Good NAS?

cookiethecrumb · August 27, 2020

Hey guys, I have 2 1TB hard drives sitting around and and wanted to put them to use and I recently learned about NAS. I want to make a NAS server for movies, music, documents, and other files I might want to view on my phone/laptop/desktop. A friend may occasionally view something on it but not often. So a max load of 2 Users at a time. What is the cheapest NAS option that will handle this without issue? My main concern being watching movies/videos/music without lag. So its just very basic and i don't care about backing anything up so something like raid is not necessary. Thanks for any help!

paddy-stone · August 27, 2020

7 hours ago, cookiethecrumb said:

Hey guys, I have 2 1TB hard drives sitting around and and wanted to put them to use and I recently learned about NAS. I want to make a NAS server for movies, music, documents, and other files I might want to view on my phone/laptop/desktop. A friend may occasionally view something on it but not often. So a max load of 2 Users at a time. What is the cheapest NAS option that will handle this without issue? My main concern being watching movies/videos/music without lag. So its just very basic and i don't care about backing anything up so something like raid is not necessary. Thanks for any help!

Easiest way and cheapest will be to just use shares on your desktop PC for you and others to access. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4092694/windows-10-file-sharing-over-a-network

If you wanted a separate machine to do this it can get fairly expensive, unless you have some spare hardware going unused right now?

cookiethecrumb · August 27, 2020

5 hours ago, paddy-stone said:

Easiest way and cheapest will be to just use shares on your desktop PC for you and others to access. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4092694/windows-10-file-sharing-over-a-network

If you wanted a separate machine to do this it can get fairly expensive, unless you have some spare hardware going unused right now?

https://www.newegg.com/synology-ds220j/p/N82E16822108716?Description=nas&cm_re=nas-_-22-108-716-_-Product

Can something like that do it? I don't have room on my computer to space the space unfortunately, and I also would like it to run 24/7 and don't want to run my computer that long.

paddy-stone · August 28, 2020

There are many ways to get this done, you will need to set a budget for us to be able to help further really.

Why don't you want to have your computer on to do this? the amount of electric it'll consume would be far less money than buying new hardware. Example, my PC uses approx 100W at idle including the screen, or about say 80w without... now if I expand that to cover a month 80x24x30 = 57,600w or rounded up to 58KW... at an average of say 12c/12p per unit = 696c/p or $6.96/£6.96 per month or $83/£83 per year to have the PC on all year.

I know that sometimes it'll use more as you'll be actively using the PC for gaming or whatever, but in all honesty it won't make a huge difference, and besides if you look at it another way it actually means it'd cost less for the time it'll be being used as a NAS.

So basically, if you think of it like this... the money you would have spent on buying new hardware would run your PC for at least 5 years.

Now if you went with something else, say like this:-

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 3400G 3.7 GHz Quad-Core Processor	£126.73 @ Senetic
CPU Cooler	be quiet! Pure Rock Slim 35.14 CFM CPU Cooler	£19.96 @ Amazon UK
Motherboard	MSI B450M MORTAR MAX Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	£84.98 @ Amazon UK
Memory	Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 CL16 Memory	£52.49 @ Amazon UK
Case	Fractal Design Node 804 MicroATX Mid Tower Case	£62.53 @ Amazon UK
Power Supply	be quiet! Pure Power 11 300 W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply	£44.99 @ Amazon UK
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	£391.68
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-08-28 13:05 BST+0100

It's just an example of what I would personally pick for parts, and in addition it'll easily be enough to use as a secondary PC if you decided to. you could drop in a much lower CPU though, and that would still be good enough for your needs, something like a 3000G for around $40/£.

You don't NEED it to be as above, but IMO it'd be silly to choose to go much cheaper as the parts might not be good quality, or good enough to use for anything else, in which case you might as well go with a ready made NAS instead.

Don't misunderstand, I love having my 2 NAS boxes, I just don't think for your particular circumstances that you need a separate box. It'll cost a fair amount to buy a decent enough one. You could always go with a WD mycloud though, that should be good enough for your needs, I started out with one of those myself, and they are relatively cheap, but you buy them as a unit, you can't put your own drives in.