Custom NAS headache :(

[omnipotentj]

Hello everyone, for the past 2 day's I have been doing some pretty hefty research into what NAS to buy. I was going to go for a QNAP ts409 but would prefer to just build my own as I figured I would get more bang for my buck and have much more flexibility.

I wanted the NAS to be high powered so that I would not get choked streaming HD to two rooms in my house and possibly writing to the drives at the same time. To achieve this I thought from reading around I will need a decent CPU (dual core probably), gigabit LAN and CAT6 cabling. I also wanted the damn thing to look pretty (I have a picky lady to contend with )

So my first build I put together was the following -

Chenbro ES34069 Mini-ITX Home Server/NAS Chassis
Intel D945GCLF2 Dual Core 1.6GHz Atom Mini-ITX Board
2 Gigs of Ram

Now after reading that the D945GCLF2 chip set doesn't really compliment the Atom's power saving selling point I began to look elsewhere. After looking at some of the other more powerful boards I thought that it might be a good idea to not only use this as a NAS but as a small PC that I could browse the net on and watch 1080p movies.

So then I found this beast - http://www.jwele.com/motherboard_detail.php?419. The board has had nothing but praise.

My problem is will this board fit into the Chenbro NAS case and combined with a 45w Phenom x4 for example will it have enough power? The case comes with a 120w external power supply. I am also going to have 4 drives and a solid state drive for the OS/s (Windows Home Server / FreeNas and possibly Windows 7 beta dual booted).

Any help would be appreciated guys - thanks Joel

 

[00Roush]

That board you found looks to be good but I have never seen that brand so definitely check around. Not sure if you really need a quad core though. I usually recommend the AMD Athlon X2 4850e. This CPU along with that board should be able to play 1080p movies just fine according to this review... http://www.silentpcreview.com/article855-page1.html I feel the extra money could be put toward better hard drives. If you are intending to stream to multiple computers at the same time you will need fast hard drives and most likely a RAID setup. Also as you mentioned your case only has a 120W power supply. Even with the AMD dual core and 4 hard drives you could be over that.

So far the best looking solution I have seen is using a board with the Nvidia 9300 chipset. http://www.silentpcreview.com/article892-page1.html This article gives you an idea. I have seen some information that says Zotac has a 9300 based Mini-ITX board but I didn't find it online anywhere. (this would be the one to get if you could find it) The worst thing is that there really is not that many Mini-ITX boards out there to choose from but the Chenbro case looks to be the best out of any case I have seen.

00Roush

 

[eon]

Litte Falls 2

The power consumption is really not that bad according to the specs (8W for the processor

http://ark.intel.com/ProductCollection.aspx?familyID=29035

The chipset is the actual culprit but a better heatsink can help minimize the power lost through heat.

http://ark.intel.com/cpu.aspx?groupId=35641

 

[br14]

The chipset is the actual culprit but a better heatsink can help minimize the power lost through heat.

Hello,
I have the d945gclf2 and am (very) interested in replacing the heatsink.
Could you please recommend one (or more)?

Also, not sure that I understand how the heatsink affects the power consumption - could you please elaborate.

Thank you.

 

[Snowpro]

Dear omnipotentj,

since a few days I am thinking about the same problem: how to built a powerfull machine in a Chenbro ES34069 Mini-ITX case.

In Germay the board is available here. And there ist also a very large review about the board, but its only in german!

My concern is: how to cool the system with lets says 2 or more harddisks?

I will follow this thread for sure

 

[eon]

Heatsink for the GCLF2

http://www.zalman.co.kr/ENG/product/Product_Read.asp?idx=133
I haven't tried this zalman but research says it fits.

Heat affects the efficiency of a chip. If the chip is not being sufficiently cooled its efficiency will decrease which will produce more heat. This cycle usually ends up killing chips early or cause poor performance and power cosumption due to more power being lost thru heat. If the chip is sufficiently cooled it will operate at its optimal efficiency and dissipate less power to heat.

Personally intel did a poor job cooling this board. But bigger heastinks however you can get them on, will make this board run like a champ.

 

[germ]

Should be no problem

My concern is: how to cool the system with lets says 2 or more harddisks?

I am building a system with the Chenbro enclosure right now. I am using the MSI IM-945GC motherboard, which is so low power it does not need a CPU fan.

Anyway, the Chenbro case comes with both a CPU cooling fan (which may or may not work for your particular motherboard) AND case fans, which should be more than adequate to cool the disk drives.