Budget Nas Build

[Boxarthorts]

 Hi everyone!

 

Im super new to the LTT forums (well, participating in forums in general), but im trying to learn a bunch of "tech" related stuff and i feel like these communities are a great place to start. 

 

ive been thinking of building a budget nas/home media server/data storage for pictures and stuff for a bit now and i really do not know where to start. Ive done extensive research but I am getting different answers. First off, i have a low budget, maybe $400 (not including the hard drives) and i considered buying a prebuilt nas (synology, Qnap) but i realized i can build something more powerful with greater expandability in the future. Since i have a low budget and do not feel comfortable buying used item from ebay ( i always find the shipping is super expensive), i was thinking of using consumer grade hardware. i was thinking of either a pentium g4560 or ryzen 3 1200 with 8 gb ram. 

 

can someone assess this build for me, and let me know if it doesnt make sense?? ive hear of people using their old computers as home servers so i don't see why not.

 

I have a bunch more questions but ill start off with this for now. I read the rules of conduct but do let me know if i'm breaking some sort of unwritten rules or anything ( I am new at this!!) 

Thanks!

[Electronics Wizardy]

Do you care about os? What network are you running?

 

Id probalby get this

 

[PCPartPicker part list](https://pcpartpicker.com/list/hxDBZR) / [Price breakdown by merchant](https://pcpartpicker.com/list/hxDBZR/by_merchant/)

Type|Item|Price
:----|:----|:----
**CPU** | [Intel - Pentium Gold G5400 3.7GHz Dual-Core OEM/Tray Processor](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/6Tzkcf/intel-pentium-gold-g5400-37ghz-dual-core-oemtray-processor-cm8068403360112) | $71.76 @ Newegg Marketplace
**Motherboard** | [Gigabyte - B360M DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/PgQG3C/gigabyte-b360m-ds3h-micro-atx-lga1151-motherboard-b360m-ds3h) | $67.65 @ Amazon
**Memory** | [Crucial - 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/y838TW/crucial-4gb-1-x-4gb-ddr4-2400-memory-ct4g4dfs824a) | $44.89 @ OutletPC
**Case** | [Fractal Design - Node 804 MicroATX Mid Tower Case](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/yTdqqs/fractal-design-case-fdcanode804blw) | $94.60 @ Amazon
**Power Supply** | [EVGA - SuperNOVA G3 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/sMM323/evga-supernova-g3-550w-80-gold-certified-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-220-g3-0550) | $49.99 @ Newegg
 | *Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts* |
 | Total (before mail-in rebates) | $348.89
 | Mail-in rebates | -$20.00
 | **Total** | **$328.89**
 | Generated by [PCPartPicker](http://pcpartpicker.com) 2018-04-21 18:38 EDT-0400 |

 

Id go unraid here. Go with a celeron if you want to save a bit, 8gb of ram if you want vms or containers.

[aezakmi]

I use some old parts for my NAS so you don't really need new hardware for something like this, I know there are some linux distros and free OSes made just for NAS builds but I just run Windows on it because I want to keep it simple and compatible with other computers (2 clicks and you can share a drive)

 

Specs of this thing are

Spoiler

 

Asrock 775i65G R2

Core 2 Duo E4300

GeForce 6200 PCI

2GB DDR400

Gigabit PCI Ethernet Card

WD Caviar 80GB ATA Drive (pri master boot)

ATA DVD RW Drive (pri slave)

2x 2TB WD20PURX (storage)

Unknown case with SFF PSU I had to repair

 

I use Windows 10 Home on this, it's amazingly stable even with that ancient hardware, the mobo only has 10mbps ethernet so I had to add PCI card, you know, one of those regular $10 cards

only thing I bought were the network card and storage drives, everything else was useless trash for some other people, a friend gave me the cpu, a recycling center had the RAM and boot drive, well, considering my luck I only spent around $140 on it and there it is, working 24/7

 

I don't like RAID because if a drive fails the rest will do the same, about the network it goes wired to a netgear 8 port switch, I control it via Remote Utilities. Power consumption is minimal, fanless psu, graphics card also has passive cooling (it's not like I'll be playing games with it) and the cpu fan is set to slow speed, barely audible.

so my point here is: $400 is A LOT of money just for a NAS, unless you want high end server stuff I'd say you can keep it around $200 going for used or cheap parts like AM1 platform

[Salacious B Crum]

I built mine from a pre-built i7 6700 the os is unRAID $59 and its a great setup I run Plex and get 6+ streams several dockers and VM's very flexible expandable if needed in the future use the free trial it lets you run the full version for 30 days with an optional extension if needed that is if you have a pre-built laying around like iI did

[Jarsky]

I built an old one of mine using an old AMD X2 550BE which with 4GB ram was plenty for storage using Windows Server 2008 R2 as well as a couple of Linux VM's

 

If you must buy something new though, maybe something like this...

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 3 2200G 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($94.69 @ OutletPC) 
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-AB350M-D3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($71.39 @ OutletPC) 
Memory: Crucial - Ballistix Sport LT 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR4-2666 Memory  ($45.74 @ B&H) 
Case: Fractal Design - Arc Midi ATX Mid Tower Case  ($79.98 @ Newegg Business) 
Power Supply: Corsair - CX (2017) 450W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($23.98 @ Newegg) 
Total: $315.78
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-04-22 03:36 EDT-0400