Home Nas Hardware

[Bakerking31]

I am looking at building a home NAS to store my media collection and more importantly my growing photography collection (a hobby not a business).  For software I was going to try Unraid with their free trial once the system is built due to the expandability of the system, but if I don't like it I would just use FreeNas.  I have built many computers but never built a NAS before.  This will be used at home with a network of 3 computers, 2 are used just for TV shows which will be streamed from the NAS, 1 will be for photo editing which also will be streamed from the NAS.  The likelihood of multiple reads off the NAS at once is small, it almost always will be one of the 3 reading at once not two or all 3.

 

My requirements of the system:

- Saturate the Gb LAN

- have 1 disk of parity (will run raid5 equivalent)

- Be as inexpensive as reasonable

 

I currently have 2 3tb 7200rpm hard drives I am keeping the data on.  I plan on using these on a separate machine as a backup for my important data/photos with a monthly backup until no space is left then overwriting (at my current data rate I would be able to keep about a year and a half of backup on those drives).  For this reason I am not going with ECC ram/mobo.

 

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/j3B7Z8
 

Updated as often as possible.

CPU: Intel Pentium G4400 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($57.33 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Asus H170M-PLUS Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($109.17 @ Amazon)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($54.80 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($106.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($106.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($106.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Fractal Design Define Mini MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 350W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($38.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Other: PNY Elite-X Fit 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive - Read Speeds up to 200MB/sec (P-FDI32GEXFIT-GE)  ($20.52 @ Amazon)
Other: Power Cable ($2.54)
Total: $664.31
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

 

I think I included everything needed, any suggestions?

 

Alternate is a TS140 with the hard drives added in and more ram.  Not as much fun but maybe more practical?

[joshfrog]

If you could add a 2nd gigabit ethernet may help if your finding that the network speed sucks when streaming to your other computers. And you may want to look at running freenas off a usb 3 drive with better reads but its not totaly needed. Freenas is light weight enough you could be fine with usb 2. Your hardware otherwise should be good just remember fan to keep your hard drives cool.

[tt2468]

I would swap the g4560 for a g4400, swap the ga-h170m-ds3h for an asus h170m-plus, and get 2x 4GB sticks of ram. 16GB is way overkill for only 9TB of storage. The reason to swap the mobo is because the asus one has intel lan, and I use it for my own NAS, so I know for a fact it's very good. The g4560 is very overkill, as I use the g4400 with 10Gb networking, and transfers don't bring the cpu over 50% load, so 1Gb transfers for you will use even less CPU.

[Bakerking31]

11 minutes ago, tt2468 said:

I would swap the g4560 for a g4400, swap the ga-h170m-ds3h for an asus h170m-plus, and get 2x 4GB sticks of ram. 16GB is way overkill for only 9TB of storage. The reason to swap the mobo is because the asus one has intel lan, and I use it for my own NAS, so I know for a fact it's very good. The g4560 is very overkill, as I use the g4400 with 10Gb networking, and transfers don't bring the cpu over 50% load, so 1Gb transfers for you will use even less CPU.

I had been looking through so many Motherboards I completely missed this one didn't have an Intel Lan.  Thank you

 

I am thinking with the MOBO change it would only be an extra $10 to get a dual Gb LAN using this board.  It is also Intel LAN and still has 6 SATA ports.  Downside is its ITX so less expandability (which I don't know if i need)

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128983  GIGABYTE GA-H270N-WIFI (rev. 1.0) LGA 1151

 

current list ... the price for the flash drive is wrong just because of shipping.  Should be $12

 

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/dBRM6X
 

CPU: Intel Pentium G4400 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($57.33 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Asus H170M-PLUS Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($109.17 @ Amazon)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($54.80 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($106.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($106.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($106.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Fractal Design Define Mini MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 350W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($38.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Other: PNY Elite-X Fit 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive - Read Speeds up to 200MB/sec (P-FDI32GEXFIT-GE)  ($20.52 @ Amazon)
Other: Power Cable ($2.54)
Total: $664.31
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

[tt2468]

On 2/6/2017 at 3:03 PM, Bakerking31 said:

I had been looking through so many Motherboards I completely missed this one didn't have an Intel Lan.  Thank you

 

I am thinking with the MOBO change it would only be an extra $10 to get a dual Gb LAN using this board.  It is also Intel LAN and still has 6 SATA ports.  Downside is its ITX so less expandability (which I don't know if i need)

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128983  GIGABYTE GA-H270N-WIFI (rev. 1.0) LGA 1151

 

current list ... the price for the flash drive is wrong just because of shipping.  Should be $12

 

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/dBRM6X
 

CPU: Intel Pentium G4400 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($57.33 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Asus H170M-PLUS Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($109.17 @ Amazon)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($54.80 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($106.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($106.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($106.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Fractal Design Define Mini MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 350W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($38.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Other: PNY Elite-X Fit 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive - Read Speeds up to 200MB/sec (P-FDI32GEXFIT-GE)  ($20.52 @ Amazon)
Other: Power Cable ($2.54)
Total: $664.31
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Don't get the gigabyte board. Stick with the asus. Here is an under $10 intel nic from ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Intel-PRO-1000-PT-SINGLE-PORT-GIGABIT-ETHERNET-PCIe-NIC-Card-U3867-/142267577943

 

I have purchases 2 of these and they work flawlessly.

[Bakerking31]

4 minutes ago, tt2468 said:

Don't get the gigabyte board. Stick with the asus. Here is an under $10 intel nic from ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Intel-PRO-1000-PT-SINGLE-PORT-GIGABIT-ETHERNET-PCIe-NIC-Card-U3867-/142267577943

 

I have purchases 2 of these and they work flawlessly.

Thanks, this might be a stupid question but ... If I find that the 1 built in Gb LAN is not enough to support the 2-3 computers streaming (which I doubt), I can add an additional Intel NIC like the one you posted and it will allow me to load level the data between the 2? 

[tt2468]

On 2/6/2017 at 3:12 PM, Bakerking31 said:

Thanks, this might be a stupid question but ... If I find that the 1 built in Gb LAN is not enough to support the 2-3 computers streaming (which I doubt), I can add an additional Intel NIC like the one you posted and it will allow me to load level the data between the 2? 

Yes, you can use something called LACP, which aggregates multiple connections into one "virtual" connection. Both the server, and the switch it's connected to need to support LACP, and the direct 1 to 1 speed from server to client is only as fast as the fastest physical connection. It works great though for multiple clients hitting one server.