Nas and seedbox in 1 machine (question on planning stage)

[Revamp]

So I am wanting to create a 24/7 NAS/Seedbox. I will be seeding Linux distros but would like to keep my nas separated incase of a malicious distro. I am preferably wanting to keep it within 1 smallish compact case with support for up to 6-8 drives. I am trying to keep it as quiet as possible, cool, and very compact as I don't have a whole lot of free space. 

What would be an ideal cpu/mobo/alternate host for building something like this? Or would there be a recommended software method to keep the seedbox files separated from my personal files?

 

I've never had a NAS, just with photography, I am filling up my drives quite fast and feel this would be beneficial to my work primarily. I am wanting to keep it around $800-$1000 for initial investment, then I can add drives as I need/see fit.

[Electronics Wizardy]

How much space do you need? 

 

Id probably run a vm for the torrents if you want to keep them separate.

 

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/qGFwP3
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/qGFwP3/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel - Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($58.89 @ B&H) 
Motherboard: ASRock - H270M-ITX/ac Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($95.49 @ SuperBiiz) 
Memory: Crucial - 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  ($83.89 @ OutletPC) 
Case: Fractal Design - Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case  ($84.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Gold 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($64.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Total: $388.25
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-03-08 10:26 EST-0500

[Revamp]

 

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

How much space do you need? 

 

Id probably run a vm for the torrents if you want to keep them separate.

 

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/qGFwP3
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/qGFwP3/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel - Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($58.89 @ B&H) 
Motherboard: ASRock - H270M-ITX/ac Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($95.49 @ SuperBiiz) 
Memory: Crucial - 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  ($83.89 @ OutletPC) 
Case: Fractal Design - Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case  ($84.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Gold 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($64.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Total: $388.25
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-03-08 10:26 EST-0500

Much cheaper than I was anticipating on spending LOL.

The ideal for end game is likely 2-4 4tb drives in raid for personal. Giving me 4-8TB of storage. Since it will be all photographs, I will likely swap out HDD every quarter or semi-annually, since I don't typically have to go back to archived storage often. so 4-8tb with a single redundant backup should be plenty for my use. For the seed box I am thinking 4 drives as well.

 

When running it in a VM, how would I go about setting that up? I am assuming create the machine's setup on whichever drives I am wanting to use for seeding, and just allocate like 85-90% of the drive space to that virtual machine in order to let it use the majority of the drive and giving it some lee-way for extra files that may be generated?

I am assuming create 1 shared folder with the host and VM, so I can just drop the torrents into the folder on the host, and the VM automatically picks them up and starts?

[Windows7ge]

I'm thinking a virtual machine to handle the seeding and the host OS to handle the file sharing. A VM should stop most malicious attacks from affecting your box and so long as you don't have a LAN connection between your network and the VM network it should stop any attack from potentially using the network to make its way outside the VM. I believe these are called "Worms".

 

Edit: Scratch part of that. From within the VM share a drive to your network (assuming they're on the same network). Then just make sure network firewalls are active on the local machines. You can then inject files via the share the VM is broadcasting and it should mitigate the likelihood of the VMs infection from spreading (if that happens). Just don't do vise versa (Share a drive from your machine and move the files over to the VM).

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, Revamp said:

 

Much cheaper than I was anticipating on spending LOL.

The ideal for end game is likely 2-4 4tb drives in raid for personal. Giving me 4-8TB of storage. Since it will be all photographs, I will likely swap out HDD every quarter or semi-annually, since I don't typically have to go back to archived storage often. so 4-8tb with a single redundant backup should be plenty for my use. For the seed box I am thinking 4 drives as well.

 

When running it in a VM, how would I go about setting that up? I am assuming create the machine's setup on whichever drives I am wanting to use for seeding, and just allocate like 85-90% of the drive space to that virtual machine in order to let it use the majority of the drive and giving it some lee-way for extra files that may be generated?

I am assuming create 1 shared folder with the host and VM, so I can just drop the torrents into the folder on the host, and the VM automatically picks them up and starts?

Why swap the drives? Thats normally not a great idea. Just external hdd and copy the data over to it.

 

For the vm, you make the drive for it, it doesn't use any host drives. Yea it will mount the host's file share and have its own disk. Don't give it so much space, but normally thin allocation and compression keeps the vms usage to a minimum.

[Revamp]

27 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

-SNIP-

Alright thanks!

 

 

24 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Why swap the drives? Thats normally not a great idea. Just external hdd and copy the data over to it.

It's just what I've done in the past. Mainly because in my mind, say I use the same drive for 2-3 years, and just continuously back it up to a fresh drive and delete everything. Eventually the drive will fail. However this is why I will have redundant backup, but it's just always been preference. Any particular reason you say this isn't a good idea?

 

Not to mention, typically ready made EHDD are more expensive, but then there is the option of buying an enclosure and just mounting a regular HDD as an external. Just seems quicker and easier to just pull the drives out, put in fresh ones and go about my business lol. But as mentioned I've never had a NAS so I don't know the difficulties thatll come with setting up new drives for that use.

 

[GDRRiley]

I would for drives get 6-12TB (6-8 is normally the gb/$) drives and use them in a 'hot'(main one) NAS.

If want easy access to the old drives get a 24 drive case and then add 72 drive disk shelves if you want even more drive bays. This can be your cold or archived storage it still will allow easy access to your files but you can configure it for even lower power usage.

 

[Revamp]

11 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

I would for drives get 6-12TB (6-8 is normally the gb/$) drives and use them in a 'hot'(main one) NAS.

If want easy access to the old drives get a 24 drive case and then add 72 drive disk shelves if you want even more drive bays. This can be your cold or archived storage it still will allow easy access to your files but you can configure it for even lower power usage.

 

Actually when I mentioned 6-8 drives I was talking on quantity so I was wanting something that would support around 6 to 8 drives in whatever storage capacity I decide on. 4TBs should be reasonably cheap (in my opinion) and should hopefully suite my needs.

[Electronics Wizardy]

43 minutes ago, Revamp said:

Alright thanks!

 

 

It's just what I've done in the past. Mainly because in my mind, say I use the same drive for 2-3 years, and just continuously back it up to a fresh drive and delete everything. Eventually the drive will fail. However this is why I will have redundant backup, but it's just always been preference. Any particular reason you say this isn't a good idea?

 

Not to mention, typically ready made EHDD are more expensive, but then there is the option of buying an enclosure and just mounting a regular HDD as an external. Just seems quicker and easier to just pull the drives out, put in fresh ones and go about my business lol. But as mentioned I've never had a NAS so I don't know the difficulties thatll come with setting up new drives for that use.

 

Externall hdds are often cheap now. Look at this drive. https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Expansion-Desktop-External-STEB8000100/dp/B01HAPGEIE Normally a seagate barrcuada inside.

 

Without hotswap changing drives is a pain, its much easier to keep the ones in the server in there and keep the backups external. It also reduces raid failures as taking out a drive and replace it may cause data loss if there are errors on the drive.

[GDRRiley]

5 minutes ago, Revamp said:

Actually when I mentioned 6-8 drives I was talking on quantity so I was wanting something that would support around 6 to 8 drives in whatever storage capacity I decide on. 4TBs should be reasonably cheap (in my opinion) and should hopefully suite my needs.

I am saying going for 6-8tb drives give you more capacity per $ you spend. 165 for a 6TB nas drive.

[Revamp]

5 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

-SNIP-

Thanks for your advice. I will likely take your words of wisdom then and do as you advised.

 

5 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

I am saying going for 6-8tb drives give you more capacity per $ you spend. 165 for a 6TB nas drive.

Ahhh gotcha, yea I misread your post before this. My apologies. At work so trying to multi task heavily lol.

 

 

Edit:

Also with the build @Electronics Wizardy posted earlier, would it be more recommended to go with ECC ram or is that a bit overkill for my situation. The backups will be work from paid photoshoots so keeping them is rather important incase a client asks to have an image edited from a shoot last year etc.

[Electronics Wizardy]

11 minutes ago, Revamp said:

Also with the build @Electronics Wizardy posted earlier, would it be more recommended to go with ECC ram or is that a bit overkill for my situation. The backups will be work from paid photoshoots so keeping them is rather important incase a client asks to have an image edited from a shoot last year etc.

ecc ram is always nice to have, but the chance of it doing something is very low. It also won't help with data thats already on the disk, only when copying to and from the server. Personally I wouldn't both here. You can use ecc on that board, expect to pay about 100 extra, and you need a new case as there are very few server itx board.

 

Also if you don't mind rack mount, something like a c2100 or r510 are cheaper and have ecc and more drive bays.

[Revamp]

14 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

ecc ram is always nice to have, but the chance of it doing something is very low. It also won't help with data thats already on the disk, only when copying to and from the server. Personally I wouldn't both here. You can use ecc on that board, expect to pay about 100 extra, and you need a new case as there are very few server itx board.

 

Also if you don't mind rack mount, something like a c2100 or r510 are cheaper and have ecc and more drive bays.

This will actually be viewable which is why I am shooting for something quiet (as much as possible at least). So not really a fan of a rack mount style setup due to aesthetics unfortunately  I am actually likely going to be looking into something like a Ncase M1 (maybe have some bracket made, or buy a bracket and attach it myself) or something a little premium looking (haven't counted that node 304 out as I used to have the define S and really enjoyed the look/quality, despite the 304 being more cube like).

 

Thanks for everyones help in this thread. I think I have a good starting idea of what I want to go with!

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 hours ago, Revamp said:

This will actually be viewable which is why I am shooting for something quiet (as much as possible at least). So not really a fan of a rack mount style setup due to aesthetics unfortunately  I am actually likely going to be looking into something like a Ncase M1 (maybe have some bracket made, or buy a bracket and attach it myself) or something a little premium looking (haven't counted that node 304 out as I used to have the define S and really enjoyed the look/quality, despite the 304 being more cube like).

 

Thanks for everyones help in this thread. I think I have a good starting idea of what I want to go with!

How about this then. https://www.amazon.com/Synology-bay-DiskStation-DS918-Diskless/dp/B075N1Z9LT/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1520537012&sr=1-1&keywords=918

 

You get a small quiet box, good software and low power. problem with n case is the lack of drivebays