Affordable NAS

[Arevera1]

Budget (including currency): $500 USD

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: pure storage NAS

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): Currently have an SP A60 for the boot drive and a Ryzen 7 3700x for CPU. I also do not plan on a permanent gpu, just using my current 3070 to post.

 

Current plan is here: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/NrXP34

 

Would love feedback as this is my first time building a NAS. Anything I am missing/ what would yall change?

[mMontana]

Scale down to a 65W CPU, even with integrated GPU, your current CPU is powerful so interesting enough for any customer. The same apply for 3070, as pure storage nas is only wasted power.

For saved/retrieved bucks, choose a mainboard with more ram slots and 2,5GBe, and if possible more SATA ports. Consider to increase ram starting direcly from 16gb, but it's less interesting than other things.

[Electronics Wizardy]

18 minutes ago, mMontana said:

Scale down to a 65W CPU, even with integrated GPU, your current CPU is powerful so interesting enough for any customer. The same apply for 3070, as pure storage nas is only wasted power.

I think op has those parts already, so It makes sense to re use them here. And your not saving power with. 65w TDP chip here as your not gonna be making out the tdp anyways.

 

I'd use the stock cooler if you hve it.

 

Also Get CMR drives here if you can, those are SMR and very slow in some raid operations like rebuilding. 

 

I'd get a single 8GB stick here, that way you can add more later if you want.

[mMontana]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

I think op has those parts already, so It makes sense to re use them here.

Yes... he/she/whathever has. But IMVHO with the designed goal, not that much.
This is simply my opinion given the current information.

[Alex Atkin UK]

51 minutes ago, mMontana said:

Consider to increase ram starting direcly from 16gb, but it's less interesting than other things.

Depends, when transferring large files to the NAS then having a ton of RAM will be faster.  My server routinely is sat with a 12-20GB RAM cache.

 

For optimum performance, don't worry about the on-board SATA ports, add a used SAS cards in IT mode instead.

 

Also consider once you have a NAS you need to consider how you are going to backup the data on it.  I avoid RAID personally as I find it easier to have matching USB drives and back each one up individually.  I don't like the idea of having to backup a RAID to another RAID due to not having a single drive big enough otherwise.

[SorryBella]

8 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

And your not saving power with. 65w TDP chip here as your not going to be making out the tdp anyways.

Yeah in this case, idle and light load wattage matters more but even on that 3700X ran at a bit of a loss. If OP already has an AM4 board though? Makes no sense to not reuse it alongside.

 

If not? Id rather start clean. 3700X can fetch 100-125$ range on Ebay and is sold often enough. assuming we got the lower estimate that is 600$ budget. Fine enough to get us a 12th gen.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i3-12100 3.3 GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($114.99 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: ASRock B660 Steel Legend ATX LGA1700 Motherboard 
Memory: Patriot Viper Steel 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($17.98 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Silicon Power A60 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  (Purchased For $0.00) 
Storage: Western Digital Red Plus 8 TB 3.5" 5640 RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($149.79 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Western Digital Red Plus 8 TB 3.5" 5640 RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($149.79 @ Amazon) 
Case: Cooler Master N400 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($94.98 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: MSI MPG A650GF 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($89.99 @ Best Buy) 
Total: $617.52
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-08-30 20:23 EDT-0400

 

9W difference on idle, 30W on load. Set the NAS on RAID 1.