Home Storage Device

[RubberDucky_EN]

Hello everyone!

 

So i have been thinking for a while now that i could really do with a home server kinda thing to manage all of my storage and media that i have, as i'm running out of space on my personal rig, and i don't have much more room in the case for more hard disks. I've been looking for the cheapest way to build my own NAS so that it would have plenty of storage, can you guys help me out as i haven't ever done this before, and i don't really know where to start. Is it just like building a regular PC? 

[Orangeator]

I am curious about this too, posting so I receive updates on this.

[Oshino Shinobu]

In terms of actually building the PC, it is just the same. However, your focus in terms of where you spend your money change compared to a normal PC. What you would need or benefit from will depend on your use for the NAS. If it's literally just file storage for you, then you can get by with a fairly cheap system, but if you've got multiple users and plan on running something like a Plex Server on it as well, then your costs and needs are going to go up. 

The main place you want to focus is the drives. You will want to go for drives that are designed for NAS operation, as NAS environments can kill desktop drives fairly quickly. This is most likely going to be your main cost, as the R&D that goes into NAS drives makes them more expensive. Drives like WD Reds are the ones to consider using. 

Ideally, RAID 5 would be the best option for redundancy and performance, but it requires 3+ drives. RAID 1 may be a more cost effective way of getting some redundancy, as it only requires a minimum of 2 drives to work. 

 

[RubberDucky_EN]

10 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

In terms of actually building the PC, it is just the same. However, your focus in terms of where you spend your money change compared to a normal PC. What you would need or benefit from will depend on your use for the NAS. If it's literally just file storage for you, then you can get by with a fairly cheap system, but if you've got multiple users and plan on running something like a Plex Server on it as well, then your costs and needs are going to go up. 

The main place you want to focus is the drives. You will want to go for drives that are designed for NAS operation, as NAS environments can kill desktop drives fairly quickly. This is most likely going to be your main cost, as the R&D that goes into NAS drives makes them more expensive. Drives like WD Reds are the ones to consider using. 

Ideally, RAID 5 would be the best option for redundancy and performance, but it requires 3+ drives. RAID 1 may be a more cost effective way of getting some redundancy, as it only requires a minimum of 2 drives to work. 

 

Ah right. It would only really be me using the NAS so i doubt that i'd need a super powerful system - what would you say would be a good place to start hardware wise? I'm looking to spend as little as possible while still having a half decent quality NAS. I already have an NZXT Source 530 case spare. It's a little big, but there is a decent area behind the TV where it can sit out of the way. 

 

Edit: Thanks for the help! I really appreciate it.

 

Edit #2: Also, i'm not too worried about having huge RAID arrays, i just want something that will be easy to configure, and that will be dependable, as i'm a beginner, i'd most likely struggle with the more complex end of RAID setups as I've never done anything like this before. I do however have some experience in building PCs. 

[Oshino Shinobu]

2 minutes ago, RubberDucky_EN said:

Ah right. It would only really be me using the NAS so i doubt that i'd need a super powerful system - what would you say would be a good place to start hardware wise? I'm looking to spend as little as possible while still having a half decent quality NAS. I already have an NZXT Source 530 case spare. It's a little big, but there is a decent area behind the TV where it can sit out of the way. 

 

Edit: Thanks for the help! I really appreciate it.

How much storage space would you be wanting? Also, got a rough idea of a budget? It's kind of hard to create a part list without one. 

[paddy-stone]

How many people will be sharing files on the NAS you want to build?

 

For me personally I only have a WD mycloud 3TB which only cost approx £120, but as I am the main person in the house and nobody else streams media from it only loads files onto it occassionally, then this is all I need ATM, in fact I have done a test a few times and seen how many people can be streaming in HD at a time from this before it starts to overwhelm it, and have gotten 4 people streaming the same file. Not to say that it would do that all the time, but for the 20 min test it streamed fine until a 5th person accessed it and then the movie became stuttery.

[RubberDucky_EN]

Just now, Oshino Shinobu said:

How much storage space would you be wanting? Also, got a rough idea of a budget? It's kind of hard to create a part list without one. 

I currently have about 2tb of data on disks, however i'd like some expandability for the future, hence why i haven't gone straight for a dedicated NAS box from Netgear or whatever. Also, i'd like some experience with making my own NAS. I don't entirely have a specific budget, but id like it to be £300 or below ideally. I'm sorry if that is a bit far fetched, it was a rough guess, as i have absolutely no idea how much custom built NAS systems cost.. 

[RubberDucky_EN]

Just now, paddy-stone said:

How many people will be sharing files on the NAS you want to build?

 

For me personally I only have a WD mycloud 3TB which only cost approx £120, but as I am the main person in the house and nobody else streams media from it only loads files onto it occassionally, then this is all I need ATM, in fact I have done a test a few times and seen how many people can be streaming in HD at a time from this before it starts to overwhelm it, and have gotten 4 people streaming the same file. Not to say that it would do that all the time, but for the 20 min test it streamed fine until a 5th person accessed it and then the movie became stuttery.

I'd most likely be the only user. I was going to buy a prebuilt NAS, but i'd like to build my own, and also i'd like it to be expandable for the future, and you're quite limited with those NAS Boxes in that aspect.

[paddy-stone]

No, this has USB 3.0 port also to expand the storage.. but yes I get where you are coming from. I looked into this every year for the past 10 years pretty much and it's always been a bit too expensive for my needs. The storage alone would cost in excess of £200 assuming just 2x 3TB disks, so then you have to add case/psu/mobo/cpu/RAM etc, my current build log and using low end stuff even still comes out at approx £5-600, so for me is not worth it right now. I could use parts from my old PCs that I have lying around, but then I don't want the noise factor that would bring in to it. So for now will happily sit with having a WD mycloud and expanding as needed.. I do have to make sure I have redundancy though by also copying important files to an external USB every now and then in case the WDmycloud goes tit-up, but hope that won't happen for a while.

[RubberDucky_EN]

Just now, paddy-stone said:

No, this has USB 3.0 port also to expand the storage.. but yes I get where you are coming from. I looked into this every year for the past 10 years pretty much and it's always been a bit too expensive for my needs. The storage alone would cost in excess of £200 assuming just 2x 3TB disks, so then you have to add case/psu/mobo/cpu/RAM etc, my current build log and using low end stuff even still comes out at approx £5-600, so for me is not worth it right now. I could use parts from my old PCs that I have lying around, but then I don't want the noise factor that would bring in to it. So for now will happily sit with having a WD mycloud and expanding as needed.. I do have to make sure I have redundancy though by also copying important files to an external USB every now and then in case the WDmycloud goes tit-up, but hope that won't happen for a while.

I see where you are coming from, but i do have several spare parts laying around that would cut cost.. The main cost would be drives assuming that the hardware didn't have to be high spec.

[paddy-stone]

Yeah, it's all going to be a case of what you can live with.. for me noise is a constant irritant that will not be tolerated, lol. Not to mention space is a factor too.. can't really re-use the cases I have as those are too big, PSu too noisy, I could re-use my old CPU with a newer heatsink and fan to lower the noise, but it's an AMD 1150t 6 core, so a bit overkill there and also will  be drawing too much power.

 

Good luck with your build man, will be following this thread cos interested, so let me know how you're getting on and if I can suggest something or help in any way then I will

[Oshino Shinobu]

3 minutes ago, RubberDucky_EN said:

I currently have about 2tb of data on disks, however i'd like some expandability for the future, hence why i haven't gone straight for a dedicated NAS box from Netgear or whatever. Also, i'd like some experience with making my own NAS. I don't entirely have a specific budget, but id like it to be £300 or below ideally. I'm sorry if that is a bit far fetched, it was a rough guess, as i have absolutely no idea how much custom built NAS systems cost.. 

I've created a few possible systems for you (different storage configurations)
 

1) £240. Good CPU for a NAS (much better than the weak ones in a prebuilt), decent board with Gigabit NIC, 8GB RAM (minimum for ZFS), decent PSU. A single 3TB WD Red gives you about an additional 1TB of room for more data, but no redundancy. Would definitely advise backing important data up on an external drive. 

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/n8RtwP

2) £285 Single 4TB drive for more storage, but again, no redundancy. 

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/g8RtwP

 

3) £330 Two 3TB WD Red drives, which allows you to have them set up in a RAID 1 array, so you have 3TB of storage with redundancy, so if one drive fails, you lose no data. 

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/6ns7f7

In terms of value, the WD Red 3TB drives are the sweet spot. They're not much more than the 2TB models, and they're a fair bit cheaper than the 4TB model. 

My personal choice would be the 3rd option out of those, but it depends on your budget. If you're not as fussed about data loss, then you could just have both of the 3TB drives as independent disks for a total of 6TB of storage. Definitely wouldn't have them in RAID 0, though, as if you lose one drive, you'd lose all data on both drives. 

For the OS, I would recommend FreeNAS. It's free (hence the name), has a fairly large community of developers, so there's lots of support for third party apps like Plex. It supports ZFS (requires at least 8GB of RAM) and is fairly easy to get started up with. You will be needing a dedicated drive to run FreeNAS on, though, as it will take up the entire capacity of any drive you install it on. A 16GB or so USB stick can run it just fine, or a small, cheap SSD. 

[RubberDucky_EN]

1 minute ago, paddy-stone said:

Yeah, it's all going to be a case of what you can live with.. for me noise is a constant irritant that will not be tolerated, lol. Not to mention space is a factor too.. can't really re-use the cases I have as those are too big, PSu too noisy, I could re-use my old CPU with a newer heatsink and fan to lower the noise, but it's an AMD 1150t 6 core, so a bit overkill there and also will  be drawing too much power.

 

Good luck with your build man, will be following this thread cos interested, so let me know how you're getting on and if I can suggest something or help in any way then I will

For sure! I have a spare AM3+ motherboard, so i might see what i can do with that. For me, noise shouldn't be that much of an issue, as it will be behind the TV and the sound of the speakers should drown it out. I also have some nice spare corsair fans that should do, and a spare 500w PSU that isn't that loud. Luckily for me, my spare GPU is so high spec that it doesn't have a fan so that won't be an issue. The only things i really need are HDDs, a CPU, and RAM unless i choose to make a new system, just that to start with, i wasn't sure if i'd need specialized hardware.

[RubberDucky_EN]

1 minute ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

I've created a few possible systems for you (different storage configurations)
 

1) £240. Good CPU for a NAS (much better than the weak ones in a prebuilt), decent board with Gigabit NIC, 8GB RAM (minimum for ZFS), decent PSU. A single 3TB WD Red gives you about an additional 1TB of room for more data, but no redundancy. Would definitely advise backing important data up on an external drive. 

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/n8RtwP

2) £285 Single 4TB drive for more storage, but again, no redundancy. 

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/g8RtwP

 

3) £330 Two 3TB WD Red drives, which allows you to have them set up in a RAID 1 array, so you have 3TB of storage with redundancy, so if one drive fails, you lose no data. 

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/6ns7f7

In terms of value, the WD Red 3TB drives are the sweet spot. They're not much more than the 2TB models, and they're a fair bit cheaper than the 4TB model. 

My personal choice would be the 3rd option out of those, but it depends on your budget. If you're not as fussed about data loss, then you could just have both of the 3TB drives as independent disks for a total of 6TB of storage. Definitely wouldn't have them in RAID 0, though, as if you lose one drive, you'd lose all data on both drives. 

For the OS, I would recommend FreeNAS. It's free (hence the name), has a fairly large community of developers, so there's lots of support for third party apps like Plex. It supports ZFS (requires at least 8GB of RAM) and is fairly easy to get started up with. You will be needing a dedicated drive to run FreeNAS on, though, as it will take up the entire capacity of any drive you install it on. A 16GB or so USB stick can run it just fine, or a small, cheap SSD. 

Damn, thanks man! I'll copy paste that to a notepad, as i will definitely be using those options. I'm not sure whether to do a blend of spare parts and new ones, or just straight up buy new ones, so i'll have to give that some thought, but i'll definitely be keeping these options in mind. i really appreciate your help! I'll be sure to make another thread when it all comes together so you guys can see it

[Oshino Shinobu]

Just now, RubberDucky_EN said:

Damn, thanks man! I'll copy paste that to a notepad, as i will definitely be using those options. I'm not sure whether to do a blend of spare parts and new ones, or just straight up buy new ones, so i'll have to give that some thought, but i'll definitely be keeping these options in mind. i really appreciate your help! I'll be sure to make another thread when it all comes together so you guys can see it

I see you mentioned that you have a spare AM3+ board. While you could use it, the power draw from any of the readily available CPUs (there are some Athlon CPUs around pre-owned, but not new) is going to be pretty high, as the majority of the ones still available are FX series chips, which also lack an iGPU, so you'd be needing a dedicated graphics card for video output. 

If you have a spare PSU, then you can save some money by using that. You may also be able to save some money by selling your Source 530 and buying a cheaper (maybe mATX) case. You could get some foam material and line the side panels to reduce noise. 

If I was going to recommend a system that allows for good future expansion, I would go for this:

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor  (£91.98 @ Ebuyer) 
Motherboard: ASRock E3C222D4U Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£117.60 @ More Computers) 
Memory: Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£88.73 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£87.99 @ Ebuyer) 
Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£87.99 @ Ebuyer) 
Case: NZXT Source 530 ATX Full Tower Case  (Purchased For £0.00) 
Power Supply: Antec EarthWatts Green 380W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (£42.60 @ Amazon UK) 
Total: £516.89
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-19 17:18 GMT+0000

 

Has a hyperthreaded CPU, full ECC support (board and CPU work with the ECC RAM), room for more drives. 

[RubberDucky_EN]

1 minute ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

I see you mentioned that you have a spare AM3+ board. While you could use it, the power draw from any of the readily available CPUs (there are some Athlon CPUs around pre-owned, but not new) is going to be pretty high, as the majority of the ones still available are FX series chips, which also lack an iGPU, so you'd be needing a dedicated graphics card for video output. 

If you have a spare PSU, then you can save some money by using that. You may also be able to save some money by selling your Source 530 and buying a cheaper (maybe mATX) case. You could get some foam material and line the side panels to reduce noise. 

If I was going to recommend a system that allows for good future expansion, I would go for this:

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor  (£91.98 @ Ebuyer) 
Motherboard: ASRock E3C222D4U Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£117.60 @ More Computers) 
Memory: Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£88.73 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£87.99 @ Ebuyer) 
Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£87.99 @ Ebuyer) 
Case: NZXT Source 530 ATX Full Tower Case  (Purchased For £0.00) 
Power Supply: Antec EarthWatts Green 380W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  (£42.60 @ Amazon UK) 
Total: £516.89
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-02-19 17:18 GMT+0000

 

Has a hyperthreaded CPU, full ECC support (board and CPU work with the ECC RAM), room for more drives. 

Yeah, this was the main reason why i hadn't thrown that stuff together, i want the home server to consume as little power as i can, and AMD are pretty bad at power consumption in comparison with similar spec Intel chips. I was considering going for the first option you spoke about above, as it is cheap but still allows for more expansion. I'd like to try and avoid more expensive builds for the time being, as this is my first time, and if all goes well, i'll most likely build a higher spec one and give this to a family member. Not too sure of it all yet, but i'd like to avoid added prices where possible for now.