Questions about NAS

[docfail]

Hey, 

I don't have a lot of knowledge about server and all but I try to learn it in order to build a NAS. I'm gonna run unraid in headless mode, and for the install a monitor is requiered, So do I need a processor with integrated graphics ? also do you have a case recomandation ? I also have a question is it possible to run a program from the NAS onto another computer if the connection beetwen them is good enough ?

Thanks

[Windows7ge]

All you should need is a GPU of any type it can be dedicated or integrated. Won't matter.

 

How many drives do you want it to be able to hold? Do you have any other reqirements of the enclosure? Size of the motherboard? What are you looking for in the box? Rack-mountable?

 

Depends on the application but some can yes.

[docfail]

For the enclosure I don't want anything rack mountable, I would go for 6 to 8 drives. I don't want someting too huge, but no specific motherboard format. 

[Oshino Shinobu]

Don't worry too much about the GPU. If you can get a good deal on a CPU without an iGPU, go for it and just buy some cheap used card off eBay to run the display for setup. If you need to have a monitor attached to boot (my motherboard requires it), you can use a headless display adaptor that fools the GPU into thinking there's a display, allowing the PC to boot. 

 

I personally use an NZXT S210 because it's cheap and has a good about of 3.5" bays available. (8x 3.5" and 2x 5.25", which I have an adaptor in to take a couple of 2.5" drives).

 

In terms of running programs from the NAS directly. Yes, but it doesn't work 100% and how well it works really depends on the program and the connection to the NAS. 

 

Assuming you have a 1Gb connection to the NAS, you're not going to be wanting to run full AAA games on it. It should work, but it will be slow to launch and load. I personally use my NAS for running some small games and for running Visual Novels. Both of these use cases work fine, but for AAA games and such, I'll use local storage. 

 

Some applications don't work too well with Network drives, even when mapped and assigned drive letters. You can also run into problems when running things off network drives. I had an issue recently because I have my user profile redirected to a share on my server so save files sync between my computers without me doing anything. However, this also means that games like Skyrim save to my user profile on the network share and it took around 2 minutes to save the game. I found that using systemlinks (CMD command mklink) to create links to local folders that look like actual folders to the OS was the only way to get around this (because Skyrim has no reliable way to change save location)

[kelvinhall05]

If you don't already have a CPU and motherboard or whatever I would look at an old Dell or HP server chassis and just throw some modern drives and maybe a new (used) CPU and/or RAM into it. Cheap, good server.

[docfail]

1 hour ago, kelvinhall05 said:

If you don't already have a CPU and motherboard or whatever I would look at an old Dell or HP server chassis and just throw some modern drives and maybe a new (used) CPU and/or RAM into it. Cheap, good server.

thanks an old server would be great for a rack mount. But I kinda prefer the clreaner look of a new case.

[docfail]

1 hour ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

Don't worry too much about the GPU. If you can get a good deal on a CPU without an iGPU, go for it and just buy some cheap used card off eBay to run the display for setup. If you need to have a monitor attached to boot (my motherboard requires it), you can use a headless display adaptor that fools the GPU into thinking there's a display, allowing the PC to boot. 

 

I personally use an NZXT S210 because it's cheap and has a good about of 3.5" bays available. (8x 3.5" and 2x 5.25", which I have an adaptor in to take a couple of 2.5" drives).

 

In terms of running programs from the NAS directly. Yes, but it doesn't work 100% and how well it works really depends on the program and the connection to the NAS. 

 

Assuming you have a 1Gb connection to the NAS, you're not going to be wanting to run full AAA games on it. It should work, but it will be slow to launch and load. I personally use my NAS for running some small games and for running Visual Novels. Both of these use cases work fine, but for AAA games and such, I'll use local storage. 

 

Some applications don't work too well with Network drives, even when mapped and assigned drive letters. You can also run into problems when running things off network drives. I had an issue recently because I have my user profile redirected to a share on my server so save files sync between my computers without me doing anything. However, this also means that games like Skyrim save to my user profile on the network share and it took around 2 minutes to save the game. I found that using systemlinks (CMD command mklink) to create links to local folders that look like actual folders to the OS was the only way to get around this (because Skyrim has no reliable way to change save location)

whoa! thanks for all this I'll definitly not try to run Cyberpunk on my nas but I'll be using it for light tasks, so that will probably do it, and we'll see for how the diferents programs handle it. 

[kelvinhall05]

54 minutes ago, docfail said:

thanks an old server would be great for a rack mount. But I kinda prefer the clreaner look of a new case.

There are good-looking older cases. Can't think of any in specific at the moment. It also doesn't necessarily have to be rack mount.

 

Are there any ewaste recycling bins or centers near you?

[docfail]

22 hours ago, kelvinhall05 said:

There are good-looking older cases. Can't think of any in specific at the moment. It also doesn't necessarily have to be rack mount.

 

Are there any ewaste recycling bins or centers near you?

Not really the only recycling center is more for apliances and coocking stuff, so no way to find any sever here