NAS for a Not for Profit Organisation

[LeightonPC]

Edit: Just realised there was a NAS category, sorry.

 

Hi there everyone,

 

I have been recently volunteering at a small not for profit organisation and have seen how terrible their file management is (Consists of about 7 small external hard drives and memory sticks). It will primarily be used for documents, photos and small videos. I want to try and sort out a NAS for them but as I am sure you can all imagine, being a small NFP they don't have a lot of money. I am used to using Synology and calling it a day.

Their setup would consist of 2-3, possibly 4 people at max eventually connecting locally and they are interested in having it accessible remotely too.

 

I am looking at this kind of thing as a setup currently, please let me know if there is anything different I should be doing (Note, I am in New Zealand so prices should be more expensive than in America/EU):

 

First of all, I was going to run FreeNAS.

I have 16GB of DDR3 RAM that I have left over that I was going to donate.

https://www.trademe.co.nz/computers/desktops/no-monitor/auction-1521503824.htm?rsqid=9bf01b859ff947c49af8910111bbd10d - A second hand system like this as a base. I'll do so more looking around to get the best price but I just want to know if this level of specs will be sufficient. ($100 USD)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-E-X4-Quad-Port-10-100-1000Mbps-Gigabit-Ethernet-Network-Card-Server-Adapter/222788654945?hash=item33df3d1761:g:7fwAAOSwvR5aLJmz - I was going to put in a 4 port NIC, but the good ones are expensive as heck, will ones like this be reliable?

https://www.pbtech.co.nz/product/HDDSE2205/Seagate-BarraCuda-2TB-35-inch-7200RPM-SATA3-6Gbs-6 - I was thinking for storage, I might go with some cheap but new harddrives like this. It will be running office hours only so I didnt think NAS drives were necessary. I'm not sure how much I trust second hand hard drives.

I am hoping for the total price to come to under $500NZD, and that is a hard maximum as that would be a massive hit and hard to convince them.

 

Thanks in advance everyone, and I hope I havent been too much of an idiot

[desertcomputer]

Kinda over kill with the four nic, if you just dealing with file management and photo/video storage. A good intel nic should be good enough, unless you server switch with have LAGG/LACP feature there is no use for 4 nics.

 

If you going to make NAS server even if they run 24/7 i would suggest going with has or enterprise drives for the peace of mind. Plus seagate enterprise drives comes with extended warranty plus data recovery.

 

As for the PC, if you going to run OS such as freenas you should go with intel build at least, as i found some older AMD have problem with newer freenas.

 

It all suggestion, you could have look at second hand server gear which in most case comes with hard drive which is quite reliable but still need off site backup/cloud if it data is important anyways.

[LeightonPC]

1 minute ago, MrUnknownEMC said:

Kinda over kill with the four nic, if you just dealing with file management and photo/video storage. A good intel nic should be good enough, unless you server switch with have LAGG/LACP feature there is no use for 4 nics.

 

If you going to make NAS server even if they run 24/7 i would suggest going with has or enterprise drives for the peace of mind. Plus seagate enterprise drives comes with extended warranty plus data recovery.

 

As for the PC, if you going to run OS such as freenas you should go with intel build at least, as i found some older AMD have problem with newer freenas.

 

It all suggestion, you could have look at second hand server gear which in most case comes with hard drive which is quite reliable but still need off site backup/cloud if it data is important anyways.

Thanks for all your advice, I am aware of the benefits of Enterprise drives/NAS drives but they simply cost too much. I run them at home, but they won't be able to justify that sort of cost.

I did think that the NIC was a bit overkill but I read online that they were really important if you are making your own from scratch.
I do have an old CPU+MOBO from intel, I think it is probably a I5 3550k, but I assumed with the prices of a prebuilt it would be better off just buying them rather than getting a case and PSU.

[desertcomputer]

4 minutes ago, LeightonPC said:

Thanks for all your advice, I am aware of the benefits of Enterprise drives/NAS drives but they simply cost too much. I run them at home, but they won't be able to justify that sort of cost.

I did think that the NIC was a bit overkill but I read online that they were really important if you are making your own from scratch.
I do have an old CPU+MOBO from intel, I think it is probably a I5 3550k, but I assumed with the prices of a prebuilt it would be better off just buying them rather than getting a case and PSU.

Read from online? Unless you have server/enterprise switch it basically useless as freenas don't allow to allocate one or more nic on same network/subnet.

 

The i5 combo looks great but overkill for this case.

 

What is your overall budget? It would allow more people to help you piece out the part and see if there existing server you can retro fit.

[LeightonPC]

Just now, MrUnknownEMC said:

Read from online? Unless you have server/enterprise switch it basically useless as freenas don't allow to allocate one or more nic on same network/subnet.

 

The i5 combo looks great but overkill for this case.

 

What is your overall budget? It would allow more people to help you piece out the part and see if there existing server you can retro fit.

I dont mind if it is overkill, as it is in the roof in a box doing nothing.

I put the budget in the OP, $500 Max NZD (360USD) including everything. The cheaper the better though as they dont like to part with money.

If you think that the CPU would work well in that situation I could use it, I would simply have to find a case and PSU for it.

[desertcomputer]

1 minute ago, LeightonPC said:

I dont mind if it is overkill, as it is in the roof in a box doing nothing.

I put the budget in the OP, $500 Max NZD (360USD) including everything. The cheaper the better though as they dont like to part with money.

If you think that the CPU would work well in that situation I could use it, I would simply have to find a case and PSU for it.

It is not overkill, it just waste of money. You could spend that money for better pre-built. Unless you going to spend another 100 dollar for second enterprise switch with L3 support down the line you could buy one than.

 

I would personally go with initial PC, but i would try to find a intel one with that budget. You could always go around and "lowball" for the decent deals especially the one that been listed for a long time.