Silent NAS build discussion.

[SlimeyStuff]

Hello World!

I've been thinking of building a small NAS for myself but using server-grade equipment is way too loud as I don't have a seperate room to put it in. So I've been playing with the thought of building one of, let's say Raspberry pies or the new (and more powerful) ASUS Tinker Board. 
What do you guys think of this? Is it possible to get okay performance? Is it possible to build a cluster or something with them to get more performance? Anyone got experience with this? Is there a better way of doing it?

Cheers!

[Corez]

If your planning on steaming HD movies from it a Raspberry Pi might not be what you want. The Pi uses a USB powered 10/100 network card (seems to cap at about 40mbps) and the processer has support for 1 USB 2.0 port with has a USB Hub on the Pi itself. You most likely will want more storage which means an external USB HDD so your both downloading from USB and upload to USB.

 

The Tinker Board would probably be a better option, as would the Orange Pi Plus2 (which has a SATA interface and gigabit networking).

 

I built myself a server out of desktop parts with overkill cooling so it was fairly quite. Something based around a mobo with CPU soldered onto it like the Gigabyte GA-N3050M-D3P could be interesting (2 SATA ports and full size PCIe slot for an extra SATA card if you wish).

 

But if all your doing is saving documents to a folder RasPi would be fine, so it depends what you want to use it for.

[dalekphalm]

39 minutes ago, SlimeyStuff said:

Hello World!

I've been thinking of building a small NAS for myself but using server-grade equipment is way too loud as I don't have a seperate room to put it in. So I've been playing with the thought of building one of, let's say Raspberry pies or the new (and more powerful) ASUS Tinker Board. 
What do you guys think of this? Is it possible to get okay performance? Is it possible to build a cluster or something with them to get more performance? Anyone got experience with this? Is there a better way of doing it?

Cheers!

You can build a powerful and quiet NAS using off-the-shelf consumer components. No need to do a Pi build.

 

Depending on your needs, get yourself something like an i3 + ITX board, stick it in a small case with some low RPM fans (120mm or 140mm - bigger is better). Throw in a smaller PSU (enough to handle however many HDD's you plan to run - probably 500W or smaller), and bam, very quiet build.

[SlimeyStuff]

8 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

You can build a powerful and quiet NAS using off-the-shelf consumer components. No need to do a Pi build.

 

Depending on your needs, get yourself something like an i3 + ITX board, stick it in a small case with some low RPM fans (120mm or 140mm - bigger is better). Throw in a smaller PSU (enough to handle however many HDD's you plan to run - probably 500W or smaller), and bam, very quiet build.

Thanks for the reply!
But do ya think it will be quiet enough? My plan is to sleep in the same room as the thing so it needs to be 99% quiet.

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, SlimeyStuff said:

Thanks for the reply!
But do ya think it will be quiet enough? My plan is to sleep in the same room as the thing so it needs to be 99% quiet.

You could build a very quiet machine, yes. Obviously I cannot say what is "quiet" enough for you, as that's 100% subjective.

 

But if you take a low power i3 or similar, mix it with some silence optimized fans, add on a quiet after-market cooler, and tweak the fan profile (or use a fan controller), you will probably not hear it running while in the same room.

[SlimeyStuff]

1 minute ago, dalekphalm said:

You could build a very quiet machine, yes. Obviously I cannot say what is "quiet" enough for you, as that's 100% subjective.

 

But if you take a low power i3 or similar, mix it with some silence optimized fans, add on a quiet after-market cooler, and tweak the fan profile (or use a fan controller), you will probably not hear it running while in the same room.

Fair point.

That's probably the way I'll go if it pans out. Thanks!

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, SlimeyStuff said:

Fair point.

That's probably the way I'll go if it pans out. Thanks!

No problem. When you're ready to start planning the build, feel free to create a new thread (or update this one) and we can assist with part selection.

[SlimeyStuff]

24 minutes ago, Corez said:

If your planning on steaming HD movies from it a Raspberry Pi might not be what you want. The Pi uses a USB powered 10/100 network card (seems to cap at about 40mbps) and the processer has support for 1 USB 2.0 port with has a USB Hub on the Pi itself. You most likely will want more storage which means an external USB HDD so your both downloading from USB and upload to USB.

 

The Tinker Board would probably be a better option, as would the Orange Pi Plus2 (which has a SATA interface and gigabit networking).

 

I built myself a server out of desktop parts with overkill cooling so it was fairly quite. Something based around a mobo with CPU soldered onto it like the Gigabyte GA-N3050M-D3P could be interesting (2 SATA ports and full size PCIe slot for an extra SATA card if you wish).

 

But if all your doing is saving documents to a folder RasPi would be fine, so it depends what you want to use it for.

Will be a bit heavier files. The Gigabyte GA-N3050M-D3P looks quite good, I'll see if I can make that work.
Thanks! 

[Mikensan]

You could also repurpose a laptop that has USB 3.0 ports to serve up data.

 

@dalekphalm 's suggestion is good - you can get those machines pretty darn quiet with the right case + fans. Define and NZXT both sell cases with sound dampening material inside.

 

They also make SoC solutions that are fanless like the ASRock Intel Avoton C2750. They can be pretty expensive in some scenarios however.

You also have the option of water cooling with a large radiator and low speed fans.

 

I slept with a Dell C1100 (server) at the foot of my bed for about a year, so "quiet" is relative. To me it was quieter than my TV and I consider myself to have decent hearing.

 

Last but least, you could turn it off at night, unless you're torrenting I suppose.

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, Mikensan said:

You could also repurpose a laptop that has USB 3.0 ports to serve up data.

 

@dalekphalm 's suggestion is good - you can get those machines pretty darn quiet with the right case + fans. Define and NZXT both sell cases with sound dampening material inside.

 

They also make SoC solutions that are fanless like the ASRock Intel Avoton C2750. They can be pretty expensive in some scenarios however.

You also have the option of water cooling with a large radiator and low speed fans.

 

I slept with a Dell C1100 (server) at the foot of my bed for about a year, so "quiet" is relative. To me it was quieter than my TV and I consider myself to have decent hearing.

 

Last but least, you could turn it off at night, unless you're torrenting I suppose.

The C2750 is a great option - it's just a bit expensive (At least here in Canada). It's great because it's a native 8 Core CPU (no hyperthreading though), but it's an Atom based processor, so each core is pretty weak.

 

It's a trade off depending on what you need. Those 8-cores will still smoke a Pi in performance, but won't be as good as an i7 w/ HT in many tasks, let alone a true 8-core Xeon.

[SiriousArts]

2 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

You can build a powerful and quiet NAS using off-the-shelf consumer components. No need to do a Pi build.

 

Depending on your needs, get yourself something like an i3 + ITX board, stick it in a small case with some low RPM fans (120mm or 140mm - bigger is better). Throw in a smaller PSU (enough to handle however many HDD's you plan to run - probably 500W or smaller), and bam, very quiet build.

That's also the way I would go. When I recently built my NAS I combined an i3-6100 (51W TDP) with a Dark Rock 3 (190W TDP). It is pretty much completely silent when the drives are not spinning (which they are normally not during night time).