Building a NAS; ideas and suggestions welcome

[BlueWiszard]

I've been looking into building a NAS in the near future, and need ideas and pointers on how to do so. As far as I'm aware, it is almost no different from building a "regular" PC; you just need a couple of NAS drives and set up RAID of your choice that will work with your number of drives, though I could be horribly wrong.

Any pointers on extra expansion cards, modifications, how-to's, and anything else really are welcome.

 

***Full System Build Specs for NAS as of now***

Fractal Design 804 Node MATX case

Intel i3 6100

ASUS H110M-A motherboard

Hyper-X 8GB memory

Samsung 120GB M.2 SSD

WesternDigital Red 3TBx2 mass storage (also looking at the Seagate Ironwolf drives)

 

 

[gtx1060=value]

that's really how easy it is, i use a custom nas software for databases, but you could use the ubuntu-linux based version of a nas - you might not even need a raid card, im pretty sure there's a software that allows you to use raid without a raid card. Also, you need to set the 120gb ssd as a cache drive - not a data drive - that's very important

[Arty]

Don't use windows backup on the same drive as your OS, you will want to cry.......

[BlueWiszard]

1 minute ago, gtx1060=value said:

that's really how easy it is, i use a custom nas software for databases, but you could use the ubuntu-linux based version of a nas - you might not even need a raid card, im pretty sure there's a software that allows you to use raid without a raid card. Also, you need to set the 120gb ssd as a cache drive - not a data drive - that's very important

What would an example of that type of OS be? I've heard of Ubuntu and Mint, but those are the only Linux/Unix OS's I know of (aside from Mac OS being Unix)

Set the SSD as a cache drive w/ OS of choice on it?

[BlueWiszard]

Just now, Arty said:

Don't use windows backup on the same drive as your OS, you will want to cry.......

I wouldn't want to have Windows back anything up without explicit permission anyway, and for that matter at all in the case of a NAS.

**I don't like crying**

[Electronics Wizardy]

Id suggest a premade nas from some one like synology, there easier to use, much lower power, smaller, and cheaper.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, BlueWiszard said:

What would an example of that type of OS be? I've heard of Ubuntu and Mint, but those are the only Linux/Unix OS's I know of (aside from Mac OS being Unix)

Set the SSD as a cache drive w/ OS of choice on it?

SSD cache wont help with gig.

 

FreeNAS, Openfilier, Nas4Free, rockstor are all good options if you want it premade.

 

If you want to configure it yourself, id get centos and then setup whatever raid and shares you would like.

[Arty]

1 minute ago, BlueWiszard said:

I wouldn't want to have Windows back anything up without explicit permission anyway, and for that matter at all in the case of a NAS.

**I don't like crying**

ah, i have my main pc backup to my nas, just in case it failed. 

[bgibbz]

That is a bit overkill for NAS. I would use a haswell based Celeron or pentium, paired up with ddr3 ram, then put in a solid NIC, 2x3 tb drives in raid 1, and 64gb flash drive with free nas on it. 

[BlueWiszard]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id suggest a premade nas from some one like synology, there easier to use, much lower power, smaller, and cheaper.

I've considered pre-made NAS's, but I want to take the challenge and make my life easy in the event of a drive going out (replace an $80USD drive vs a pre-made NAS of the same storage capacity). Though I could be wrong about the "make my life easy" part, unless I add a method of hot-swapping the drives in the event of a failure.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, BlueWiszard said:

I've considered pre-made NAS's, but I want to take the challenge and make my life easy in the event of a drive going out (replace an $80USD drive vs a pre-made NAS of the same storage capacity). Though I could be wrong about the "make my life easy" part, unless I add a method of hot-swapping the drives in the event of a failure.

You can change drives in a premade nas, and normally then don't come with drives.

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 minutes ago, bgibbz said:

2x3 tb drives in raid 0,

Your brave buddy.

[BlueWiszard]

1 minute ago, bgibbz said:

That is a bit overkill for NAS. I would use a haswell based Celeron or pentium, paired up with ddr3 ram, then put in a solid NIC, 2x3 tb drives in raid 0, and 64gb flash drive with free nas on it. 

I chose the i3 just as an extra buffer for bigger files and it's not overly expensive.

I do appreciate the pointer on the NIC, RAID 0, and flash drive solution though. I didn't even think about a NIC or the flash drive.

[BlueWiszard]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Your brave buddy.

Which RAID would work best in a 2x drive config? RAID 1?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, BlueWiszard said:

Which RAID would work best in a 2x drive config? RAID 1?

Yep, or Id get more and go 5

[BlueWiszard]

4 minutes ago, Arty said:

ah, i have my main pc backup to my nas, just in case it failed. 

Oh, I see what you're saying a little better in your first post. That makes more sense now.

[bgibbz]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Your brave buddy.

Mistype  I should stop using the forum on mobile so much! Raid 1 ofc, raid 0 is pointless on a NAS due to network speed limitations. 

[BlueWiszard]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

Yep, or Id get more and go 5

So possibly do 4x 2TB drives and go RAID 5? (4x2TB was my alternative option for storage)

[bgibbz]

3 minutes ago, BlueWiszard said:

I chose the i3 just as an extra buffer for bigger files and it's not overly expensive.

I do appreciate the pointer on the NIC, RAID 0, and flash drive solution though. I didn't even think about a NIC or the flash drive.

See my above post on the raid 0

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, BlueWiszard said:

So possibly do 4x 2TB drives and go RAID 5? (4x2TB was my alternative option for storage)

Yea, id probably go with that.

[BlueWiszard]

1 minute ago, bgibbz said:

See my above post on the raid 0

I know Pentium is a step down from i3, but how much would that impact the system in terms of writing to the disks? On small files I'm not concerned at all, it's bigger files I'm not to bent on the idea of a Pentium for.

[Electronics Wizardy]

6 minutes ago, BlueWiszard said:

I chose the i3 just as an extra buffer for bigger files and it's not overly expensive.

I do appreciate the pointer on the NIC, RAID 0, and flash drive solution though. I didn't even think about a NIC or the flash drive.

Built in nic is fine.

 

Cpu is overkill for a nas. Even a bottom of the line celeron will be more than enough.

 

A 4 or 8gb usb will be fine. You can install linux to a usb if you wan.t

[bgibbz]

Just now, BlueWiszard said:

I know Pentium is a step down from i3, but how much would that impact the system in terms of writing to the disks? On small files I'm not concerned at all, it's bigger files I'm not to bent on the idea of a Pentium for.

It won't. Disk write times are determined by hdd interface (Sata) and network interface. If you are concerned about write speed, don't use raid 5. 

[BlueWiszard]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Built in nic is fine.

 

Cpu is overkill for a nas. Even a bottom of the line celeron will be more than enough.

 

A 4 or 8gb usb will be fine. You can install linux to a usb if you wan.t

So let me get this all straight;

I'd be perfectly ok using a celeron or pentium, 4GB of RAM then should be fine, rest of the build is adequate, and just use a small USB w/ a form of linux for OS?

[BlueWiszard]

3 minutes ago, bgibbz said:

It won't. Disk write times are determined by hdd interface (Sata) and network interface. If you are concerned about write speed, don't use raid 5. 

If the only drawback to RAID 5 is write speed but is the safest choice of RAID 0, 1, and 5, I'll stick with the slower write speeds and have a better ease of mind. I thought that the cpu had some sort of relevance with read/writing.