DIY NAS/Home Server Help (Repurposing Old HW)

[MayonnaiseHaze]

Hi all,

 

I am looking to build a NAS/Home server and need some help.

I was originally looking at N100 CPUs but was uncertain if it would be powerful enough for my uses.

 

I want to achieve the following:

• Backup for video production projects and my own personal photos.
  • Would be a bonus to be able to work off of the NAS while editing.
  • Will be using all SSDs
• Possibly the use of a Plex server
• Some other server related stuff such as:
  • Ubiquiti cloud key
  • PiHole
  • VPN
  • Home automation

I am currently thinking of getting the following pieces for the build:

• SilverStone Technology CS351
• Asrock B550M Pro
• WD Red Sata drives (maybe starting off with about 4TB and hoping to expand in the future)

I just recently upgraded my PC and was wondering would my old hardware be a possible choice to use, I have a Ryzen 5 3600 and a RTX 2060. I understand that these may be extremely overkill for the applications stated above but I was thinking, if possible, I could undervolt the GPU but i'm unsure if it is possible on Linux.

 

All input would be greatly appreciated!

[Levent]

Looks good to me. I got a similar server using almost identical components. I use CPU for transcoding and GPU for GPU passthrough to a VM, CPU has been more than powerful for more.

[MayonnaiseHaze]

9 minutes ago, Levent said:

Looks good to me. I got a similar server using almost identical components. I use CPU for transcoding and GPU for GPU passthrough to a VM, CPU has been more than powerful for more.

Great! Do you know what your idle power draw is by any chance? and what OS are you running?

 

[Levent]

19 minutes ago, MayonnaiseHaze said:

Great! Do you know what your idle power draw is by any chance? and what OS are you running?

 

I do know my idle as I got an online UPS connected to the server. I got 4xSeagate NAS drives (3.5") and I got 26 2.5" 1TB HDDs along with GTX1080, 2xHBAs and R5 3600 clocked at 4ghz static.

 

My idle power consumption for the above is around 70w. I have turned off every single power saving measure, you can easily go half of this number. I just have way too many disks.

 

I also use Proxmox.

Spoiler

 

[Bersella AI]

First of all, this setup should be pretty decent for your use cases. With 4 SATA SSDs configured as a RAID-5 array, it can easily saturate a 10Gb Ethernet connection, from which your workflow would be benefited. Don't forget to grab at least 2 affordable 10GbE cards -- no premium switches required for just 1 client using the NAS.

Secondly, no need to worry about power consumption in idle. On my gaming rig, an idle power of 30~40W was recorded from power monitor, and ~10W recorded with the GTX 1650 Super GPU, which can also be expected for RTX 2060. What's worth concerning though is the driver -- the TrueNAS Scale system comes with NVIDIA's proprietary driver, while Unraid or other Linux distros may require manual installation for that.

[MayonnaiseHaze]

8 hours ago, Levent said:

I do know my idle as I got an online UPS connected to the server. I got 4xSeagate NAS drives (3.5") and I got 26 2.5" 1TB HDDs along with GTX1080, 2xHBAs and R5 3600 clocked at 4ghz static.

 

My idle power consumption for the above is around 70w. I have turned off every single power saving measure, you can easily go half of this number. I just have way too many disks.

 

I also use Proxmox.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

That's great news!

 

Thanks so much for the information, I'm going to look in to Proxmox also was just doing some research on it there after you mentioned it and I think it might be a good place to get started!

 

It's crazy the amount of conflicting information on Google when it comes to this type of thing.

 

That is some amount of storage btw, very impressive!

[MayonnaiseHaze]

4 hours ago, Bersella AI said:

First of all, this setup should be pretty decent for your use cases. With 4 SATA SSDs configured as a RAID-5 array, it can easily saturate a 10Gb Ethernet connection, from which your workflow would be benefited. Don't forget to grab at least 2 affordable 10GbE cards -- no premium switches required for just 1 client using the NAS.

Secondly, no need to worry about power consumption in idle. On my gaming rig, an idle power of 30~40W was recorded from power monitor, and ~10W recorded with the GTX 1650 Super GPU, which can also be expected for RTX 2060. What's worth concerning though is the driver -- the TrueNAS Scale system comes with NVIDIA's proprietary driver, while Unraid or other Linux distros may require manual installation for that.

That's great news, thanks for your response!

 

I don't know if it's just me, but finding basic information like this on Google was so hard to find! So many conflicting responses.

 

That's a great idea about the 10GbE cards I never thought about that! Will look in to this.

 

Yeah I'm still not sure what way I'll have everything configured, I was thinking True as but I was reading that it can be restrictive due to the GUI interfaces over a CLI.

 

I think I'll look in to Proxmox after @Levent mentioned it. I haven't looked into it too much prior.

 

[MayonnaiseHaze]

5 hours ago, Bersella AI said:

First of all, this setup should be pretty decent for your use cases. With 4 SATA SSDs configured as a RAID-5 array, it can easily saturate a 10Gb Ethernet connection, from which your workflow would be benefited. Don't forget to grab at least 2 affordable 10GbE cards -- no premium switches required for just 1 client using the NAS.

Secondly, no need to worry about power consumption in idle. On my gaming rig, an idle power of 30~40W was recorded from power monitor, and ~10W recorded with the GTX 1650 Super GPU, which can also be expected for RTX 2060. What's worth concerning though is the driver -- the TrueNAS Scale system comes with NVIDIA's proprietary driver, while Unraid or other Linux distros may require manual installation for that.

I forgot to ask you, the server motherboard as well as my desktop motherboard both support USB 3.1 Gen 3 USB C.

 

Would I still be better of using the 10GbE NICs do you think? Or just going USB-C to USB-C?

[Bersella AI]

On 4/9/2024 at 4:33 AM, MayonnaiseHaze said:

I forgot to ask you, the server motherboard as well as my desktop motherboard both support USB 3.1 Gen 3 USB C.

 

Would I still be better of using the 10GbE NICs do you think? Or just going USB-C to USB-C?

I have not acknowledged any USB-based 10GbE NICs available, but expensive Thunderbolt-based ones. Instead, there are plenty of 2.5GbE-USB converters available, although costing as much as used PCIe-based 10GbE cards like Intel 82599, X520 or X540, and 3 times as much as 2.5G PCIe cards powered by Intel I226 or Realtek 8125. You may check out whether a PCIe x16 or x4 slot is available on both the server and the desktop PC, before making decisions.

[MayonnaiseHaze]

2 hours ago, Bersella AI said:

I have not acknowledged any USB-based 10GbE NICs available, but expensive Thunderbolt-based ones. Instead, there are plenty of 2.5GbE-USB converters available, although costing as much as used PCIe-based 10GbE cards like Intel 82599, X520 or X540, and 3 times as much as 2.5G PCIe cards powered by Intel I226 or Realtek 8125. You may check out whether a PCIe x16 or x4 slot is available on both the server and the desktop PC, before making decisions.

Sorry I wasn't too clear, I was asking would I be better connecting my PC and NAS via USB-C(10GbE connection) or by 10GbE NIC but I done a bit of research and I think the NIC are the better choice.

[Bersella AI]

7 minutes ago, MayonnaiseHaze said:

Sorry I wasn't too clear, I was asking would I be better connecting my PC and NAS via USB-C(10GbE connection) or by 10GbE NIC but I done a bit of research and I think the NIC are the better choice.

Direct connection through USB... That's infeasible, as there's no way to communicate between two hosts (that's not the use case for NAS, but rather Directly Attached Storage, DAS), and connections would degrade with cables longer than 2~3 meters due to signal interference.

Again, there are currently no USB-10GbE converters available in market, but 5GbE or 2.5GbE ones with premium costs. That's why used internal 10GbE NICs are recommended.

[MayonnaiseHaze]

On 4/8/2024 at 11:28 AM, Levent said:

I do know my idle as I got an online UPS connected to the server. I got 4xSeagate NAS drives (3.5") and I got 26 2.5" 1TB HDDs along with GTX1080, 2xHBAs and R5 3600 clocked at 4ghz static.

 

My idle power consumption for the above is around 70w. I have turned off every single power saving measure, you can easily go half of this number. I just have way too many disks.

 

I also use Proxmox.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Hey I meant to ask you what motherboard are you using?

 

I've been looking for a motherboard for the setup for the last while and I have recently came across the Asrock X570M Pro4.

 

It looks like a great motherboard but someone on Reddit mentioned that the X570 is quite power hungry.

[Levent]

1 minute ago, MayonnaiseHaze said:

Hey I meant to ask you what motherboard are you using?

 

I've been looking for a motherboard for the setup for the last while and I have recently came across the Asrock X570M Pro4.

 

It looks like a great motherboard but someone on Reddit mentioned that the X570 is quite power hungry.

B550 PG Riptide