Help me decide on a 5yr+ storage solution

R

Romeomium

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 9, 2017
Messages
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Greetings! I'm not new to PCs, but I've never built a dedicated NAS. I've used my current PC as a Plex Media Server for awhile, and am familiar with how to map network drives, etc. I will be building a Ryzen system soon, and my budget will determine if I have enough extra to build a separate dedicated NAS. Primary OS is planned to be Win10 (Still on Win7 Ult now). My primary usage will be for media storage, and work backup for my wife and I. Aata integrity is becoming more important, as I've lost some older photos. I plan to get ECC ram for Ryzen, so long as it's available. I figure the new Ryzen system should have plenty of power to transcode 1080p and hopefully 4k UHD for years to come, so I don't think I need to build a full PC/NUC for the storage. (Please don't screw up AMD!)

What I want to know is, is it worth going for a 4 bay QNAP/Synology and hooking it to my router, or should I try to build a storage array within my new PC itself? Should I use SnapRAID within my Windows boot, or would it be better as a VM? I understand ZFS may be better, but it would require me to learn both a new OS and ZFS, and from my reading, is not recommended inside a VM. I also really like the idea of "everything inside one box", being that I can save money putting all the drives into my main rig, but I don't want to compromise data storage/integrity. I don't think I necessarily need "real time" pools, and a once a day backup (i.e. SnapRAID?) seems like it would be adequate. If ZFS really would be that much better for me, I would be willing to give it a go.

My total budget for PC's this year is ~$2,000. I would like ~10TB of usageable space in my storage/backup. I won't be carrying anything over except my mouse, keyboard and monitor (although if I save enough money, I may be able to convince the wife to let me buy a 34"+ UW). What would you recommend for a relative noobie such as myself?
 
I take a stab at some of this here (been 4 days). If nothing else, it'll be a free bump.


The 'all in one' solution is nice for space savings and maybe power but if something happens, you are now down 2 machines. IMO, if funds allow, I would have 2 separate machines.

In the 4bay QNAP/Synology department. Something to keep in mind, they aren't cheap. My friend just purchased a 4bay Synology and 4x4TB drives. It came out to ~$1000. They do look purdy though and the OS is known for it's user friendliness. The one he went with is the DS916+ and 4TB WD Reds.

If you are up for tinkering a bit. I would recommend looking into Xpenology. At least to compare to your other options. I recently went through this for my own setup and it was really easy and has tons of preloaded apps (same as synology) you can install like plex server to name one. It does support running on bare metal or VM (how i have mine running).

For the transcode. This is only my opinion based on what I've found so far.
It looks like the 4k transcode is still hit or miss with hardware available today. Like you said, hopefully Ryzen will perform. The most common question I've seen asked about this is how many streams do you plan to have concurrently? This will steer you in the direction of cpu power your're going to need.

Hopefully this at least helps get you started with your research and I wish I could give you more info on the different OS/configs to compare to. I'm still on this journey myself.

Outlaw
 
Thanks for the advice! Right now my streaming is limited to my wife and I, and whatever we feel like putting on for our 1yr old. If the wife and I want to watch separate things, I will jump on the PC, so I would say 1-2 transcoding streams is all I will need for the next few years. When my nephews visit, they usually watch with my daughter, but that will likely change in the future, which is why I am planning for more!

I have decided at this point to try to stuff everything into my main rig, at least for the time being. To do a dedicated server setup the "right" way, will cost more than I want to spend right now. I also looked into the prebuilt NAS, and realized it wouldn't have the horsepower, so I would be using my machine is a media server anyway, besides the fact that it is not cheap. I agree that if my rig goes down, everything goes down, but I do have some spare PCs I could use if needed. The flip side is that 2 machines also means 2x maintenance, so there's that to consider as well.

I am hoping beyond hope that Ryzen performs, accepts ECC Ram, and is not overly hindered by higher latency ECC Ram.

Separate but related, I started a post about cheap HDD's on Amazon. I bought a bunch of refurbished HGST 3TB enterprise drives for $70 each. So I am SURE all my things will fail at once, haha. At least I have a nice 1500VA UPS to throw it on.
 
IMO for NAS systems stay away from rectified drives. I would recommend ZFS+ Freenas. It will allow you to run Plex and other items directly from the NAS without having to host it on your new box. But build your own. As for cases I would look at the Node 304 or 804 depending on needed drives/space. cheap dual Core Pentium chip will handle your trans coding needs. Mobo look at the ASRock C236 WSI Mini ITX Server Motherboard. Will give you 8 SATA ports at a decent price.
 
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