Ideas for a NAS build

silk186

silk186

[H]ard|Gawd
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A friend wants help building a NAS. They are in Canada and would only be re-using the drives.
The Idea is to have 2 drive mirrored for important items and 4 drives in JBOD. The JBOD array would be expanded as needed. It will be wired to the network with a gigabit connection. It should run headless, connect to Mac and windows, run rutorrent or transmission, and work with some android boxes running kodi.

It is important that it needs to easily share folders with a macbook air I was unable to get this working reliably with a windows desktop.

Of course, cheap, efficient and quiet are preferred.
It would start with 6 drives but would ideally support up to 10.

He is not clear on a budget as I was unable to suggest what it should cost.
 
There's not really much in the way of hardware requirements there. You can build the cheapest thing possible, like an old Intel ATOM ITX mobo, throw it in a cheap case with a couple GB of RAM and load FreeNAS and you'll be fine. If you go with all new parts you could probably spend $300-400ish. Used parts would be a lot less, but remember this will probably run 24/7 for a long period, so it's worth getting something decent quality.

If he's got the cash I'd go with a pre-build NAS though (Synology or QNAP). Probably a better, long-term investment, and far easier on you if you're their remote tech support.
 
Would it be smarter to go new or used. It would be nice if this could be shoved in a closet and ignored for 4-5 years (excluding adding drives).
I've checked Synology or QNAP, anything over 4-bay is well over 1k. Those two brands only have 1 4-bay NAS under $400.
 
silk186 said:
Would it be smarter to go new or used. It would be nice if this could be shoved in a closet and ignored for 4-5 years (excluding adding drives).
I've checked Synology or QNAP, anything over 4-bay is well over 1k. Those two brands only have 1 4-bay NAS under $400.
Click to expand...

Synology has a 5-bay for $700-800, and an 8-bay for $950. (DS-1517+ and DS-1817+) Those two JUST came out, and they're not much of an upgrade over the previous versions. Maybe look for a discount on one of those (DS-1515+ or DS-1815+) if that's what you're looking for.

If you're looking to save money and use old, used hard drives, you're probably going to run into problems sooner. Building a FreeNAS system isn't that hard, but it's not as easy as the pre-built. Same with going maintenance on the system to keep things running smoothly. Old drives will fail, and in JBOD you're going to lose some data each time that happens. Mis-matched old drives in a RAID1 setup can be a bit problematic as well.

Here's the deal...if you're looking for something you can shove onto a shelf or into a closet and never think about it again, get a Synology or QNAP, buy a rack of NEW drives, and you'll be set. More cash up front, but FAR less trouble in the long run. If you're going to keep it for 4-5 years (as I've done with my current old Synology), it's well worth the price.
 
He currently has 3 matching 3TB drives to use. He would not be buying used drives.
Mirroring is only for 2 of the drives.
The DS-1517+ and DS-1817+ start at $800 and would need to be imported from the US.
It seems that pre-built is atleat 3-4x the price.
 
If you're not in the US, then it's going to depend a lot more on prices in your country. I'm really only familiar with our pricing, so I'm not sure if I can help on that topic.

My comments on the reliability and such do still apply though. The pre-built will cost quite a bit more, but they're going to be far less work in the long run for maintenance and operations costs. Warranty as well, since they're usually 3 years vice the 1 year on parts you'll get with a self-built machine.

That being said, I'd price out a cheap case, high quality power supply and small ITX mobo. See if you can find a mobo with plenty of SATA ports and an on-board CPU. That mobo may be the more challenging part, since most of the low-cost ones won't have more than 4 sata ports, and once you get into the higher end ones, the costs go up sharply. A larger case and a mATX board might give you some more options (less money but takes up more physical space). Something like this: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157417 would probably be ideal for the smaller size, low-power CPU and lots of SATA ports.
 
That board is an interesting option. Is an atom enough power?
 
silk186 said:
A friend wants help building a NAS. They are in Canada and would only be re-using the drives.
The Idea is to have 2 drive mirrored for important items and 4 drives in JBOD. The JBOD array would be expanded as needed. It will be wired to the network with a gigabit connection. It should run headless, connect to Mac and windows, run rutorrent or transmission, and work with some android boxes running kodi.

It is important that it needs to easily share folders with a macbook air I was unable to get this working reliably with a windows desktop.

Of course, cheap, efficient and quiet are preferred.
It would start with 6 drives but would ideally support up to 10.

He is not clear on a budget as I was unable to suggest what it should cost.
Click to expand...

I have no issues with my MacBook Air and MacBook Pro accessing my Windows 10 machines. My Plex server and Xeon workstation have folders shared with Everyone, so anyone on the network can access them, my main rig requires a username and password to access the shares and macOS will pop up with a window for a username and password so I can access those shares.
 
silk186 said:
That board is an interesting option. Is an atom enough power?
Click to expand...

Plenty for any home or small business use. I'd only go with more if you're running a lot of VMs or Docker-type stuff, or if you're looking at >10-15 heavy users all accessing the NAS at once.
 
I would not say more than 5 users accessing at a time, so it should be sufficient.
 
I don't think an ATOM ITX build is the way to go with this. You need something that already has plenty of SATA ports for the number of drives you intend to use. Very few ATOM motherboard have more than 4 SATA ports and the most I've seen have 6 SATA ports. You need something with at the very least 6 SATA ports, but preferably something with 8 - 10 SATA ports already. That way you don't have to worry about any additional cards for expansion anytime soon.
 
Skillz said:
I don't think an ATOM ITX build is the way to go with this. You need something that already has plenty of SATA ports for the number of drives you intend to use. Very few ATOM motherboard have more than 4 SATA ports and the most I've seen have 6 SATA ports. You need something with at the very least 6 SATA ports, but preferably something with 8 - 10 SATA ports already. That way you don't have to worry about any additional cards for expansion anytime soon.
Click to expand...

There's a few out there with 6 or more...When you get into the boards with 8-12, you start getting into a very expensive range of mobos (Supermicro stuff). A SATA expansion card is far cheaper than one of those type mobos. And if you're going to spend a LOT of money, you're back into the pre-built NAS range.
 
A lot of money?

SuperMicro server board with 8 SATA 6 Gb/s ports.
$190 - SUPERMICRO MBD-X11SAE-M-O Micro ATX Server Motherboard LGA 1151 Intel C236

or

ASRock "consumer desktop" board with 8 SATA 6 Gb/s ports.
$160 - ASRock Z270 Extreme 4+ LGA 1151 Intel

with

$185 - Intel Core i5-6400 CPU

Add in a single 8GB stick of RAM for around $60 and you'll have a nice setup for around $440 or less with the ASRock motherboard.(CPU, MOBO, RAM).

For a case I recommend the Fractal Design Refine R5 for $110. This case is capable of holding 8x3.5" drives without any modifications plus 2 SSD drives behind the motherboard tray. It also has 2x5.25" bays that can be converted to hold an additional 3x3.5" hard drives. You'll have to buy an adapter though.

These options have much better "upgrade" potential than an ATOM setup especially when the OP is starting with 6 drives and intends to increase it to 10 or possibly even more at a later date.

Of course the OP's clients are in Canada so they'd need to buy from a Canadian retailer.
 
Skillz said:
A lot of money?

SuperMicro server board with 8 SATA 6 Gb/s ports.
$190 - SUPERMICRO MBD-X11SAE-M-O Micro ATX Server Motherboard LGA 1151 Intel C236

or

ASRock "consumer desktop" board with 8 SATA 6 Gb/s ports.
$160 - ASRock Z270 Extreme 4+ LGA 1151 Intel

with

$185 - Intel Core i5-6400 CPU

Add in a single 8GB stick of RAM for around $60 and you'll have a nice setup for around $440 or less with the ASRock motherboard.(CPU, MOBO, RAM).

For a case I recommend the Fractal Design Refine R5 for $110. This case is capable of holding 8x3.5" drives without any modifications plus 2 SSD drives behind the motherboard tray. It also has 2x5.25" bays that can be converted to hold an additional 3x3.5" hard drives. You'll have to buy an adapter though.

These options have much better "upgrade" potential than an ATOM setup especially when the OP is starting with 6 drives and intends to increase it to 10 or possibly even more at a later date.

Of course the OP's clients are in Canada so they'd need to buy from a Canadian retailer.
Click to expand...


Well, the board I listed starts at $150 with the CPU, and has 7 SATA ports onboard. Your cheapest option listed is $345. If the focus is cost, then I'd go the route I suggested. If the focus is future upgrades, then the calculus changes significantly. If the focus is performance, it changes more. The OP was looking for something basic he could shove into a closet and ignore for 4-5 years, and my suggestions were based on that.
 
Someone who is planning to expand isn't exactly ignoring it for 4 - 5 years I wouldn't think. The CPU I suggested is probably way, way overkill. You could easily save $140 on my suggestion by doing with a Dual Core processor such as this $43 G3930 Celeron processor. Brings the cost closer to $220 with a lot more options for expand ability.

Still a lot cheaper than pre-built NAS prices for the same drive capacity.
 
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