Uhg, me again, Building a home nas...

Reaf · May 13

I have a conundrum, and a solution. I want to move away from using random ssd's all over the place to a central NAS for my house. Now i am wondering if a build a shite-box and then upgrade it over time or if I just put in the money.

Here is what I was thinking:

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/N9bQbL

CPU: Intel Pentium G640 2.8 GHz Dual-Core Processor ($30.00 @ Amazon)
Memory: Timetec 75TT133U2R8-8G 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR3-1333 CL9 Memory ($12.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Patriot Burst Elite 120 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($13.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital AV-GP 2 TB 3.5" 5400 RPM Internal Hard Drive ($39.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital AV-GP 2 TB 3.5" 5400 RPM Internal Hard Drive ($39.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 USB 3.0 MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($37.98 @ Amazon)
Custom: Dell Optiplex 790 ($44.99)
Custom: Dell 290W Power Supply ($34.99)
Custom: 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express PCI-E Network Interface Card ($18.88)
Total: $273.80
There would be more drives that I already own.

Give me your thoughts, Thanks, Reaf

Electronics Wizardy · May 13

Is there a reason your not just getting the whole optiplex? Lots of parts on those systems aren't standard, and gonna make it more of a pain to build. I'd just get the large optiplex, and put your drives on there. Then get a 3x 3.5 to 2x 5.25 if you want more drive bays. I see those optiplexes for sub 50 bucks on ebay, so its likely cheaper to do this too.

What other drives do you have already? I'd probably stay away from those AV-GP drives are there old models now.

Capt_Monk · May 14

Also At least with newer NASs RAM can severely limit performance. I don't know if its the same for older ones but maybe consider getting some more RAM

TheDarkCanuck · May 14

8gb of ram is fine for a home NAS, just don't use ZFS.

There are some issues:

- this platform is VERY old, you would likely be better served buying second-hand at this point (I don't recommend spending money on ddr3, you can get it free from e-waste centres).

- the core 1000 is very tight and you did not mention a motherboard. If you are cannibalizing parts from an office pc or something, just skip the core 1000 as the clearance between the external bays and standard matx board is insanely tight. You will not fit a custom Dell mobo in that case. It's also just an old design, you can do better for the same money.

- DO NOT EVER USE STANDARD CONSUMER HARD DRIVES FOR A NAS. You are likely buying SMR drives. Just don't do that. Get WD Red, Seagate Ironwolf or buy some used Seagate Exos drives online. As long as you have some parity it doesn't matter if you use used hdd.

With all respect, your proposed build is very poor for the money you are spending. Is there some reason you don't just slap $100 on something like an EliteDesk? The 800 G1 SFF model could be had for $100 or less these days, you will get i5-5470 or similar, 4 PCIE slots, platinum psu, and a 3.5 external bay if lucky. You will be limited to just one or two 3.5 hdd this way, but if you chose 2.5 drives instead (just buy ssd at this point, 1tb ssds are cheap) you could fit as many as 5x2.5 drives into that case. Still, it's a very old platform. https://www.hardware-corner.net/desktop-models/HP-EliteDesk-800-G1-SFF/

I have doubts about your choice of CPU ever being able to saturate 2.5gb NIC. Plus you will never exceed ~150mb/s with spinning hdd. So don't waste the money on the NIC unless you are going to do what I suggested above with a better cpu and SSDs.

In reality, you should look at a proper full tower to build in, you will get way more room (and airflow) for drives. Or else look at Aliexpress for nas-specific cases. Problem is they almost invariably require mitx mobo which comes at a premium.

Best of luck.

For your budget, you could buy something like a dell t3600 or similar which is more or less intended as a small workstation or server. The power draw would be high but it would have some interesting features like redundant psu. You could get a lot of room for disks if you picked up a rack mount server (these generally cost peanuts if they're old enough but problems are noise, power and you usually want a rack to mount them to)