Windows 8.1 NAS Question

[OhhTee]

Hey guys,

 

I'm gonna build a new NAS soon and I was wondering if there were any special software that you guys like to use to maintain and operate it. I'm gonna try to install OwnCloud and Plex Media Server on it. It's basically gonna be a NAS to store all of my storage files and movies. This is the build I'm most likely going with,

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i3-4160 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($99.99 @ Micro Center) 

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($116.98 @ Newegg) 

Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($57.99 @ Micro Center) 

Storage: Crucial MX100 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($67.00 @ Amazon) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($160.49 @ Amazon) 

Case: Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case  ($79.99 @ Newegg) 

Power Supply: Corsair CSM 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($76.49 @ Amazon) 

Total: $658.93

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-16 16:27 EDT-0400

 

Let me know what you think and any recommendations about software for it.

[Captain_WD]

 

Hey guys,

 

I'm gonna build a new NAS soon and I was wondering if there were any special software that you guys like to use to maintain and operate it. I'm gonna try to install OwnCloud and Plex Media Server on it. It's basically gonna be a NAS to store all of my storage files and movies. This is the build I'm most likely going with,

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i3-4160 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($99.99 @ Micro Center) 

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($116.98 @ Newegg) 

Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($57.99 @ Micro Center) 

Storage: Crucial MX100 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($67.00 @ Amazon) 

Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($160.49 @ Amazon) 

Case: Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case  ($79.99 @ Newegg) 

Power Supply: Corsair CSM 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($76.49 @ Amazon) 

Total: $658.93

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-16 16:27 EDT-0400

 

Let me know what you think and any recommendations about software for it.

 

 

Hey OhhTee,

 

The build looks well planned and balanced. I would doubt that you would need that big of a SSD, but more space never hurts.

I would consider adding one or more drives to add some level of redundancy to the NAS. WD Red is a great drive for this purpose. 

There are a number of OSs and other software that could be used with such builds and I am sure the guys here will share some experience.

 

Captain_WD.

[OhhTee]

 

Hey OhhTee,

 

The build looks well planned and balanced. I would doubt that you would need that big of a SSD, but more space never hurts.

I would consider adding one or more drives to add some level of redundancy to the NAS. WD Red is a great drive for this purpose. 

There are a number of OSs and other software that could be used with such builds and I am sure the guys here will share some experience.

 

Captain_WD.

 

 

Hey Captain_WD,

 

Thanks for replying! I agree with you that the SSD is a bit big, but the 128 isn't much more than the 64, so might as well grab the bigger one! I was planning on using one WD Red 4TB until I can allocate more money to purchase 3 additional Red 4TB drives. I was either going to run RAID 5 or RAID 10 on it, but I think I'm leaning towards RAID 10 for a total of 8 TB of space. The RAID 5 has more space but the slower write speed isn't very appealing to me.

 

OhhTee

[Captain_WD]

Hey Captain_WD,

 

Thanks for replying! I agree with you that the SSD is a bit big, but the 128 isn't much more than the 64, so might as well grab the bigger one! I was planning on using one WD Red 4TB until I can allocate more money to purchase 3 additional Red 4TB drives. I was either going to run RAID 5 or RAID 10 on it, but I think I'm leaning towards RAID 10 for a total of 8 TB of space. The RAID 5 has more space but the slower write speed isn't very appealing to me.

 

OhhTee

 

Truth be told, both RAID5 and RAID10 have good speeds. The real bottleneck would be your internet connection (if you are accessing your NAS over the internet), or your internal network connection. A single drive has around 150MB/s read/write speed and if your connection is slower than that (especially the internet one), you shouldn't see much difference between different types of RAID. If you are using a gigabit connection, it is still under the 150MB/s speed of a hard drive. I would say first think about the redundancy level and usable storage space you would like and then think about the speed boost that the RAID type actually provides. RAID10 is a great choice as it provides great speed boost and better redundancy over RAID5, but it's more drive-consuming. 

 

Captain_WD.

[OhhTee]

Truth be told, both RAID5 and RAID10 have good speeds. The real bottleneck would be your internet connection (if you are accessing your NAS over the internet), or your internal network connection. A single drive has around 150MB/s read/write speed and if your connection is slower than that (especially the internet one), you shouldn't see much difference between different types of RAID. If you are using a gigabit connection, it is still under the 150MB/s speed of a hard drive. I would say first think about the redundancy level and usable storage space you would like and then think about the speed boost that the RAID type actually provides. RAID10 is a great choice as it provides great speed boost and better redundancy over RAID5, but it's more drive-consuming.

Captain_WD.

That's a great point! Thanks for the explanation. I'm going to connect all of my devices to a switch for an internal network connection.

OhhTee