First NAS system build

DaiGurenMK42 · July 14, 2015

Hello I have been thinking about building a proper storage system for a while now. And didn't really have the money or idea what else I would do with it other than store files. So I didn't bother. But I've wanted to do something more with my sto4sge and access it whenever I want. The upcoming sale from Amazon might yield some saving on the hgst deskstar drives that I've wanted for a while. Either 4 4tb or 4 6tb should do.

I am guessing by the end of the month my my price range will be between 1000 to 1500. And if those drives aren't on sale then I'll be spending at least 800 on them which I don't know how much will be left for other parts.

So I'm asking for help on parts that will be able to do what I want and a little more power for future ventures.

I want to run owncloud and play with that, plex server, kodi server, FTP server to get all my data from wherever. I might connect the FTP server up with another server my friends and I are renting for quick downloads. I want it to run kodi and plex to easily navigate through my media and play it. I will most likely put this beside my tv and want kodi for that easy navigation. And plex for streaming everywhere else. I will be most likely the only one that uses plex so 1 to 2 streams max. It's everything else that's more important. I want to see what and how owncloud can be used for me since I want to be able to access it when I'm not at home and at university 4hrs away. Hence the middleman server that reaches 1gb transfer rates (theoretically. I don't know it exactly my friend can explain it better, I'll get more details from him later) .

What I will be storing are my important documents I need access to, all my personal pictures and songs. And my blu-ray video files. So example 1 of the 4tb for documents, music, pictures. And another for movies alone. The other two will be responsible for specific snapshot backups of the two. And I already have a couple external drives (the ones I use now and carry back and forth) I can store my music, pictures, documents for even more redundancy if this plan goes through.

I looked into freenas and though it can do all that I want and more. I don't want to use zfs and the hassle that it comes with and the expensive equipment to make sure it works properly. I was thinking more of a debian based or Linux mint based system and somehow setup an hourly snapshot system. This way the files will be secure and accessible on all drives and the ability to add and remove drives at ease.

I know that atom has come a long way and can become really powerful. But not sure if it would be able to handle all this. And I know there are mobo/atom combo units that come pre-installed units with fairly good compatibility for many drives but not sure where to find them. Like the one tek syndicate showed off a couple weeks ago.

The other hardware I wanted was just a fractal design silent series cases to look proper beside tv and quite with plenty of drives. And as much ram as I can spend for. With maybe a cheaper 960 for quiet and 4k, h265 video capabilities in the near future.

So I would appreciate your input on this matter. Like if going the Linux route would be a good idea or not. Or if the snapshot idea is flawed.

I would really appreciate ideas on more things I can use the server for like maybe game servers but it will have personal files so I don't know how secure that will be.

Thank you.

dom1310df · July 14, 2015

I've just bought an HP G1610T 150W PS ProLiant Gen8 Micro Server and 8GB RAMfor ~ £200. It takes 4 drives and supports RAID. The dual core celeron can be upgraded as it is in a socket. You might be able to fit it into to your price range, then upgrade the CPU and RAM later if you want.

If you want to spend more money there's an Octa-core Avoton (aka atom) motherboard with 12 SATA ports here. This was featured on tek syndicate several months ago; not sure what the recent one was.

DaiGurenMK42 · July 15, 2015

I've just bought an HP G1610T 150W PS ProLiant Gen8 Micro Server and 8GB RAMfor ~ £200. It takes 4 drives and supports RAID. The dual core celeron can be upgraded as it is in a socket. You might be able to fit it into to your price range, then upgrade the CPU and RAM later if you want.

If you want to spend more money there's an Octa-core Avoton (aka atom) motherboard with 12 SATA ports here. This was featured on tek syndicate several months ago; not sure what the recent one was.

Thanks. Will look into it. Hoping Amazon sale today has something like this for low price or at least the harddrive.