Custom NAS Build

[C0RR1T_]

Budget (including currency): Doesn't really matter, around ~1k CHF would be nice tough

Country: Switzerland

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: TrueNAS Scale Server including the following Apps:

- Jellyfin

- Sabnzbd

- Prowlarr

- Sonarr

- Radarr

- Immich (maybe)

- NextCloud (maybe)

- Cloudflare Tunnels

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):

Parts list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/gB2jJn

Hi all, so I would really like to build my own NAS. Im pretty confident with the part list I gathered (Please note that I have an existing GTX1080 lying around which I would like to use for jellyfin transcoding).

My main concerns are motherboard and CPU; since It feels like I'm overpaying quite a bit for the motherboard, but the problem is that this is one of the only Mini-ITX boards with 4 SATA 6GB connectors. I cannot add an HBA unfortunately since my only PCIE slot will be taken up by my GPU. Furthermore, I don't know if the i3 will be enough for running all these programs, while also doing parity calculations etc.

Maybe there is a new, better case for selfbuilt NAS than the Fractal Node 304 (it is 12 years old after all (alteast LTT did a review of it 12 years ago)), I looked at the Jonsbo N2 case aswell, but I'm not entierly sure it will fit my GPU in it aswell?

I plan to use the included CPU cooler with some PTM750, maybe a Noctua cooler would be better? I don't think that temps should be a big concern.

 

[Bersella AI]

1. The GTX 1080 GPU may be excluded, as the processor already has an integrated GPU that even works better than 1080 in terms of transcoding.
2. Consider hard drives with 8TB or 10TB, as they don't seem to cost much more than 4TB variants.
3. Consider ordinary DDR5-4800 kits with 16GB, as it does not seem to take a lot of RAM to host all these services. I have 16GB for TrueNAS as well as a dozen of apps, literally. Even with 32GB, there are more competitive products from e.g. Team Group, Patriot, etc.
4. The stock cooler would be sufficient enough, as that i3 processor does not generate a lot of heats.

[C0RR1T_]

On 1/28/2025 at 10:41 AM, Bersella AI said:

1. The GTX 1080 GPU may be excluded, as the processor already has an integrated GPU that even works better than 1080 in terms of transcoding.
2. Consider hard drives with 8TB or 10TB, as they don't seem to cost much more than 4TB variants.
3. Consider ordinary DDR5-4800 kits with 16GB, as it does not seem to take a lot of RAM to host all these services. I have 16GB for TrueNAS as well as a dozen of apps, literally. Even with 32GB, there are more competitive products from e.g. Team Group, Patriot, etc.
4. The stock cooler would be sufficient enough, as that i3 processor does not generate a lot of heats.

Hi, thanks alot for your suggestions! I will definetly take out the gtx 1080 since Jellyfin doesn't seem to like nvidia that much for encoding. I also plan to use an i5-12100 because it's only like 20 bucks more expensive. Could I use the stock cooler aswell with an i5? As for memory, im a little tight on SSD storage options (only two M.2 slots, which will be taken for app configs like Jellyfin), so a L2ARC is not possible for my current config, do you still think 32gb is overkill?

[Bersella AI]

7 hours ago, C0RR1T_ said:

Could I use the stock cooler aswell with an i5? As for memory, im a little tight on SSD storage options (only two M.2 slots, which will be taken for app configs like Jellyfin), so a L2ARC is not possible for my current config, do you still think 32gb is overkill?

1. Yes, the stock cooler would be sufficient enough for i5-12400.
2. Acceptable for future-proofing. With a tight budget, it's feasible to start with 16GB.