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NAS Raid recommendations

Y

yodamalk

n00b
Joined
Mar 1, 2013
Messages
14
Im looking to build a budget NAS server.. cheaper the better

Drives: Most likely going with the 3 TB WD Reds. Recently there was a deal for 4TB drives (forget the brand) at $150 (same price as reds) but I passed because from what I've read the Reds work much better in a NAS environment than any other type of drive. I already have a 3TB drive (not WD Red) so I was looking to add 4 or 5 more.

Raid: Not looking to do a hardware raid. Was leaning towards software RAIDZ or RAIDZ2. (most likely running freenas) People dont seem to be too fond of RAID5 and the possible errors that come with this. RAID 10 may also be a possibility but seems like alot of redundancy there.

Case: Theres a couple cases that have 6-8 bays for $30 that I was looking to get. Anything cheap that gets the job done will be fine.

Ram: heard zfs uses alot of ram

The rest of the items I really dont have a clue what Im looking to get yet...

Mobo: Saw some cheap combos with built in graphics or cpu guess I need atleast 6 sata ports (can always run the OS from a flash drive)

CPU: whatever is cheap enough to power these drives.

PSU: same as above^

additional options: I was wondering how much more it would cost to make this computer able to hook up to my tv using hdmi. I understand it prob would need better graphics and processer ect. to handle the streaming. Also I would prob need a drive to put the OS on that isnt running freenas (not sure if it can or not)

any input is greatly appriciated
 
Well for starters the cheapest processors today have an integrated GPU that can output HD video fine, no need for anything fancy. For your usage ZFS won't need that much RAM either.

However what is recommended is to go for ECC memory.

Also, RAID10 (or the equivalent in ZFS) doesn't have that much redundancy, its mainly a performance solution. If two drives in a mirror die, you're screwed. If two drives in RAID6 or RAIDZ2 die, you're still in business. You should still have backups, though.
 
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If you are only looking for a NAS you may look into one of the HP Microservers as they are quite nice and a prepackaged unit that can be modified to do exactly what you are looking for. Here is a link detailing how to setup the HP Microserver as a NAS.

I opted to build my own as I already had a case and PSU laying around. I chose an AMD 350 Fusion base MB from Asus. This provided me everything on board except the memory for about $120. I went with 8GB of memory.

Both of the above solutions offer up to 6 drives. If you want additional capabilities for future expansion you may want to look into one of the SuperMicro Micro ATX solutions and then add an HBA card for the additional drives.

As for making a beefy system to perform both the NAS and HTPC solutions that will depend on if you have simultaneous connections while running as the HTPC. Also you will need to look at something other than FreeNAS for your OS choice. I tried the HTPC solution for a bit but ultimately decided that the headaches (although very few) were worth the ~$90 I spent on a WDTV Live SMP. Mostly the headaches were associated with slight incompatibilities with current hardware that I had on hand and the fact that to build a proper HTPC would require more than $90. Another option you may wish to look into is the Raspberry Pi running XBMC.
 
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