A few questions on converting an old PC to a NAS

[HeLiOn]

Hello there.

I plan to convert an old PC to a NAS station. The purpose is having a dedicated network storage for movies accessible from smart TVs around the house.

My cousin wants to get rid of her old PC and taking it for this purpose is the first thing that came to my mind.
I'm getting a 4K OLED TV next month, and I will need something capable of providing the necessary transfer speeds for HD movies.
Her PC has the specs mentioned below, and my first question is: Are these specs enough for what I need?

Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) CPU G3250 @ 3.20GHz
RAM: 4 GB DDR3 (kinda short, but I plan to extend to 8 or 12)
 

My second question is: What type of storage should I use for this?
I'm tempted to go for SSDs, as they are fast, and since this storage will mainly be used to collect movies, there won't be a lot of writing taking place on a daily basis.
But I can be wrong, so... any thoughts? Maybe some model suggestions...?

3rd question would be regarding the cooling. Do I need active cooling for this type of build?
I'd like to have the least amount of noise, and also save as much power as I can. Would it be ok to have a heat spreader without a fan on the CPU?

4th question is about the software. I know there are a bunch of NAS operating systems out there, but what would be the best OS for my build?

5th and final question: Is something like this worth doing, or should I just wait and invest in a dedicated NAS?

 

Thank you in advance, for your time.

[Electronics Wizardy]

6 minutes ago, HeLiOn said:

'm getting a 4K OLED TV next month, and I will need something capable of providing the necessary transfer speeds for HD movies.
Her PC has the specs mentioned below, and my first question is: Are these specs enough for what I need?

what bitrte of footage? Normally 4k movies are around 50mbit for blu-ray or less for streaming, so basically any nas can stream that.

 

7 minutes ago, HeLiOn said:

Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) CPU G3250 @ 3.20GHz
RAM: 4 GB DDR3 (kinda short, but I plan to extend to 8 or 12)

Yup that will work fine as a nas.

 

7 minutes ago, HeLiOn said:

3rd question would be regarding the cooling. Do I need active cooling for this type of build?

What heatsink? id just run the stock cooler. Fan uses like .1w at low rpm, and is basically silent

 

8 minutes ago, HeLiOn said:

th question is about the software. I know there are a bunch of NAS operating systems out there, but what would be the best OS for my build?

What drives? unraid is pretty easy to use and easy to expand.

 

8 minutes ago, HeLiOn said:

5th and final question: Is something like this worth doing, or should I just wait and invest in a dedicated NAS?

 

Id do it, It will work fine as a nas, those specs are plenty.

[HeLiOn]

15 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

what bitrte of footage? Normally 4k movies are around 50mbit for blu-ray or less for streaming, so basically any nas can stream that.

Yup that will work fine as a nas.

I guess they depend from a movie to another. I'm not going to go crazy with the bitrates. I just want to enjoy the TV's resolution. 

 

15 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What heatsink? id just run the stock cooler. Fan uses like .1w at low rpm, and is basically silent

I saw the video in which the guy had just a heat spreader on the CPU. There's a screenshot attached to the reply. 

 

15 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What drives? unraid is pretty easy to use and easy to expand.

I don't know what drives to use as storage. I was thinking of SSDs, as I said above, but I haven't done this before. That's why I'm asking for opinions.

 

15 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id do it, It will work fine as a nas, those specs are plenty.

Thanks. The plan moves forward... for now...

This is the screenshot of the heat spreader I saw. Would this do the job?
 

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, HeLiOn said:

I saw the video in which the guy had just a heat spreader on the CPU. There's a screenshot attached to the reply. 

 

Thats the stock heatsink for a low end chip, I wouldn't do that for a desktop chip. But why go fanless, your saving so little power, and its silent at low fanspeed anywyas

 

1 minute ago, HeLiOn said:

I don't know what drives to use as storage. I was thinking of SSDs, as I said above, but I haven't done this before. That's why I'm asking for opinions.

Get hdds, much cheaper, no reason not to.

 

How much space do you need?

 

Id get those externla 8-12tb drives and shuck them from the cases.

 

 

[HeLiOn]

8 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Thats the stock heatsink for a low end chip, I wouldn't do that for a desktop chip. But why go fanless, your saving so little power, and its silent at low fanspeed anywyas

I figured passive cooling doesn't need as much maintanance over time. Anyway, noted.
 

10 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Get hdds, much cheaper, no reason not to.

How much space do you need?

Id get those externla 8-12tb drives and shuck them from the cases.

If they're fast enough, then HDDs it is. I figure I'd opt for 1 12 TB drive and add more as time goes.
I'm not really set for a specific amount of space. Those movies will keep piling up, so the demand for more space will increase.

 

I just saw that Seagate has specific hard drive models designed for NAS stations (the IronWolf series). 
I assume I don't need the drives with bigger buffers, given the purpose of this NAS. am I correct?

[Electronics Wizardy]

13 minutes ago, HeLiOn said:

I figured passive cooling doesn't need as much maintanance over time. Anyway, noted.

I mean yea it has less to fail, but fans just don't fail often now. Id keep the current cooler for now.

 

14 minutes ago, HeLiOn said:

If they're fast enough, then HDDs it is. I figure I'd opt for 1 12 TB drive and add more as time goes.

Yea speed will be more than plenty. A single hdd can stream 4+ 4k steams easily. Your gonna be network limited first normallty

 

14 minutes ago, HeLiOn said:

I just saw that Seagate has specific hard drive models designed for NAS stations (the IronWolf series). 
I assume I don't need the drives with bigger buffers, given the purpose of this NAS. am I correct?

WIth current hdd pricing id get the exos drives, there normally cheaper than the ironwolfs and better.

 

Or get the cheaper external drives, probaby a bit worse, but the price savings makes up for failure rate easily

[HeLiOn]

9 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

WIth current hdd pricing id get the exos drives, there normally cheaper than the ironwolfs and better.

Or get the cheaper external drives, probaby a bit worse, but the price savings makes up for failure rate easily

Most of them are out of stock in my country for now. I'll just carefully study the market when the time comes.
Thank you for your time, man. I really appreciate it.