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Help building a cheap nas

Tasuma
By Tasuma
in New Builds and Planning
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As the title says. I am thinking about building a nas for myself. Just to keep school work, movies, and such on. No idea where to start. Should I just go with an i3 and low end 1150 motherboard? I'd prefer it to be an ITX form factor. :D 

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https://linustechtips.com/topic/484235-help-building-a-cheap-nas/
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Do you already have some parts or are you starting from scratch?

If you want my attention, quote meh! D: or just stick an @samcool55 in your post :3

Spying on everyone to fight against terrorism is like shooting a mosquito with a cannon

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As the title says. I am thinking about building a nas for myself. Just to keep school work, movies, and such on. No idea where to start. Should I just go with an i3 and low end 1150 motherboard? I'd prefer it to be an ITX form factor. :D

What's your budget?

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As the title says. I am thinking about building a nas for myself. Just to keep school work, movies, and such on. No idea where to start. Should I just go with an i3 and low end 1150 motherboard? I'd prefer it to be an ITX form factor. :D

How much are you looking to spend?

TX10 Build Log: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/456229-tx10-build-log/

Case: TX10-D   Proccessor: i7-5820k   MotherBoard: Asrockx99 Extreme4   Ram: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (DDR4-2400)   GPU: Asus Strix OC 980ti   Storage: 850pro 500gb, 850pro 500gb, 850pro 256gb, WD black 16tb total, Silicon Power S60 120GB   PSU: Seasonic snow silent 1050   Monitors: Three of Asus VG248QE 144Hz 24.0"

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How much are you looking to spend?

 

What's your budget?

 

If possible no more than $500ish. If it comes to $550 or so that is ok but would prefer it not too. :)

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Link: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/dbYX8d

 

Case: Cooler Master Elite 130 Mini ITX Tower
Motherboard: MSI H81I
Processor: Intel Core i3 4170
CPU Cooler: Stock
RAM: Kingston HyperX (1x4GB)
Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 5400RPM
PSU: *Your Power Supply*

 

Total: $389.46

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If possible no more than $500ish. If it comes to $550 or so that is ok but would prefer it not too. :)

Would you like redundancy or just one drive? 

TX10 Build Log: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/456229-tx10-build-log/

Case: TX10-D   Proccessor: i7-5820k   MotherBoard: Asrockx99 Extreme4   Ram: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (DDR4-2400)   GPU: Asus Strix OC 980ti   Storage: 850pro 500gb, 850pro 500gb, 850pro 256gb, WD black 16tb total, Silicon Power S60 120GB   PSU: Seasonic snow silent 1050   Monitors: Three of Asus VG248QE 144Hz 24.0"

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Would you like redundancy or just one drive? 

 

One drive should be fine. Nothing major is being kept on it. I keep numerous copies of school work as is. Emailing my self to 3 accounts, flash drives, external drives, etc. 

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One drive should be fine. Nothing major is being kept on it. I keep numerous copies of school work as is. Emailing my self to 3 accounts, flash drives, external drives, etc. 

What os will you be using?

 

 

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2r8Zpg
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2r8Zpg/by_merchant/
 
CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($112.99 @ NCIX US) 
Motherboard: MSI H81I Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($62.99 @ Directron) 
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory  ($42.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($149.00 @ B&H) 
Case: Cooler Master Elite 130 Mini ITX Tower Case  ($43.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Total: $411.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-13 10:23 EST-0500
 
or 
 
 
PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/4Jdqt6
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/4Jdqt6/by_merchant/
 
CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($189.88 @ OutletPC) 
Motherboard: MSI H81I Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($62.99 @ Directron) 
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory  ($42.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($149.00 @ B&H) 
Case: Cooler Master Elite 130 Mini ITX Tower Case  ($43.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Total: $488.85
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-13 10:24 EST-0500

TX10 Build Log: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/456229-tx10-build-log/

Case: TX10-D   Proccessor: i7-5820k   MotherBoard: Asrockx99 Extreme4   Ram: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (DDR4-2400)   GPU: Asus Strix OC 980ti   Storage: 850pro 500gb, 850pro 500gb, 850pro 256gb, WD black 16tb total, Silicon Power S60 120GB   PSU: Seasonic snow silent 1050   Monitors: Three of Asus VG248QE 144Hz 24.0"

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What os will you be using?

 

 

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2r8Zpg
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2r8Zpg/by_merchant/
 
CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($112.99 @ NCIX US) 
Motherboard: MSI H81I Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($62.99 @ Directron) 
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory  ($42.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($149.00 @ B&H) 
Case: Cooler Master Elite 130 Mini ITX Tower Case  ($43.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Total: $411.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-13 10:23 EST-0500

 

Why would he need 8GB of Vram for his NAS?

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What os will you be using?

 

 

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2r8Zpg
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2r8Zpg/by_merchant/
 
CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($112.99 @ NCIX US) 
Motherboard: MSI H81I Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($62.99 @ Directron) 
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory  ($42.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($149.00 @ B&H) 
Case: Cooler Master Elite 130 Mini ITX Tower Case  ($43.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Total: $411.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-13 10:23 EST-0500

 

 

No clue on OS. Was thinking free nas or just some linux distro. 

 

@RaptorCandy I know free nas says 8gb for their minimum and why not? Ram is cheap so couldn't hurt. 

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Why would he need 8GB of Vram for his NAS?

He just gave me the reason.. FreeNAS

 

No clue on OS. Was thinking free nas or just some linux distro. 

FreeNAS is an amazing os. Just make sure you dont overdo the options especially with only 8gigs of ram. I have multiple freenas machines and they sure do go through some ram 

TX10 Build Log: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/456229-tx10-build-log/

Case: TX10-D   Proccessor: i7-5820k   MotherBoard: Asrockx99 Extreme4   Ram: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (DDR4-2400)   GPU: Asus Strix OC 980ti   Storage: 850pro 500gb, 850pro 500gb, 850pro 256gb, WD black 16tb total, Silicon Power S60 120GB   PSU: Seasonic snow silent 1050   Monitors: Three of Asus VG248QE 144Hz 24.0"

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Do you already have some parts or are you starting from scratch?

Just a question: why build, if you can have an off-shelf solution for a percentage of your budget: 2-bay for ~150$ and 4-bay for ~200-250$ + drives?

 

Especially given that you aren't going to have lots of room to expand your FreeNAS box using ITX motherboard and case... 

 

It will also consume less power (trust me, I'm running several NASes, this shit adds up quickly), and you won't have to configure anything. Moreover, you aren't going to use it as a rendering output volume or something, so you don't really need God-knows-what speeds...

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Just a question: why build, if you can have an off-shelf solution for a percentage of your budget: 2-bay for ~150$ and 4-bay for ~200-250$ + drives?

 

Especially given that you aren't going to have lots of room to expand your FreeNAS box using ITX motherboard and case... 

 

It will also consume less power (trust me, I'm running several NASes, this shit adds up quickly), and you won't have to configure anything. Moreover, you aren't going to use it as a rendering output volume or something, so you don't really need God-knows-what speeds...

Because it's a lazy way and you can't really tinker with it afterwards.

With a custom-build NAS you can do whatever you want with it when you don't like it anymore or just changing the use of it completely.

Put a cheap gbit lan network card and you can change it's useage to a pfsense box if he gets bored with a nas. Or a PXE box or whatever.

If you want my attention, quote meh! D: or just stick an @samcool55 in your post :3

Spying on everyone to fight against terrorism is like shooting a mosquito with a cannon

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Because it's a lazy way and you can't really tinker with it afterwards.

With a custom-build NAS you can do whatever you want with it when you don't like it anymore or just changing the use of it completely.

Put a cheap gbit lan network card and you can change it's useage to a pfsense box if he gets bored with a nas. Or a PXE box or whatever.

 

But it's also far more expensive. I know the advantages of a FreeNAS box, as I said, I'm running a few of them. But:

 

1) doing them on budget is basically asking for trouble. No ECC support, lack of expandability in the future, but primarily unsupported NICs and so on can become a big headache. There are guidelines to building such boxes, it's really worth following them.

 

2) One drive means no redundancy anyway, so you're basically running a full-fledged PC, running a system able to take dozens of drives in ZFS arrays, just to power one drive - something which a network-enabled enclosure can do. Not to mention you can get standalone NASes that can certainly run standard Linux distributions and so on. (Thecus N5200 for example).

 

3) Power consumption is still an issue. Unless you're going to build a box using Atom motherboards, you're going to see significant numbers. ;)

 

Seriously, I get it, building is fun and you can do a lot of stuff with it, but there are times where building is advisable, and there are times where it is not. Running an own FreeNAS server with a single drive with almost no room to expand it in the future, on probably not-fully supported hardware (Realtek NIC for example) is - at least for me - pointless. 

 

Also, you might say it's probably going to be OK. Yeah, but I wouldn't bet 500$ on probably, where I could get the same thing for $150 (or cheaper!) and be 100% certain it will work.

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