Home NAS on HexOS

[Moosecuda]

Hi all,

 

I am planning to build a DIY 4 bay NAS using HexOS and some cheap enclosure w/ Ethernet and Wifi from AliExpress or Amazon, $500 is a bit too steep for me for a home NAS in my opinion (i.e. Synology).  As with most common home NAS, it will be using it to store family photos, some media and movies, financial stuff, and I would like it to be on all the time, so I would rather not connect it to an old PC.  I have the data now in cloud on Dropbox, but I would like a local copy and to have it sync with DropBox as well.  My current WD enclosure keeps failing and doesn't sync with DropBox!

 

Any recommendations on a reasonably priced NAS enclosure and system board or a raspberry pi?  What should I look out for?

 

My old WD NAS drive failed a while back and I replaced it with a Seagate IronWolf 8Tb, and now the WD enclosure is failing. So I am planning to buy 3 more 8tb drives for a RAID 5 config, is Seagate the way to go or is there a cheaper good quality option for a home NAS as well?

 

Thanks,

Mustafa

[Dutch_Master]

If 500 bucks is too much for you, going the DIY route while purchasing everything isn't going to be cheaper, quite the opposite. Get a cheap ( <100$) workstation, add the drives (make sure said workstation has sufficient place for those drives), install your HexOS and away you go. See what works and what not and adjust expectations accordingly.

[OhioYJ]

I'm kind of wondering why HexOS, if you are trying to go the "budget" route? Wouldn't just going regular old TrueNAS help keep your costs down? (Since it's free)

 

A NAS is one of those things I feel like it's ok to spend a little bit of money on. It's your data, many people have them running 24/7, you need them to be reliable. That doesn't mean they need to be ridiculous spec-wise (or $$), just a reasonable machine that I don't have to worry about.

[Needfuldoer]

TrueNAS and HexOS don't run on the Raspberry Pi, it needs to be a regular Intel or AMD PC.

 

A Mini ITX form factor Intel N100 board would be plenty for a home NAS. Pick an ITX chassis with room for four hard drives. 

[Moosecuda]

I do have an ASUS Gaming console from 2017 that still works (VivoPC X, GeForce GTX 1060, i5, 8GB, and 1TB HDD). I already bought a HexOS lifelong license earlier this year for this project, so I guess I just need an enclosure to connect to it.  I will probably spend $500 or so on three 8TB drives, and another hundred on the enclosure.

 

Any recommendation for a good 4 bay enclosure?

I found this on AliExpress that seems reasonable (USB3.0, ok reviews) https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000444717313.html

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 hour ago, Moosecuda said:

I do have an ASUS Gaming console from 2017 that still works (VivoPC X, GeForce GTX 1060, i5, 8GB, and 1TB HDD). I already bought a HexOS lifelong license earlier this year for this project, so I guess I just need an enclosure to connect to it.  I will probably spend $500 or so on three 8TB drives, and another hundred on the enclosure.

 

Any recommendation for a good 4 bay enclosure?

I found this on AliExpress that seems reasonable (USB3.0, ok reviews) https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000444717313.html

 

Link doesn't seem to work for me, but most of the USB ones are fine. I've genearly had more issues with USB enclosures compared to local disks, but its likely fine for a home nas. 

 

Make sure to backup your data and you should be fine here.