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NAS Build Advise Needed

DigitalAustin
By DigitalAustin
in Servers, NAS, and Home Lab
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So I see Linus always talking about home servers and his servers at work, and given that I'm at the point where I'm ready to start backing my stuff up to something a bit more robust than just to portable hard drives that use unreliable USB connections. I wanted to give a DIY TrueNAS a go. Especially since I'll be upgrading my internet soon and buying my own dedicated modem and router instead of using my ISP's equipment. (I can't stand all in one router/modems they always fail prematurely). Below are my intended parts I plan to go with, I am open to make changes to *ahem* bring that cost down. I intend to use Amazon for all my purchases as Newegg has been black listed in my world and as far as I'm concerned they don't exist anymore to me.

 

CPU
AMD Ryzen 3 1200 (14nm) 3.1 GHz Quad-Core Processor
$117.00

 

Motherboard
MSI X470 GAMING PLUS MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard - Had the most SATA ports and the right chipset to meet my expansion needs.
$95.99

 

Memory     
ADATA XPG Z1 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 CL16 Memory - Highest rated RAM at the lowest cost, on my mobo's compatible list, it also color matches my mobo
$52.99

 

Storage
Western Digital Blue SN550 250 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive - For the TrueNAS OS / Might dual boot for a win10/11 install
$46.99

 

RAID Storage
Western Digital Red 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive (x6) - Primary Storage
$84.99

 

Video Card
PNY GeForce GT 710 2 GB Video Card - Simply the CPU doesn't have an on-die GPU
$79.00

 

Case
Thermaltake Commander G42 ATX Mid Tower Case - Looks cool, holds the most drives and has cooling capacity for all them
$129.99

 

Power Supply
Corsair RM (2019) 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply - Corsair PSU 'nuff said
$114.99

 

Monitor
ViewSonic VA1903H 18.5" 1366x768 60 Hz Monitor - This is simply used to troubleshoot/monitor my NAS
$147.84

 

Total:    $1294.73 - Yikes!

 

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7 minutes ago, DigitalAustin said:

MSI X470 GAMING PLUS MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard - Had the most SATA ports and the right chipset to meet my expansion needs.

Overkill. If you need more ports, buy an LBA. Get a quality B450 board over a cheap X470.

 

8 minutes ago, DigitalAustin said:

Western Digital Red 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive (x6) - Primary Storage

Get Red Plus or Red Pro. Straight Reds are SMR drivers (counterintuitively) not well suited for NAS use.

 

8 minutes ago, DigitalAustin said:

PNY GeForce GT 710 2 GB Video Card - Simply the CPU doesn't have an on-die GPU

13 minutes ago, DigitalAustin said:

AMD Ryzen 3 1200 (14nm) 3.1 GHz Quad-Core Processor

You're probably better off getting an APU with your $80 extra and actually getting a better performing chip (3000G or 3200G). Or go scrounge something even lower-end from e-waste recycler/reseller.

 

10 minutes ago, DigitalAustin said:

ViewSonic VA1903H 18.5" 1366x768 60 Hz Monitor - This is simply used to troubleshoot/monitor my NAS

If you truly must buy a monitor only for debugging TrueNAS, that's on you I suppose, but 99.9% of things can be done either through web interface or worst-case SSH.

Main System (Byarlant): Ryzen 7 5800X | Asus B550-Creator ProArt | EK 240mm Basic AIO | 16GB G.Skill DDR4 3200MT/s CAS-14 | XFX Speedster SWFT 210 RX 6600 | Samsung 990 PRO 2TB / Samsung 960 PRO 512GB / 4× Crucial MX500 2TB (RAID-0) | Corsair RM750X | Mellanox ConnectX-3 10G NIC | Inateck USB 3.0 Card | Hyte Y60 Case | Dell U3415W Monitor | Keychron K4 Brown (white backlight)

 

Laptop (Narrative): Lenovo Flex 5 81X20005US | Ryzen 5 4500U | 16GB RAM (soldered) | Vega 6 Graphics | SKHynix P31 1TB NVMe SSD | Intel AX200 Wifi (all-around awesome machine)

 

Proxmox Server (Veda): Ryzen 7 3800XT | AsRock Rack X470D4U | Corsair H80i v2 | 64GB Micron DDR4 ECC 3200MT/s | 4x 10TB WD Whites / 4x 14TB Seagate Exos / 2× Samsung PM963a 960GB SSD | Seasonic Prime Fanless 500W | Intel X540-T2 10G NIC | LSI 9207-8i HBA | Fractal Design Node 804 Case (side panels swapped to show off drives) | VMs: TrueNAS Scale; Ubuntu Server (PiHole/PiVPN/NGINX?); Windows 10 Pro; Ubuntu Server (Apache/MySQL)


Media Center/Video Capture (Jesta Cannon): Ryzen 5 1600X | ASRock B450M Pro4 R2.0 | Noctua NH-L12S | 16GB Crucial DDR4 3200MT/s CAS-22 | EVGA GTX750Ti SC | UMIS NVMe SSD 256GB / Seagate 1.5TB HDD | Corsair CX450M | Viewcast Osprey 260e Video Capture | Mellanox ConnectX-2 10G NIC | LG UH12NS30 BD-ROM | Silverstone Sugo SG-11 Case | Sony XR65A80K

 

Camera: Sony ɑ7II w/ Meike Grip | Sony SEL24240 | Samyang 35mm ƒ/2.8 | Sony SEL50F18F | Sony SEL2870 (kit lens) | PNY Elite Perfomance 512GB SDXC card

 

Network:

Spoiler 
                           ┌─────────────── Office/Rack ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
Google Fiber Webpass ────── UniFi Security Gateway ─── UniFi Switch 8-60W ─┬─ UniFi Switch Flex XG ═╦═ Veda (Proxmox Virtual Switch)
(500Mbps↑/500Mbps↓)                             UniFi CloudKey Gen2 (PoE) ─┴─ Veda (IPMI)           ╠═ Veda-NAS (HW Passthrough NIC)
╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╩═ Narrative (Asus USB 2.5G NIC)
║ ┌────── Closet ──────┐   ┌─────────────── Bedroom ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
╚═ UniFi Switch Flex XG ═╤═ UniFi Switch Flex XG ═╦═ Byarlant
   (PoE)                 │                        ╠═ Narrative (Cable Matters USB-PD 2.5G Ethernet Dongle)
                         │                        ╚═ Jesta Cannon*
                         │ ┌─────────────── Media Center ──────────────────────────────────┐
Notes:                   └─ UniFi Switch 8 ─────────┬─ UniFi Access Point nanoHD (PoE)
═══ is Multi-Gigabit                                ├─ Sony Playstation 4 
─── is Gigabit                                      ├─ Pioneer VSX-S520
* = cable passed to Bedroom from Media Center       ├─ Sony XR65A80K (Google TV)
** = cable passed from Media Center to Bedroom      └─ Work Laptop** (Startech USB-PD Dock)

 

Retired/Other:

Spoiler

Laptop (Rozen-Zulu): Sony VAIO VPCF13WFX | Core i7-740QM | 8GB Patriot DDR3 | GT 425M | Samsung 850EVO 250GB SSD | Blu-ray Drive | Intel 7260 Wifi (lived a good life, retired with honor)

Testbed/Old Desktop (Kshatriya): Xeon X5470 @ 4.0GHz | ZALMAN CNPS9500 | Gigabyte EP45-UD3L | 8GB Nanya DDR2 400MHz | XFX HD6870 DD | OCZ Vertex 3 Max-IOPS 120GB | Corsair CX430M | HooToo USB 3.0 PCIe Card | Osprey 230 Video Capture | NZXT H230 Case

TrueNAS Server (La Vie en Rose): Xeon E3-1241v3 | Supermicro X10SLL-F | Corsair H60 | 32GB Micron DDR3L ECC 1600MHz | 1x Kingston 16GB SSD / Crucial MX500 500GB

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How many computers are you backing up? I don't see the point of a nas for just one PC, USB hdds are a perfectly good solution for backup

 

14 minutes ago, DigitalAustin said:

I intend to use Amazon for all my purchases as Newegg has been black listed in my world and as far as I'm concerned they don't exist anymore to me.

What country are you in?

 

Id probably just get a premade nas here, cheaper, lower power, much simpler to use.

 

14 minutes ago, DigitalAustin said:

CPU
AMD Ryzen 3 1200 (14nm) 3.1 GHz Quad-Core Processor
$117.00

Id get a system with a igpu here, like a i3 or pentium. Cheaper + faster + igpu is included.

 

14 minutes ago, DigitalAustin said:

Motherboard
MSI X470 GAMING PLUS MAX ATX AM4 Motherboard - Had the most SATA ports and the right chipset to meet my expansion needs.
$95.99

 

Id get a cheaper board with fewer bigger drives

 

15 minutes ago, DigitalAustin said:

Storage
Western Digital Blue SN550 250 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive - For the TrueNAS OS / Might dual boot for a win10/11 install
$46.99

I woudln't dual boot, you can't use the drives in the other os here. Id just install the os on a usb stick.

 

15 minutes ago, DigitalAustin said:

RAID Storage
Western Digital Red 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive (x6) - Primary Storage
$84.99

Don't get wd red drives for a nas, they are smr and will have issues in a raid array. Id get ironwolfs.

 

Id get fewer drives, so start with something like 3x12tb hdds.

 

15 minutes ago, DigitalAustin said:

 

Monitor
ViewSonic VA1903H 18.5" 1366x768 60 Hz Monitor - This is simply used to troubleshoot/monitor my NAS
$147.84

Should be able to use your main monitor for this, won't need it other than the initial setup. Or get something super cheap used. 

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10 minutes ago, AbydosOne said:

Overkill. If you need more ports, buy an LBA. Get a quality B450 board over a cheap X470.

 

Get Red Plus or Red Pro. Straight Reds are SMR drivers (counterintuitively) not well suited for NAS use.

 

You're probably better off getting an APU with your $80 extra and actually getting a better performing chip (3000G or 3200G). Or go scrounge something even lower-end from e-waste recycler/reseller.

 

If you truly must buy a monitor only for debugging TrueNAS, that's on you I suppose, but 99.9% of things can be done either through web interface or worst-case SSH.

LBA? A quick google didn't help. I looked at B450s but their chipsets disable the on-board SATA ports when PCI Express slot is populated. (at least the board I was looking at)

 

I actually just found out about this that Reds were SMR drives, and had the intentions to go with the Red Pros instead

 

APU it is then. I was Looking at them, but I figured it was less load for the chipsets to deal with separating the two.

 

Debugging/Monitoring. I like always keeping tabs on a system, weather it be a standby system or one under constant use.

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17 minutes ago, DigitalAustin said:

LBA? A quick google didn't help. I looked at B450s but their chipsets disable the on-board SATA ports when PCI Express slot is populated. (at least the board I was looking at)

 

He means HBA, basically pcie to sata/sas card

 

17 minutes ago, DigitalAustin said:

I actually just found out about this that Reds were SMR drives, and had the intentions to go with the Red Pros instead

 

Id just go with ironwolfs, often cheaper, and just as good.

 

17 minutes ago, DigitalAustin said:

APU it is then. I was Looking at them, but I figured it was less load for the chipsets to deal with separating the two.

 

Id go pentium here, normally cheaper + igpu included.

 

 

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20 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

How many computers are you backing up? I don't see the point of a nas for just one PC, USB hdds are a perfectly good solution for backup

 

What country are you in?

 

Id probably just get a premade nas here, cheaper, lower power, much simpler to use.

 

Id get a system with a igpu here, like a i3 or pentium. Cheaper + faster + igpu is included.

 

Id get a cheaper board with fewer bigger drives

 

I woudln't dual boot, you can't use the drives in the other os here. Id just install the os on a usb stick.

 

Don't get wd red drives for a nas, they are smr and will have issues in a raid array. Id get ironwolfs.

 

Id get fewer drives, so start with something like 3x12tb hdds.

 

Should be able to use your main monitor for this, won't need it other than the initial setup. Or get something super cheap used. 

A NAS is ideal for me becuase currently I'm running 3 external drives thru a powered hub into my laptop that has an SSD and I've heard horror stories how SSDs don't slowly fail like HDDs do, SSDs just... quit. So having a constant system image is a major deal to me. Windows gets feisty when it comes to what it'll allow me to backup to as far as type and media used. As for the number of systems, 5 systems with #6 coming back online in the near future and possibly 2 more systems further in the future after travel restrictions take a chill pill and some friends of mine move in from abroad.

 

The states, but for me I want to avoid pre-builds. My laptop, a linux game server (that's broken) and a legacy machine for anything else that can't run on modern hardware are the only three mega-corp builds I have. I like building my own stuff as I know what's gone into it, and other than the shipper (getting it from factory to my door step), everything has been treated with care during the entire build process.

 

I have considered Intel, given their chips are older and tend to be lower cost, but after I've had several Intel chips short themselves (brand new out of the box) and much much older systems (think P3) catch fire. I'm done with Intel, they've made it clear in my book that they can't build reliable chips that aren't a ticking time bomb.

 

WD has been my companion since the days Maxtor was still around, and I continue to trust WD going forward. Seagate, between crashing heads, shattered platters, platter motor bearings smoking, and bad controller boards. I would absolutely never trust Seagate with data specially in an always-on environment.

 

I have thought about larger drives given this is for backups but should a drive go down, I don't want to wait 48+ hrs for a RAID to rebuild itself.

 

Not possible given the Backup NAS would have its own desk and everything in my office is spread out in the entire room. So it would need it's own display. Also I really don't like using web interfaces as they tend to be buggy, slow, and unreliable.

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6 minutes ago, DigitalAustin said:

A NAS is ideal for me becuase currently I'm running 3 external drives thru a powered hub into my laptop that has an SSD and I've heard horror stories how SSDs don't slowly fail like HDDs do, SSDs just... quit. So having a constant system image is a major deal to me. Windows gets feisty when it comes to what it'll allow me to backup to as far as type and media used. As for the number of systems, 5 systems with #6 coming back online in the near future and possibly 2 more systems further in the future after travel restrictions take a chill pill and some friends of mine move in from abroad.

Yea a nas makes a lot of sense here then.

7 minutes ago, DigitalAustin said:

I have considered Intel, given their chips are older and tend to be lower cost, but after I've had several Intel chips short themselves (brand new out of the box) and much much older systems (think P3) catch fire. I'm done with Intel, they've made it clear in my book that they can't build reliable chips that aren't a ticking time bomb.

 

I have used many a intel chip, and there about the same reliability as amd. Id buy the better chip here, Intel, instead of using your pas experiences.

 

8 minutes ago, DigitalAustin said:

WD has been my companion since the days Maxtor was still around, and I continue to trust WD going forward. Seagate, between crashing heads, shattered platters, platter motor bearings smoking, and bad controller boards. I would absolutely never trust Seagate with data specially in an always-on environment.

 

WD has been doing a lot of bs with mis labeling products, so I wouldn't trust them either. I have had many a seagate drive working fine for years with no issue. There just as reliable.

 

 

And according to all the public HDD stats, the reliability will be about the same, and even then, the ironwolfs are cheaper, so save the money and get the same quality of drives.

 

9 minutes ago, DigitalAustin said:

I have thought about larger drives given this is for backups but should a drive go down, I don't want to wait 48+ hrs for a RAID to rebuild itself.

 

Raid rebuilds shouldn't last that long. Also bigger hdds make it easier to expand, and use less power. Id really try to get bigger hdds here.

 

10 minutes ago, DigitalAustin said:

 

Not possible given the Backup NAS would have its own desk and everything in my office is spread out in the entire room. So it would need it's own display. Also I really don't like using web interfaces as they tend to be buggy, slow, and unreliable.

You just need the display for initial setup, after its setup you don't want to use the display. Most nas oses like truenas, unraid, omv, and others are pretty bad to use with a monitor attached as designed to be managed all over the network.

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11 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Yea a nas makes a lot of sense here then.

I have used many a intel chip, and there about the same reliability as amd. Id buy the better chip here, Intel, instead of using your pas experiences.

 

WD has been doing a lot of bs with mis labeling products, so I wouldn't trust them either. I have had many a seagate drive working fine for years with no issue. There just as reliable.

 

 

And according to all the public HDD stats, the reliability will be about the same, and even then, the ironwolfs are cheaper, so save the money and get the same quality of drives.

 

Raid rebuilds shouldn't last that long. Also bigger hdds make it easier to expand, and use less power. Id really try to get bigger hdds here.

 

You just need the display for initial setup, after its setup you don't want to use the display. Most nas oses like truenas, unraid, omv, and others are pretty bad to use with a monitor attached as designed to be managed all over the network.

I'll price out an Intel build and see what I come up with.

 

I've heard a lot about WD pulling stunts like this... but then again WD is an American based company so I don't expect anything less out of our corporate overlords. I'll price out some Seagate drives and see where it lands.

 

That was one of my biggest questions, if I did start smaller, how well an already active raid expands when new drives are installed.

 

I did a quick google and I see what you mean, there's no GUI, just a console output, though errors can be outputted to the console there's nothing else useful.

 

Quote

He means HBA, basically pcie to sata/sas card

I was actually looking into those if I decided to go full tower instead of mid-tower but the case I picked let's me do 6 3.25" drives and 3 5.25 bays that I can get cages for in the future.

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Okay, so I have new part lists for both AMD and Intel:

 

Intel

CPU
Intel Pentium Gold G5420 3.8 GHz Dual-Core Processor
$118.32

 

Motherboard
ASRock Fatal1ty H370 Performance ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
$99.99

 

Memory
ADATA XPG Z1 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 CL16 Memory
$52.99

 

Storage - OS
Western Digital WD Green SN350 240 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive
$43.99

 

Storage (x4) - RAID
Western Digital WD Red Plus 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
$97.99

 

Case
Thermaltake Commander G42 ATX Mid Tower Case
$129.99

 

Power Supply
Corsair CXM (2015) 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply
$64.98

Total: $902.22

 

AMD

CPU

AMD Athlon 200GE 3.2 GHz Dual-Core Processor

$99.99

 

Motherboard
ASRock B450 Pro4 ATX AM4 Motherboard
$81.99

 

Memory     
ADATA XPG Z1 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 CL16 Memory
$52.99

 

Storage - OS
Western Digital WD Green SN350 240 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive
$43.99

 

Storage (x4) - RAID
Western Digital WD Red Plus 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive
$97.99

 

Case
Thermaltake Commander G42 ATX Mid Tower Case
$129.99

 

Power Supply
Corsair CXM (2015) 450 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply
$64.98

Total: $865.89

 

So if I go with AMD that's $428.84 in savings with the new version and $392.51 for the Intel.

 

A few notes, I did not go with go with Ironwolf drives because they cost way more than even WD Red Plus Drives. I also went with WD Green NVMe for the OS drive.

When reviewing the boards for this build, I noticed something with the B450 board:

Quote

- 4 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s Connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 10), NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug*
- 2 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s Connectors by ASMedia ASM1061, support NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug

** If M2_1 is occupied, PCIE4 will be disabled.

*M2_2, SATA3_3 and SATA3_4 share lanes. If either one of them is in use, the others will be disabled.

 

This makes me believe because I'm using a desktop board I would have to use expansion cards if I want to make this an actual NAS system. If I read that correctly, if port 3_3 OR 3_4 have a drive, the board shuts off the other ports. PCIE4 is a 16x slot, no big deal.

 

The X470 board leaves everything alone, except for M2_2. PCIE6 is a 16x slot, so also no biggie.

Quote

* SATA1 port will be unavailable when installing SATA M.2 SSD in M2_2 slot.

* PCI_E6 slot will be unavailable when installing PCIe M.2 SSD in M2_2 slot.

 

The Intel board just simply states if an M.2 port is used, a SATA port will be turned off.

Quote

- 6 x SATA3 6.0 Gb/s Connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10, Intel Rapid Storage Technology 15), NCQ, AHCI and Hot Plug*

 

* If M2_1 is occupied by a SATA-type M.2 device, SATA_2 will be disabled.

 

 

This gets so involved and checking specs, compatibility, and I love it. Especially checking to make sure a board will do what you want it do to.

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