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DIY NAS – low powered build!

R

Ropy29

n00b
Joined
Mar 9, 2014
Messages
4
So I’ve been considering building a NAS for a while but had been procrastinating. Ideally I would have loved to get a DS412+, but the cost and lack of power for transcoding is a turn off. After days of googling, I somehow stumbled on XPEnology and have been sold on that idea since.

The goal is to build a low powered NAS that draws around 54W and under, run XPEnology and cost less than $500 without hard drives. I live in a country where the cost of electricity is really expensive which is the reason why I want something that consumes low power.

The NAS will be used primarily (for now) as a:
  • Media server
  • File server
  • Download Server

With that said, I came up with these options but I’m still undecided given my lack of knowledge of NAS builds.

Setup detail 1:
  • HP ProLiant Micro Server Gen8 with the Intel Pentium G2020T
  • Drivers: 2 x 3TB WD Red
  • 1 x 2TB WD Green
  • 1 (or 2) x HP 32GB mSATA
  • Cost: $479.00 without drives

I’ve read that the fan runs at 28% which is a turn off, but not ruling it out given the 42W max power draw. The WD Green will be temporary until I can buy another 3TB WD Green drive, while the mSATA drive will be used for the OS.

Setup detail 2:
  • Motherboard: ASUS H87I-PLUS
  • RAM: 8GB (4GBx2) Crucial Ballistix Sport
  • CPU: Intel Core i3-4130
  • PSU: Corsair Builder Series CX 430 Watt
  • CASE: Lian Li PC-Q25B
  • Drivers: 2 x 3TB WD Red
  • 1 x 2TB WD Green
  • 1 (or 2) x HP 32GB mSATA
  • COST: $458.70 without drives

I’m not sure if this draws less than 54W, yea I’m a noob.

Which of these do you guys think would be best, or am I better off getting something else, or some tweaks?
 
If you plan on doing transcoding, get the best CPU you can afford. All the modern Intel CPUs consume little power (don't even worry about getting the "T" models). GIven that, take option 2 as it has a better CPU.

I would however, look at the Fractal Node 304 as your case. It is cheaper than the Lian Li, and for me the form factor fit better (in my TV stand).

Also, the ASUS motherboard does not have an mSATA port onboard, so you would need to buy an mSATA adapter. The ASROCK Z87 motherboard does have a mSATA onboard.
 
A few questions....

Other than Plex what synology apps do you intend on running?

Have you looked at whs 2011 + snapraid + plex media server?
 
If I reduce the memory to 4GB, replace the CPU with I3-4340 and the case with the Fractal Design Node 304, the revise total should be around $439.76. That's not bad, it leaves a little extra to offset the cost of the Hard Drives, or even get a H60.


avddreamr said:
A few questions....

Other than Plex what synology apps do you intend on running?
Click to expand...
Sickbeard, Download Station and Cloud Station. Those are the only ones that I can think of now.


avddreamr said:
A few questions....

Have you looked at whs 2011 + snapraid + plex media server?
Click to expand...
I only considered DSM for the ease of management and their SHR raid, I may take a look at WHS.
 
good info, i had looked at a haswell dual core but the lowest they use is 54w vs the i3 34w but otherwise would be similar and about $70 cheaper.....only bad side with this mobo trying to be cheap is it only has 3 SATA ports and 1 mSATA

http://www.amazon.com/Intel-Pentium...=1394426339&sr=8-4&keywords=haswell+dual+core


http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=Intel+Pentium+G3220+@+3.00GHz&id=2020

6qEz2F2.jpg
 
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The Node 304 supports regular size ATX PSUs, so you can save some money by going with something like the CX430.

1GB of RAM might be a bit too low, plus you're not really saving much over 2GB sticks.

Last but not least, look into running the OS off USB, that'll save you a SATA port.
 
Last edited:
vipz said:
The Node 304 supports regular size ATX PSUs, so you can save some money by going with something like the CX430.
Click to expand...

For power savings, I'd go with something else altogether and not the CX430 nor the ST45SF. I'd say the SeaSonic SSR-360GP would be a great choice. It is cheaper than the Silverstone PSU, and more efficient than both.
 
Zap said:
What kind of CPU do I need for my Server computer?

Basically it says you need roughly a PassMark score of 2000 for one 1080p stream. 720p requires less. 2x streams requires 2x score.
Click to expand...

This is a generalization. Higher bitrate 1080p + audio will need more transcoding power.

Smitty2k1 said:
If you plan on doing transcoding, get the best CPU you can afford. All the modern Intel CPUs consume little power (don't even worry about getting the "T" models). GIven that, take option 2 as it has a better CPU.

I would however, look at the Fractal Node 304 as your case. It is cheaper than the Lian Li, and for me the form factor fit better (in my TV stand).

Also, the ASUS motherboard does not have an mSATA port onboard, so you would need to buy an mSATA adapter. The ASROCK Z87 motherboard does have a mSATA onboard.
Click to expand...
Agree. Determine the number of clients you want/need and go from there.
Zap said:
For power savings, I'd go with something else altogether and not the CX430 nor the ST45SF. I'd say the SeaSonic SSR-360GP would be a great choice. It is cheaper than the Silverstone PSU, and more efficient than both.
Click to expand...
As far as power supplies go, my Ivy bridge (e3 1245v2) server idles at 30W (HDDs spun down, SSD active), it idled at 25W when I had a G2030 in there, my Haswell gaming computer (4770k) idled at 17W without a GPU. Is it worth is to spend more for a gold power supply for 5% better efficiency? - Maybe, maybe not.
 
Here's my revised NAS build:
  • PSU: Seasonic 360W 80PLUS Gold ATX12V
  • CPU: Intel I3-4340
  • Case: Fractal Design Node 304
  • Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 4GB
  • Motherboard: ASUS H87I-PLUS

I'm considering replacing the i3-4340 with the i3-4330 since the performance difference is barely noticeable.

ptirmal said:
Agree. Determine the number of clients you want/need and go from there.
Click to expand...
For now the NAS will be streaming to 2-3 clients.
 
Ropy29 said:
Here's my revised NAS build:
  • PSU: Seasonic 360W 80PLUS Gold ATX12V
  • CPU: Intel I3-4340
  • Case: Fractal Design Node 304
  • Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 4GB
  • Motherboard: ASUS H87I-PLUS

I'm considering replacing the i3-4340 with the i3-4330 since the performance difference is barely noticeable.


For now the NAS will be streaming to 2-3 clients.
Click to expand...
Concurrently?

What are the source files and what quality are you serving the clients? This matters because a 1:1 transcode for a high bit rate (15-20mb) video is going to need some power; if you're re-encoding it to a lower bit rate (3-4 for example) for a tablet or phone it won't need as much. If most of your files are lower bit rate then you shouldn't have an issue.

For the price of the 4340 I'd probably step up to an i5 if you plan on having 2-3 concurrent high bit rate streams.
 
I'll be streaming mainly (720p/1080p) MP4 and MKV files, but won't be concurrent.

I've seen a few low powered builds and most seems to be either i3's or Pentium G2020T, so I think the 4330 should be good enough for now. *I hope*
 
not sure what OS you plan to use, but unraid is great for low power builds as it doesn't stripe data so it only spins up the drive which contains the file you want to read.
 
Ropy29 said:
I'll be streaming mainly (720p/1080p) MP4 and MKV files, but won't be concurrent.

I've seen a few low powered builds and most seems to be either i3's or Pentium G2020T, so I think the 4330 should be good enough for now. *I hope*
Click to expand...

If it's not concurrent then you shouldn't have an issue with the i3. I was mostly getting by with a G2030, it would handle most high bit rate 1080p but had trouble with a few. The CPU sysload showed very high CPU usage those times.

I second unRaid.
 
what about future 4k content, any tests on the type of CPU needed to stream that. With the push everyone is making this year it seems like before 2014 is done 4k will almost be common place for many.
 
I think the Intel 4400 and Kavari GPUs will do 4K, but they're probably not ideal. I would expect the next gen to be more 4K ready.
 
As a server only you can't do better than Gen8 microserver. Even transcoding would be easy, x86 CPUs are all of them fast enough nowadays. You won´t win any benchmark competitions but you can transcode fast enough to stream to oher devices and it´s pretty much silent in my experience.
 
I saw that was tempting as well!

as for the 4k this would be CPU based to do the 4k processing since this would just be transcoding the content to server it out.
 
How did you make out with this build?

I would love to hear how you made out!
 
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