DIY home NAS from old computer parts

[Pachuca]

Hi everyone,

I have some spare parts laying around from an old PC build of mine. I would like to use it to make a fully functional nas/cloud server.

here are the parts:

MSI X99A GODlike Gaming LGA 2011-v3 

i7-5960x

16gb ddr4 2666 MHZ - should i get some ecc ram instead? I plan to have this machine on 24/7

250gb ssd - this is for the OS

3x8TB external WD - I will shuck these to put in the system to run in RAID

1x10TB external WD - what should I do with this? can I add it to the above 3 drives for RAID?

780w PSU gold

phanteks evolv - this case has decent storage for it's size.

 

Questions:

Where do I even begin? I don't know the first thing about nas, raid, or cloud servers. I would be more comfortable using a Linux distro for this project, but I'm flexible to other options.

I see there is NAS - Remote Access sticky on the forums which I'll get to when I cross that bridge. Are there any other resources you guys can point me to or give me some advise on how I can get started with this project.

I need to use this as a could/sync/backup server. Is that even possible? Can I make my computer run their backups to the server instead of my external 8tb drives. At the same time I want to be able to use it as a network drive that I can access remotely. If you need any more info from me please let me know and thank you in advance for your help. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, Pachuca said:

16gb ddr4 2666 MHZ - should i get some ecc ram instead? I plan to have this machine on 24/7

Well the cpu and board doesn't support ecc, so unless you want a new board + cpu i would. Ecc won't make a big difference anyways,.

 

2 minutes ago, Pachuca said:

1x10TB external WD - what should I do with this? can I add it to the above 3 drives for RAID?

Yep, the exta 2tb might not be used depending on raid config.

 

3 minutes ago, Pachuca said:

Can I make my computer run their backups to the server instead of my external 8tb drives.

How do you do backups? most programs and easily back up to a smb/nfs share.

 

3 minutes ago, Pachuca said:

At the same time I want to be able to use it as a network drive that I can access remotely.

Next cloud or use smb/cifs over a vpn.

 

 

[Theguywhobea]

You might want to try out Xpenology. You get all the features of the Synology NAS's and a lot of built in installers, the only part that sucks is that it's hard to update the software, and typically the latest version of Xpenology is no the latest Synology DSM version.

[Pachuca]

44 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Well the cpu and board doesn't support ecc, so unless you want a new board + cpu i would. Ecc won't make a big difference anyways,.

 

Yep, the exta 2tb might not be used depending on raid config.

 

How do you do backups? most programs and easily back up to a smb/nfs share.

 

Next cloud or use smb/cifs over a vpn.

 

 

For backups I just have the external drive connected to my pc and I give access to it for other computers on the network so they can backup to it too like a shared drive.

Questeion:

45 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Next cloud or use smb/cifs over a vpn.

 

are these free and open source? I use pia for my vpn so will that work or do i need to make my own vpn for this? Does the vpn have to only be on the server or should I have it on the other computers that are backing up to it or sharing files?

[Pachuca]

41 minutes ago, Theguywhobea said:

You might want to try out Xpenology. You get all the features of the Synology NAS's and a lot of built in installers, the only part that sucks is that it's hard to update the software, and typically the latest version of Xpenology is no the latest Synology DSM version.

is that open source and free? any guides you can recommend for setting it up?

[Electronics Wizardy]

4 minutes ago, Pachuca said:

For backups I just have the external drive connected to my pc and I give access to it for other computers on the network so they can backup to it too like a shared drive.

Questeion:

are these free and open source? I use pia for my vpn so will that work or do i need to make my own vpn for this? Does the vpn have to only be on the server or should I have it on the other computers that are backing up to it or sharing files?

you would have to host your own vpn if you want to use cifs or simmilar over a vpn. Any system on the network can host it, maybe your router has a vpn host as well

3 minutes ago, Pachuca said:

is that open source and free? any guides you can recommend for setting it up?

Yea its pree and open source, but its pretty haky so id stay away and use something like unraid or freenas here.