Mini-PCs running a desktop OS instead of retail NAS boxes

[maxbraketorque]

When considering a NAS purchase, I suggest considering a mini-PC based NAS running your favorite desktop computer OS. The price of a quality mini-PC and other required HW is on par with mid-range NAS boxes, but mini-PC hardware specs will blow away pretty much any retail NAS box. The other factor in favor of a mini-PC approach is the wide range of quality software to perform pretty much any task you want.

The trade-off of the mini-PC approach compared to a retail NAS box is that you have to figure out all the hardware and software pieces yourself. I spent pretty much an entire weekend figuring this out. But in my experience, the total time invested is much less than the time I spent trying to figure out software solutions for things I wanted my retail NAS box to do.

There are the Unraid and TrueNAS options which are the mini-PC approach running a specialized OS. I consider these somewhat of a middle ground between a retail NAS box and a mini-PC running a desktop OS. Unraid/TrueNAS offer better built-in data integrity support than a desktop OS, but it requires going down the rabbit hole of learning how to use these OSes and the available software.

After switching over to a mini-PC based setup running a desktop OS, I've found that all my backup operations complete in 1/10th the time using the exact same drives in the same RAID configuration. Its simply due to the much more powerful hardware and well written software. And there is a quality app for pretty much any feature I want.

 

[Tech9]

I have a DIY NAS for years on miniPC.

Cheap NAS to replace USB functionality + SMB that my router sucks at?

https://www.snbforums.com/threads/rt-ax92u-usb-smb-seems-fragile-crashes-router.73108/ I have a nice USB SSD and I simply want to access it for light usage across the house. Main use is watching movies, but obviously once in a while I need to copy things across, which is when the rt-ax92u...

www.snbforums.com

Still going with 100% reliability record.

 

[maxbraketorque]

Yeah, I'm hoping for good data reliability too. My setup is MacOS-based because that's what I use and like for my work and personal activities. The only dodgy thing I did for my MacOS NAS was utilize Apple's RAID option to setup a RAID10 config (which is what I had with my ASUSTOR NAS). I have no idea how easy it will be to replace a bad drive. But I'm not too worried because I mirror my data like you do.

 

[Tech9]

No RAID setup in my case, I prefer two independent drives. Mine works as 1-bay NAS and a backup DAS. If a drive fails I just stop by BestBuy and it's up and running again. I like simple solutions for home use.

 

[maxbraketorque]

That's what I'll be doing if Apple RAID 10 turns out to be unreliable.

 

[sfx2000]

That's what I'll be doing if Apple RAID 10 turns out to be unreliable.

MacMini's are pretty good for this, and OSX has most of the good stuff built in...

I've got two Mini's running... Pancho and Lefty (willie nelson reference)

Pancho is a media server running plex and also SMB/CIFS and has two large spinning rust external USB drives - I could raid them, but it's just easier to manage the two different drives as two separate shares... older Intel based MacMini 2014 with a 2C/4T core i5

Lefty is my TimeMachine network backup and Content Cache server - it's a newer machine, M1, and I spent a bit more that I should have with a couple of USB3.1/NMVE sleds and big QLC SSD's - it's been fantastic, and running for three years now without problems...

Nice thing - both have upgrade paths to 10Gbe if I want to do that with thunderbolt

 

[dosborne]

Running your "own" NAS isn't exactly a new concept. It has been around for over a decade
Personally, I like the ease of use for a no-brainer NAS box from a manufacturer. It does the job it was bought to do.

I played around with at least a dozen home-grown offerings over the years (dating back to the 1980's), Unix, QNix, Linux, TruNAS, mini-pc, full blown PC, Raspberry Pi...
It all depends on what you use it for, how much you want to maintain it, what you know and what you need to learn.

Posting what you actually used for hardware and for software might be beneficial as information for someone to use or consider

 

[sfx2000]

Running your "own" NAS isn't exactly a new concept. It has been around for over a decade
Personally, I like the ease of use for a no-brainer NAS box from a manufacturer. It does the job it was bought to do.

Agreed - for most, an off the shelf box is going to be tailored for the purpose - QNAP and Synology are very good here - not just the SW, but also the HW balance for the task and purpose...

Rolling one's own - MacOS is a bit under appreciated compared to others that use Linux, BSD, Windows... any of those platforms can do a decent job of things and for those that have some deep understanding of the platforms, can build up a small server that is totally appropriate and scaled for the task...

 

[Tech9]

Posting what you actually used for hardware and for software

I'm using this simple and effective software:

Bvckup 2 | Simple fast backup

Simple fast backup for Windows

bvckup2.com

It runs on my PCs and does backups on schedule, it also runs on the NAS PC and does drive sync on schedule. I do recommend purchasing a license for it to support the developer. It's one time payment.

Hardware - HP EliteDesk Mini i5-6500T, 8GB RAM, 240GB SSD. It was ~$120 off-lease from a local company.

 

[Mazz]

I'm using this simple and effective software:

Bvckup 2 | Simple fast backup

Simple fast backup for Windows

bvckup2.com

It runs on my PCs and does backups on schedule, it also runs on the NAS PC and does drive sync on schedule. I do recommend purchasing a license for it to support the developer. It's one time payment.

Hardware - HP EliteDesk Mini i5-6500T, 8GB RAM, 240GB SSD. It was ~$120 off-lease from a local company.

Is your HP The Elitedesk 800 G3? Thats what my other PC is, it has 32gb of ram, 512gb NVME 2.5gb Ethernet card...it used to be my Plex server. Just trying to figure out what to do with it.

 

[maxbraketorque]

Running your "own" NAS isn't exactly a new concept. It has been around for over a decade
Personally, I like the ease of use for a no-brainer NAS box from a manufacturer. It does the job it was bought to do.

I played around with at least a dozen home-grown offerings over the years (dating back to the 1980's), Unix, QNix, Linux, TruNAS, mini-pc, full blown PC, Raspberry Pi...
It all depends on what you use it for, how much you want to maintain it, what you know and what you need to learn.

Posting what you actually used for hardware and for software might be beneficial as information for someone to use or consider

I fully agree its not a new idea, but mini-PCs running Windows and MacOS have made it more affordable in recent years.

My ASUSTOR NAS had excellent drive monitoring and data integrity checking, so I would have stuck with it if the software were sufficiently robust. It actually did most things I wanted, but it kinda sucked at it. I had to give up when I couldn't reliably backup the NAS to an external attached drive in a reasonable period of time.

Here is my setup. I tried to keep it short but complete. Still pretty long.

I could have gone with a Mac or PC-based setup, but I feel like its hard to beat the quality of a Mac, so I went that route. I got an excellent deal on a used Mac Mini M2 Pro which is debatably more powerful than a Mac Mini M4. 10 gbps USB and Thunderbolt 4. I paired it with a Terramaster D4-320 enclosure which is a 4-bay box with USB-C gen 2 (10 gbps), SATA-III drive interface, and a temperature-sensitive fan. No HW RAID. One tip for anyone going the DIY route - USB cables provided with enclosures are hit and miss on quality. Purchase a known high quality USB-C cable. After getting the base OS config setup, I switched over to running headless with a HDMI dummy monitor plug. Since my LAN is 2.5 gbps, I bought a 2.5 gbe USB-C adapter.

One hassle with the MacOS route was figuring out the best way to implement user accounts for SMB access. Apple has a "sharing only" account that offers SMB access. However, Linux devices (Android phones) can't SMB into the NAS with this approach. In addition, access control is hard with this account - its all or nothing for access to the various shares which is a really bad idea. Once I realized that approach was no bueno, I switched to standard user accounts, and to provide a measure of security, I disabled login privs (ssh, GUI) while allowing SMB access. Works wonderfully.

Software - VNC for access, DriveDx for Smart monitoring the HDDs, CCC for most data hauling, FileZilla for FTP server with GUI (not intuitive to set up), Cutedge Systems Mail Server (Postfix + Dovecot in one package with a GUI), Letsencrypt certificate auto generation also by Cutedge, Syslogview (on the Apple App Store) for a syslog server with a GUI. There are a few must-have utilities for Macs - 1) Menumeters to monitor network throughput, HDD throughput, CPU temp, and CPU load. 2) Alsoft Disk Warrior for additional HDD data integrity checking. A lot of this software is not free, but the price is affordable and well worth it.

The data hauling speeds (across the LAN or across attached drives) are shockingly better than what my AS5304T could ever do. One job on the AS5304T that would take 4 hours to 4 days depending on what software I used, is completed on the Mac Mini consistently in 45 minutes. Part of it is higher spec HW, and part of it is much better software. As a result, the drives spend most of their time idle with the Mac Mini, whereas the drives were almost always rumbling with the AS5304T. Should be better for disk life.