High Capacity NAS/Plex/Surveillance Build Recommendation

[OhhTee]

Hey guys,

 

I'm looking to upgrade my NAS and I'm not too familiar with all of the components that are out there for a NAS but there are a few things I like to consider putting inside.

Currently I'm running a Pentium with an ASRock - H97M PRO4 mobo with 8GB of RAM. I would most likely upgrade my CPU to either an i5 or i7 just so I can transcode at least 3-4 1080 streams off of my Plex Server. My pentium is having some problem right now.

 

I'm looking for a new case to put this setup in and there are a few things I would like to be able to do. I want to be able easily replace drives so the case having the ability to hotswap would be nice. I'm planning on putting my existing 6X 4TB WD Reds inside and adding possibly a few 8TB WD Reds in eventually. I would also like to add a few WD Purple in for surveillance footages. This basically means I'll have at least 12 drives inside at a minimum.

 

Basically, I would like some guidance on hardware that will bring this together. I don't mind reusing my old parts or buying entirely new parts.

 

My budget is pretty loose right now, I could spend anywhere from 1000 to 2000 USD on this. I'm located in Boston, MA. I'll probably use MicroCenter and Amazon most likely.

 

Thanks,

OhhTee

[8uhbbhu8]

Nas and plex pretty much any i5 or newer used xeon should be fine. Might benefit from a gup for encoding as well. Surveillance should be a separate machine so theirs less chance of messing it up/

[ARikozuM]

I would get an i5 or Xeon 1231 for the Plex server. 

 

The surveillance server should be its own device with its own storage, preferably a single RAID 1, if possible, or a single large drive. 

[OhhTee]

5 minutes ago, 8uhbbhu8 said:

 

 

1 minute ago, ARikozuM said:

 

Yeah, I was thinking about picking up a cheapo xeon and just rebuilding it. I could probably just repurpose the pentium/97h to become the unit for the surveillance stuff. Do you guys know of any decent cases for my high-capacity application? I'm currently browsing cases for 2U spaces right now, not really sure what I'm looking for yet haha.

[8uhbbhu8]

Just now, OhhTee said:

 

Yeah, I was thinking about picking up a cheapo xeon and just rebuilding it. I could probably just repurpose the pentium/97h to become the unit for the surveillance stuff. Do you guys know of any decent cases for my high-capacity application? I'm currently browsing cases for 2U spaces right now, not really sure what I'm looking for yet haha.

For the surveillance server I recommend just getting a server case. All the drives are at the front and easy to access then. Get a larger case otherwise most of what you find won't have much room for drives or will be using 2.5" drives which are way more expensive and an unneeded cost

[ARikozuM]

Just now, OhhTee said:

Yeah, I was thinking about picking up a cheapo xeon and just rebuilding it. I could probably just repurpose the pentium/97h to become the unit for the surveillance stuff. Do you guys know of any decent cases for my high-capacity application? I'm currently browsing cases for 2U spaces right now, not really sure what I'm looking for yet haha.

Do you have a server rack? Rosewill (less expensive, good quality), StarUSA (more expensive, better quality), and Norco (very expensive, best quality*) make very roomy cases for your needs. You can make wind tunnels for the CPU with acrylic sheets. 

 

*Too expensive for the quality, IMO. 

[OhhTee]

Just now, ARikozuM said:

 

I don't have a server rack currently, but I'll probably pick one up soon just to organize all of my stuff. I'll look into the Rosewill and StarUSA stuff, I don't think I need anything crazy as long as it holds up well.

[8uhbbhu8]

2 minutes ago, OhhTee said:

I don't have a server rack currently, but I'll probably pick one up soon just to organize all of my stuff. I'll look into the Rosewill and StarUSA stuff, I don't think I need anything crazy as long as it holds up well.

 

Just make sure the case is large enough to hold your board. Some of these cases only support mitx or itx boards. Server racks: look used and locally. No point in shelling out hundreds for a small one when somone on kijiji, craigslist, etc is probably selling a full height (that you can mod )for nothing

[ARikozuM]

2 minutes ago, OhhTee said:

I don't have a server rack currently, but I'll probably pick one up soon just to organize all of my stuff. I'll look into the Rosewill and StarUSA stuff, I don't think I need anything crazy as long as it holds up well.

Just keep in mind what you're looking for in a server rack. You need to get one for the deepest chassis you're expecting to need. And make sure to avoid any non-19" racks, unless you're specifically going for the 23". 

 

Ebay has a bunch of do-it-yourself racks that are good for novice rack-users, usually around the $200 mark for a 42U full-rack 29"D. They aren't fancy in the slightest, but they'll do what you need, where you need. 

Spoiler

Except Florida, it's too hot for that sh#t!

While you're on Ebay, look at some old Dell rack-mounts with dual-Xeons and ECC memory. They could come with PERC RAID cards and hot-swaps carriages that you'll likely never see yourself using. 

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/DELL-FS12-TY-C2100-2x-QUAD-CORE-L5630-2-13GHz-8GB-RAM-12x-TRAYS-H700-/281591405599?hash=item419027dc1f

[LinusTech]

 I actually have one of our 45 drives machines running exactly this configuration using unraid. 

 

Depending how many cameras you are planning to run you may actually need a fairly beefy server CPU. 

 

For about 25 cameras all of which are HD or better I need about eight physical CPU cores plus theit hyper threads. That keeps that VM running about 70 to 80% CPU usage.

 

 Throw in another four for Plex running in a docker container and a couple more for just background NAS duty and you’re looking at a 12 core at least. 

 

The good news is if you use older dual socket stuff A lot of these work clothes scale well across multiple floors and you can pick up older Xeonsfor pretty cheap.