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NAS Recommendations

justintech16
By justintech16
in Storage Devices
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Go to solution Solved by Searinex,
I would still get another 2 GB on RAM then for head room (6GB total, 1.5GB RAM per TB) and get the same MHz (1333/1600/etc) as your other 2x2GB RAM. the motherboard support up to 1333MHz RAM, 1600MHz RAM will work but will be down clocked to 1333MHz. (I forgot to check that when I had the 1x4GB @1600MHz Fury RAM)
 

 
CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor  ($94.99 @ NCIX US) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard  ($52.98 @ OutletPC) 
Memory: Kingston 2GB (1 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 Memory  ($14.69 @ SuperBiiz) place holder to show cost
Power Supply: SeaSonic 300W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($36.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Other: 2x2GB RAM @ ????MHz 
Other: Old Case 
Total: $387.55
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-06-05 00:08 EDT-0400
Posted

Hello.

I'm looking to get a Nas because I am running out of storage on my computer. This nas will be for myself and for my family to use. So I would need something relatively simple for them to handle. I take loads of pictures and video and need a lot of space for that. I also would like to store music and movies on it so that my family and myself can access them while on trips away from home. I am guessing I would like around 4 terabytes of space on the nas. And because I am dealing with pictures and video (things I really don't want to lose), I would like a nas with 2 bays for redundancy.  I have considered building a nas but due to time constraints and simplicity's sake, I'd like a pre-build/configured nas that I can connect to my home network.

My budget is around $400 US.

 

Any advice?

I've been looking at Synology and WD because they look simple and reliable.

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I know you said you don't want to build one, but I would recommend it.  Its a good project that you can tackle over a weekend and its more upgrade friendly if you ever require more space in the future.  And plus its fun.  I would suggest thinking about building a NAS with FreeNAS before deciding on going with a pre built. 

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Here is a FreeNAS build for 1 to 2 users at the same time (max before slow down happens).

 

 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97M-HD3 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($69.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Memory: Kingston Fury Series 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($28.89 @ SuperBiiz) 1GB of RAM per TB of storage.
Case: Cougar MG100 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($28.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic 300W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($36.99 @ SuperBiiz) Don't go any lower then a 80+ bronze, most NAS computers don't shut down and you don't want the PSU to crap out/corrupt data.
Total: $417.71
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-06-04 22:16 EDT-0400
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Here is a FreeNAS build for 1 to 2 users at the same time (max before slow down happens).

 

 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97M-HD3 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($69.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Memory: Kingston Fury Series 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($28.89 @ SuperBiiz) 1GB of RAM per TB of storage.
Case: Cougar MG100 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($28.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic 300W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($36.99 @ SuperBiiz) Don't go any lower then a 80+ bronze, most NAS computers don't shut down and you don't want the PSU to crap out/corrupt data.
Total: $417.71
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-06-04 22:16 EDT-0400

 

Whoa. This looks cool. Yeah, it would be much easier to upgrade the storage.

How about the software side? I know about FreeNas, but have never used it. How well does it work with services like dropbox and plex? My family would like to access things while on trips.

And just curious, but what would the jump up to be able to handle 3 or 4 users at once?

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Whoa. This looks cool. Yeah, it would be much easier to upgrade the storage.

How about the software side? I know about FreeNas, but have never used it. How well does it work with services like dropbox and plex? My family would like to access things while on trips.

And just curious, but what would the jump up to be able to handle 3 or 4 users at once?

For more users, I would build a AMD system (better prices per performance). FX 6300 CPU (6 core) can easily support encoding for 4 users. I don't have a freeNAS but I have looked a lot into them and from what I have read for the FreeNAS forums, after the set-up/config is done should be as easy as drag and drop.

 

Will post the FX 6300 build in a bit.

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CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor  ($94.99 @ NCIX US) 

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard  ($52.98 @ OutletPC) 




Case: Enermax OSTROG ATX Mid Tower Case  ($33.75 @ Newegg) I also changed the case to support more Hard drives for upgrading later.

Power Supply: SeaSonic 300W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($36.99 @ SuperBiiz) 

Total: $435.50


Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-06-04 22:58 EDT-0400

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Only change I'd say is to double your RAM if you can. 4GB would kind of be bare minimum as I think you need 1GB per TB of hard drive space, meaning you're breaking even. Go with 2x4GB to give it some headroom.

Wife's build: Amethyst - Ryzen 9 3900X, 32GB G.Skill Ripjaws V DDR4-3200, ASUS Prime X570-P, EVGA RTX 3080 FTW3 12GB, Corsair Obsidian 750D, Corsair RM1000 (yellow label)

My build: Mira - Ryzen 7 3700X, 32GB EVGA DDR4-3200, ASUS Prime X470-PRO, EVGA RTX 3070 XC3, beQuiet Dark Base 900, EVGA 1000 G6

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Only change I'd say is to double your RAM if you can. 4GB would kind of be bare minimum as I think you need 1GB per TB of hard drive space, meaning you're breaking even. Go with 2x4GB to give it some headroom.

1 GB RAM per TB is the minimum but I was trying not to go too far over the budget of $400. But if can go 8 GB of RAM.

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1 GB RAM per TB is the minimum but I was trying not to go too far over the budget of $400. But if can go 8 GB of RAM.

Hmm. After doing some digging around, I found an old case I can re-use. I also found a 4gb 2x2 ram kit. So I guess I don't need either of those included in the budget.

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Yeah man.  You can run plex pretty well with the FreeNAS plugin.  You will have to port forward the IP of the jail in order to use it outside of your network.  You can also run ownCloud via a plugin in FreeNAS.  That is just like dropbox but you are running it on your own server.  Then you can port forward that as well to access it anywhere.  However there are some security issues involved with port forwarding ownCloud.  I'm trying to read up on it more so I can get my up and running before my fall semester starts.  its really cool stuff tho.

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I would still get another 2 GB on RAM then for head room (6GB total, 1.5GB RAM per TB) and get the same MHz (1333/1600/etc) as your other 2x2GB RAM. the motherboard support up to 1333MHz RAM, 1600MHz RAM will work but will be down clocked to 1333MHz. (I forgot to check that when I had the 1x4GB @1600MHz Fury RAM)
 

 
CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor  ($94.99 @ NCIX US) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard  ($52.98 @ OutletPC) 
Memory: Kingston 2GB (1 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 Memory  ($14.69 @ SuperBiiz) place holder to show cost
Power Supply: SeaSonic 300W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($36.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Other: 2x2GB RAM @ ????MHz 
Other: Old Case 
Total: $387.55
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-06-05 00:08 EDT-0400
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Hello.

I'm looking to get a Nas because I am running out of storage on my computer. This nas will be for myself and for my family to use. So I would need something relatively simple for them to handle. I take loads of pictures and video and need a lot of space for that. I also would like to store music and movies on it so that my family and myself can access them while on trips away from home. I am guessing I would like around 4 terabytes of space on the nas. And because I am dealing with pictures and video (things I really don't want to lose), I would like a nas with 2 bays for redundancy.  I have considered building a nas but due to time constraints and simplicity's sake, I'd like a pre-build/configured nas that I can connect to my home network.

My budget is around $400 US.

 

Any advice?

I've been looking at Synology and WD because they look simple and reliable.

 

 

Hey justintech16,
 
Self-built NAS devices are good and easy to upgrade, but don't have support and are harder to configure and set up. 
From the WD like i could suggest checking out the WD My Cloud series as they are very user-friendly, easy to set up and manage and capable of doing everything you listed. Here are link to them: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=xN93ND
 
I could specifically suggest checking out My Cloud Mirror and My Cloud EX2 as both have the option for a lot of space and are reliable and easy to use plus are very compact. Here are links with more info on them:
 
Captain_WD.

If this helped you, like and choose it as best answer - you might help someone else with the same issue. ^_^
WDC Representative, http://www.wdc.com/ 

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Thanks guys! This was more than I thought about getting, but I think it will definitely be better for me in the long run.  :)

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There is quite alot of poor advice in here, including the hardware recommendations.

 

AMD is not recommended for FreeNAS due to no support for BSD. You don't even have the minimum recommended RAM and it's not ECC. Building the above is likely to lose to data loss, since the minimum recommendations haven't even been followed.

System/Server Administrator - Networking - Storage - Virtualization - Scripting - Applications

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There is quite alot of poor advice in here, including the hardware recommendations.

 

AMD is not recommended for FreeNAS due to no support for BSD. You don't even have the minimum recommended RAM and it's not ECC. Building the above is likely to lose to data loss, since the minimum recommendations haven't even been followed.

Ok. What would you recommend for me? I have a budget of around $400 and want to have some sort of redundancy as well. And to be able to access my data when not at home.

Thanks.

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