Best way to go about building NAS for my purpose

[Marvin34565]

Hi everyone. I know it's not best practice to just ask for "Solve my problem" advice but I'm a little lost in my possibilities.

Here's my situation:

I want to de-cloud my life a little, so I want to build a NAS that stores movies for a plex server (1-2 users at 1080 for now but 4k in the future), general documents, and in the future possibly some virtual machines/distros for development projects as well as HomeAutomation data.
My problem is to choose between buying a prebuilt NAS and building my own. I like to have control over my stuff even if it's a little more work, so my first idea was to build my own.

My main PC hosts an i7 7700k and an MSI Z270 Gaming Plus MS-7A75 motherboard with 16GB of 2400MHz RAM. I was thinking about upgrading my PC in the next 1-2 years anyway as I want to be able to uWindows 11 for Gaming and my current Hardware won't allow me to (thanks MS).
Another idea was to keep using my PC as long as I could until the EOL of Win10 and use a RaspberryPi 4b as the base for my NAS.  I own an NVIDIA Shield TV Pro 2019 for transcoding my movies if needed.
Is it a good idea to upgrade my PC and use these spare parts for a self-build NAS? Is the RaspberryPi - working together with the Shield - enough?

I don't want to spend more money as needed (obviously) while also reusing parts as best as I can as a recycling measure.

Any leads on what's best would be appreciated! 

[Dedayog]

11 minutes ago, Marvin34565 said:

Hi everyone. I know it's not best practice to just ask for "Solve my problem" advice but I'm a little lost in my possibilities.

Here's my situation:

I want to de-cloud my life a little, so I want to build a NAS that stores movies for a plex server (1-2 users at 1080 for now but 4k in the future), general documents, and in the future possibly some virtual machines/distros for development projects as well as HomeAutomation data.
My problem is to choose between buying a prebuilt NAS and building my own. I like to have control over my stuff even if it's a little more work, so my first idea was to build my own.

My main PC hosts an i7 7700k and an MSI Z270 Gaming Plus MS-7A75 motherboard with 16GB of 2400MHz RAM. I was thinking about upgrading my PC in the next 1-2 years anyway as I want to be able to uWindows 11 for Gaming and my current Hardware won't allow me to (thanks MS).
Another idea was to keep using my PC as long as I could until the EOL of Win10 and use a RaspberryPi 4b as the base for my NAS.  I own an NVIDIA Shield TV Pro 2019 for transcoding my movies if needed.
Is it a good idea to upgrade my PC and use these spare parts for a self-build NAS? Is the RaspberryPi - working together with the Shield - enough?

I don't want to spend more money as needed (obviously) while also reusing parts as best as I can as a recycling measure.

Any leads on what's best would be appreciated! 

Yes, upgrade your machine and use the old for the NAS.  Mine was setup with a Ryzen 1600 + 1050Ti for years until I threw in the 5600.  500 Movies, 2000 TV episodes, various documents, etc.  Runs without issue 24/7.

 

Just make sure to remote in as Windows Updates or any other update will stop Plex Server from starting (haven't taken the time to make that more efficient yet).

 

You do NOT need a robust machine for Plex or file sharing, so invest in the drives and backup.

 

My setup:

 

Plex : AMD Ryzen 5 5600 - Gigabyte B550M AORUS Elite AX - G. Skill Ripjaws V 16GB 2400Mhz - MSI 1050Ti 4GB - Crucial P3 Plus 500GB + WD Red NAS 4TBx2 - TP-Link AC1200 PCIe Wifi - EVGA SuperNova 650 P2 - ASUS Prime AP201 - Spectre 24" 1080p

[tkitch]

an i7 7700 is plenty to run a NAS with a bunch of supporting apps on it.  

 

With a GPU to transcode, you'll barely notice a plex load on the box.  

[adm0n]

So as you ask for the best way to go about it. These are the most important questions you need to ask yourself:

1.  Which OS do you want to use? (Something like trueNAS or unraid for example. Windows is usually not the best for a NAS server.)
2. How much storage do you want in what configuration? What redundancy do you want.
3. What power envelop are you fine with? (Your current hardware will likely draw 30-60w at idle)

Going with a raspberry pi is also an option. I don't have any experience with it, but I guess you'll have limited encoding support for plex.

 

Just as a last question, what is wrong with your current setup for win11? You can easily bypass the TMP check, if you don't have a TMP module. You won't be able to use software that relies on it, but the only one I know so far is Vanguard for playing LoL or Valorant.

I had a 4th gen intel system running with win 11 already.

[Marvin34565]

3 hours ago, Dedayog said:

Yes, upgrade your machine and use the old for the NAS.  Mine was setup with a Ryzen 1600 + 1050Ti for years until I threw in the 5600.  500 Movies, 2000 TV episodes, various documents, etc.  Runs without issue 24/7.

 

Just make sure to remote in as Windows Updates or any other update will stop Plex Server from starting (haven't taken the time to make that more efficient yet).

 

You do NOT need a robust machine for Plex or file sharing, so invest in the drives and backup.

 

My setup:

 

Plex : AMD Ryzen 5 5600 - Gigabyte B550M AORUS Elite AX - G. Skill Ripjaws V 16GB 2400Mhz - MSI 1050Ti 4GB - Crucial P3 Plus 500GB + WD Red NAS 4TBx2 - TP-Link AC1200 PCIe Wifi - EVGA SuperNova 650 P2 - ASUS Prime AP201 - Spectre 24" 1080p

 

3 hours ago, tkitch said:

an i7 7700 is plenty to run a NAS with a bunch of supporting apps on it.  

 

With a GPU to transcode, you'll barely notice a plex load on the box.  

Okay, thanks for the info. I wouldn't want to buy a new GPU, as my current one is still good enough for all the games I'm playing. So I would rely on my NVIDIA Shield to transcode. But now with @adm0ns comment, I might just keep using the old system trying to get win 11 to run. Especially with the mentioned power consumption in mind.

So I might try to get the NAS running via the Pi and use my Shield as a transcoder(?).

[adm0n]

1 hour ago, Marvin34565 said:

Okay, thanks for the info. I wouldn't want to buy a new GPU, as my current one is still good enough for all the games I'm playing. So I would rely on my NVIDIA Shield to transcode. But now with @adm0ns comment, I might just keep using the old system trying to get win 11 to run. Especially with the mentioned power consumption in mind.

So I might try to get the NAS running via the Pi and use my Shield as a transcoder(?).

I'm pretty sure if you use Rufus, it automatically prompts you when creating a bootable USB device to remove those requirements.

 

As for the en and decoding. Usually your plex server will encode your files at a lower bitrate than you have provided them (for example if you high bitrate blu rays) and then your target device would need to decode them again (well it will need to do that regardless). If your network is fast enough, you can always just access the files directly. But if you leave your house, you usually want them at a lower bitrate. That's what you need somewhat "powerful" hardware for.

[Dedayog]

1 hour ago, Marvin34565 said:

 

Okay, thanks for the info. I wouldn't want to buy a new GPU, as my current one is still good enough for all the games I'm playing. So I would rely on my NVIDIA Shield to transcode. But now with @adm0ns comment, I might just keep using the old system trying to get win 11 to run. Especially with the mentioned power consumption in mind.

So I might try to get the NAS running via the Pi and use my Shield as a transcoder(?).

FYI, Windows 10/11 is a perfectly fine environment for Plex/File servers.  It's the easiest to use for beginners as well.

 

If you want to Frankenstein a setup, be my guest.  But a server is supposed to be working 24/7 and easy to use.  Putting together a system you have to "get it to work right" to keep your important stuff... not what I would do.