My first server - how should i do this

[AFB_MD]

 

Hi. I am 100% new to servers in general. I just need some direction with a few things

 

My parents and I share a photography hobby and we've like 20 Tb in photos overall. So far, we all have been keeping our photos in external HDDs but A) it's impractical, especially when we need to share files (mostly because my dad is aging and he just can't use google Drive) and B) we've already experienced the pain of losing a disk with lots of photos before. So i want to get/build a NAS for us 3.

 

However, i am also planning on building a PC for them (using some components i already had from my recently upgraded gaming PC) for photo editing (they've been using their laptops but those are quite old and slow and it's really annoying to have to service them like every 3 months because "it's getting too slow").

 

So what i was thinking maybe housing the NAS and a regular windows 10 PC in the same tower, to reduce some expenses and (very importantly) save some space (they are moving to a country house... More like a cabin, and it's really small).

 

However, for simplicity, maybe buying a machine from Synology or other brands might be a better option. I'm also worried about they remembering to keep the PC on 24/7 to keep the NAS running if i house it in the same tower as their windows machine. The thing is even the cheapest Synology machine is expensive. 

 

So i just want to hear from you guys what you think is the best way to go for this. Should i go the easy but expensive way and get a synology NAS or would it be possible to use the PC I'm already going to build to set up a trueNAS + a regular windows machine, while saving some money in parts?

 

Currently owned hardware:

AMD Ryzen 5600g

B450 AORUS pro wifi mobo

BeQuiet! Dark rock tf cooler

3 x sata SSD (120, 250 and 256 Gb; different brands and specs... All are DRAM-less)

16 Gb (2X8) DDR4 3200 mhz non-ecc RAM

550w PSU from EVGA (80+ white)

Case: phanteks p400s

Peripherals...

I'd be missing the storage drives 

 

 

[Blue4130]

1 hour ago, AFB_MD said:

 

Hi. I am 100% new to servers in general. I just need some direction with a few things

 

My parents and I share a photography hobby and we've like 20 Tb in photos overall. So far, we all have been keeping our photos in external HDDs but A) it's impractical, especially when we need to share files (mostly because my dad is aging and he just can't use google Drive) and B) we've already experienced the pain of losing a disk with lots of photos before. So i want to get/build a NAS for us 3.

 

However, i am also planning on building a PC for them (using some components i already had from my recently upgraded gaming PC) for photo editing (they've been using their laptops but those are quite old and slow and it's really annoying to have to service them like every 3 months because "it's getting too slow").

 

So what i was thinking maybe housing the NAS and a regular windows 10 PC in the same tower, to reduce some expenses and (very importantly) save some space (they are moving to a country house... More like a cabin, and it's really small).

 

However, for simplicity, maybe buying a machine from Synology or other brands might be a better option. I'm also worried about they remembering to keep the PC on 24/7 to keep the NAS running if i house it in the same tower as their windows machine. The thing is even the cheapest Synology machine is expensive. 

 

So i just want to hear from you guys what you think is the best way to go for this. Should i go the easy but expensive way and get a synology NAS or would it be possible to use the PC I'm already going to build to set up a trueNAS + a regular windows machine, while saving some money in parts?

 

Currently owned hardware:

AMD Ryzen 5600g

B450 AORUS pro wifi mobo

BeQuiet! Dark rock tf cooler

3 x sata SSD (120, 250 and 256 Gb; different brands and specs... All are DRAM-less)

16 Gb (2X8) DDR4 3200 mhz non-ecc RAM

550w PSU from EVGA (80+ white)

Case: phanteks p400s

Peripherals...

I'd be missing the storage drives 

 

 

100% synology for Tech illiterate parents. Trying to teach them to start up a vm if they want to use the windows install is crazy. Keep it as simple as possible. 

[SupaKomputa]

That's too much for home NAS, you can just buy 3x10TB and run it in that PC with RAID 5, and just use windows sharing.

You can use the PC while also sharing the files. 

3 minutes ago, Blue4130 said:

100% synology for Tech illiterate parents. Trying to teach them to start up a vm if they want to use the windows install is crazy. Keep it as simple as possible. 

true.