

 

There are plenty of guys on this forum who will help you set it up if you have trouble. 

 

EDIT: my experience with freenas is that it is very stable but you have to check the compatibility of some add in cards like nic and sata controllers.

 

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Id get a lsi based sas card to add drives. There more reliable, have better driver support, and are cheaper. Look for a dell h200 on ebay.

 

What drives do you want to use?

 

Id probably go unraid if you want something simple.

[Salacious B Crum]

Well I can confirm that you will not have a good go if you were to decide on unRAID as it does not play nice with Marvell controllers your better off getting a LSI HBA as stated and yeah your PSU is prolly the first thing to worry about upgrading

[Devin92]

16 hours ago, mr moose said:

For me freenas had a learning curve,  In fact I think anything that is not a windows PC with shared folders will be a learning curve.   However easy that is though really depends on your natural ability to learn new things (particularly abstract concepts with different names). 

 

I have an old PC that I managed to get working with freenas.  It works great for basic storage, you can stream a video from it and copy files to it.  But don't expect lightning fast or snappy results with more than one user if it only has a few G of ram.

 

There are plenty of guys on this forum who will help you set it up if you have trouble. 

 

EDIT: my experience with freenas is that it is very stable but you have to check the compatibility of some add in cards like nic and sata controllers.

 

 

Hmm... since you mentioned RAM capacity, the 12 Hdds will all be 8Tb if possible and allow at least 5 people to access it at the same time with somewhere near 10mb/s r/w speed. Is it still feasible?

[Devin92]

15 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id get a lsi based sas card to add drives. There more reliable, have better driver support, and are cheaper. Look for a dell h200 on ebay.

 

What drives do you want to use?

 

Id probably go unraid if you want something simple.

 

3 hours ago, mrbilky said:

Well I can confirm that you will not have a good go if you were to decide on unRAID as it does not play nice with Marvell controllers your better off getting a LSI HBA as stated and yeah your PSU is prolly the first thing to worry about upgrading

could you explain a little bit of the difference of lsi card and marvell card? i am planning unraid as well. they will be hooked up with presumably 4x 8Tb HDDs. if you could provide some link to a full tutorial of how to convert a pc to nas it will be great!

[Electronics Wizardy]

46 minutes ago, Devin92 said:

 

could you explain a little bit of the difference of lsi card and marvell card? i am planning unraid as well. they will be hooked up with presumably 4x 8Tb HDDs. if you could provide some link to a full tutorial of how to convert a pc to nas it will be great!

the lsi cards are just better, more reliable, cheaper, better driver support.

 

The process is normnally just install the os like any other os, then configure it in a web browser.

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, Devin92 said:

Hmm... since you mentioned RAM capacity, the 12 Hdds will all be 8Tb if possible and allow at least 5 people to access it at the same time with somewhere near 10mb/s r/w speed. Is it still feasible?

How much ram do you have?  I don;t have personal experience running more than 2 user at a time but I noticed with less than 4G it slows down. They recommend 8G.

[Devin92]

7 minutes ago, mr moose said:

How much ram do you have?  I don;t have personal experience running more than 2 user at a time but I noticed with less than 4G it slows down. They recommend 8G.

Right now it has 4. I am thinking to get 8, or 16 if necessary. But if it really need 1G ram per tb than i am looking at 64g RAM needed to connect 8x8Tb hdds, which will be ridiculously expensive.

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, Devin92 said:

Right now it has 4. I am thinking to get 8, or 16 if necessary. But if it really need 1G ram per tb than i am looking at 64g RAM needed to connect 8x8Tb hdds, which will be ridiculously expensive.

Just start with 8.  I can't see most home users going above the need for 16.

[Salacious B Crum]

2 hours ago, Devin92 said:

 

could you explain a little bit of the difference of lsi card and marvell card? i am planning unraid as well. they will be hooked up with presumably 4x 8Tb HDDs. if you could provide some link to a full tutorial of how to convert a pc to nas it will be great!

Yes LSI cards are for one server grade, two marvell chips don't seem to play nice with unRAID causing drives dropping off line and other hardware issues that creep up and there is no rhyme or reason to it they are just to be avoided as unreliable unRAID does not require 1gig of ram per TB but I would not go below 16gig just so you don't have any issues while you progress into adding apps and VM's my primary server is also my HTPC and runs quite well with 32gigs of ram