I'm thinking of building a nas on a budget

[Hulkbert]

Is it possible to build a nas for under 400 usd? And yes I am keeping my expectations low. I don't know where to start but some pcpp links would be great. 

Edited March 2, 2016 by Hulkbert

[desertcomputer]

With drives no. Drives will cost 3/4 of you that budget. A barebone without drives it possible. I3/8-16GB ram should cost you around 350USD and rest could be spend on case/pus and that is about it. 

[Midnitewarrior4]

5 minutes ago, MrUnknownEMC said:

With drives no. Drives will cost 3/4 of you that budget. A barebone without drives it possible. I3/8-16GB ram should cost you around 350USD and rest could be spend on case/pus and that is about it. 

do you really need 16gb of ram for a simple nas ?

[Midnitewarrior4]

9 minutes ago, Hulkbert said:

Is it possible to build a nas for under 400 usd? And yes I am keeping my expectations low. I don't know where to start but some pcpp links would be great. 

would you want new or used  hardware ? id go new for the storage but other stuff you could get deals on used like a case, ram, stuff like that

[desertcomputer]

Just now, Midnitewarrior4 said:

do you really need 16gb of ram for a simple nas ?

Well, it just rough idea ... personally if you are running ZFS more ram is better 

[desertcomputer]

1 minute ago, Midnitewarrior4 said:

would you want new or used  hardware ? id go new for the storage but other stuff you could get deals on used like a case, ram, stuff like that

Like a old dell optiplex could work great. 

[Midnitewarrior4]

2 minutes ago, MrUnknownEMC said:

Well, it just rough idea ... personally if you are running ZFS more ram is better 

what if he did something like freenas ?

[Midnitewarrior4]

2 minutes ago, MrUnknownEMC said:

Like a old dell optiplex could work great. 

exactly get an old cheapo desktop, go buy whatever wd red or seagate nas drive throw it in with a nas os, and a 1gbps network card if the mobo only supports 100 mega bit

[Hulkbert]

17 minutes ago, Midnitewarrior4 said:

exactly get an old cheapo desktop, go buy whatever wd red or seagate nas drive throw it in with a nas os, and a 1gbps network card if the mobo only supports 100 mega bit

I was thinking of putting free nas on this

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/tw6Kyc

Any suggestions?

[manikyath]

well, i built a NAS for 0 dollars without drives.

 

dumpster diving is love, dumpter diving is life.

[desertcomputer]

13 minutes ago, Hulkbert said:

I was thinking of putting free nas on this

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/tw6Kyc

Any suggestions?

You should use reds drives, they are made for nas and 24/7 operation and also it much quieter and you should get multiple drives to do raid 1/10 in case drives dies etc. 

[Hulkbert]

8 minutes ago, MrUnknownEMC said:

You should use reds drives, they are made for nas and 24/7 operation and also it much quieter and you should get multiple drives to do raid 1/10 in case drives dies etc. 

 

I know I should do a raid config, but I need to stay within my budget. So, should I get lower capacity drives and put them in raid 1 or cut from somewhere else?

[desertcomputer]

3 minutes ago, Hulkbert said:

I know I should do a raid config, but I need to stay within my budget. So, should I get lower capacity drives and put them in raid 1 or cut from somewhere else?

That is fine, but wd black is not good idea. WD reds will be much better (Less vibration) lower power consumption and speed is only marginal slower. I have two WD reds myself and runs really quiet.

[Hulkbert]

6 minutes ago, MrUnknownEMC said:

That is fine, but wd black is not good idea. WD reds will be much better (Less vibration) lower power consumption and speed is only marginal slower. I have two WD reds myself and runs really quiet.

 

 

I was not planning on using black. So should I stick with one 5tb red or two 3tb reds?

[desertcomputer]

47 minutes ago, Hulkbert said:

I was not planning on using black. So should I stick with one 5tb red or two 3tb reds?

Really depend what your needs.

[cazetofamo]

2 hours ago, Hulkbert said:

Is it possible to build a nas for under 400 usd? And yes I am keeping my expectations low. I don't know where to start but some pcpp links would be great. 

 

2 hours ago, MrUnknownEMC said:

With drives no. Drives will cost 3/4 of you that budget. A barebone without drives it possible. I3/8-16GB ram should cost you around 350USD and rest could be spend on case/pus and that is about it. 

 

2 hours ago, MrUnknownEMC said:

Like a old dell optiplex could work great. 

This is exactly what I did. I got an old Optiplex 380MT from my local Goodwill for $40. I got a 1TB WD Blue and installed Rockstor. Total price $90.

 

I plan on upgrading it as I go along, for instance, I would like to replace the stock cooler, that's maybe $30. I'll upgrade the CPU to a Q6600, another $35. I'll throw in another couple fans for say $70, $40 for some more RAM, and I got a pretty good power supply from another optiplex for $6 (yes, it does work just fine). From there, I can add another say, 2TB drive, badaboom another $125. That comes out to just under $400 with 3TB, pretty decent used stuff, and it's all easily upgradable. I'm sure there are a ton of things I can do better, but this is all to prove a point (though I do currently have a $90 NAS in the next room over...)

[Hulkbert]

1 hour ago, cazetofamo said:

 

 

This is exactly what I did. I got an old Optiplex 380MT from my local Goodwill for $40. I got a 1TB WD Blue and installed Rockstor. Total price $90.

 

I plan on upgrading it as I go along, for instance, I would like to replace the stock cooler, that's maybe $30. I'll upgrade the CPU to a Q6600, another $35. I'll throw in another couple fans for say $70, $40 for some more RAM, and I got a pretty good power supply from another optiplex for $6 (yes, it does work just fine). From there, I can add another say, 2TB drive, badaboom another $125. That comes out to just under $400 with 3TB, pretty decent used stuff, and it's all easily upgradable. I'm sure there are a ton of things I can do better, but this is all to prove a point (though I do currently have a $90 NAS in the next room over...)

 

So should I buy this?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-DC7900-Desktop-Computer-4GB-200GB-Intel-E5200-2-5GHz-DVD-Rom-Win-7-Ready-/111922687832?hash=item1a0f1caf58:g:d4sAAOSwPc9W1kK~

and some red drives?

[cazetofamo]

Im not sure if that can hold more than one drive, tbh... The rest of the specs look good though, it's just, that will be a challenge to upgrade cooling and put more than one, maybe two if you remove the disk drive, HDDs in there. Also, I'm pretty sure reds are optimized for NAS servers with several drives, maybe some blacks, imo, but if you think you can make the reds work, go for it!

 

Personally, I wouldn't because of the case size (remember, this thing will be running for long periods of time, cooling is important). Maybe but a pin in it, for a little bit and check out your local FreeGeek/Goodwill/Thrift shop/whatever you've got for something with a little more breathing room.

[Hulkbert]

1 hour ago, cazetofamo said:

 

 

This is exactly what I did. I got an old Optiplex 380MT from my local Goodwill for $40. I got a 1TB WD Blue and installed Rockstor. Total price $90.

 

I plan on upgrading it as I go along, for instance, I would like to replace the stock cooler, that's maybe $30. I'll upgrade the CPU to a Q6600, another $35. I'll throw in another couple fans for say $70, $40 for some more RAM, and I got a pretty good power supply from another optiplex for $6 (yes, it does work just fine). From there, I can add another say, 2TB drive, badaboom another $125. That comes out to just under $400 with 3TB, pretty decent used stuff, and it's all easily upgradable. I'm sure there are a ton of things I can do better, but this is all to prove a point (though I do currently have a $90 NAS in the next room over...)

 

So how is this for a sub 400 nas?

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/nYQL6h

[cazetofamo]

3 minutes ago, Hulkbert said:

So how is this for a sub 400 nas?

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/nYQL6h

It's a pretty solid design, but you left out cooling, so unless there's some fans in the case (I cant tell if it does from its page on part picker), then that can cause problems after some time of continuous use. You may have to sacrifice some HDD space to buy some fans. If you opt for a 4tb Red, you could at least get a CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO, or perhaps a couple fans for exhaust from the case

 

Of course, there's always the option of taking off the side panel and putting a box fan next to it, lol

 

Other than that, it looks great, I actually do really like the case for that price

[neatfreak]

In case you want a pretty decent nas for 250-300 bux which is prebuild and some what upgradable. i can recommend the hp microserver g8. I bought the intel celeron version for 250 bux and upgraded the to a xeon 1230, and upgraded the ram to 16gb ecc memory. im pretty happy with it as my freenas NAS. i got 5x 4tb WD reds in it running day and night.

 

but if you prefer building your own you got more upgradability but if you  are just building one for a little data transfers i dont think you can beat the price of the hp micro server, even if you keep the celeron in it.

[ManWithBeard1990]

Sure you can. The low-end hardware needed for a NAS doesn't run you much money at all. You could go with an Intel Bay Trail board for not much money or grab an AMD AM1-based platform for usually even less. Combined with a (really) cheap case, low-end but still decent PSU and a little bit of RAM, that should leave you with enough money left to grab a couple of hard drives. For the really low-end stuff it's not easy to beat the prebuilts though.

[Raggou]

Depends on your needs, really though it's the drives that are the most expensive part 

[Mikensan]

You could just by an external drive with ethernet like the wd mybook.

[DarkRuskov]

On 2/3/2016 at 8:08 PM, manikyath said:

well, i built a NAS for 0 dollars without drives.

 

dumpster diving is love, dumpter diving is life.

I'm curious, where do you find spots for dumpster diving? for computers and server stuff?