New Build

[hyelife]

Hello everyone. Searching for a DIY NAS on google I stumbled into this forum and it looks like the community is full of experts who can help me out deciding on my NAS.

I am looking into building my own NAS for my HD videos and Raw photos collection. I will be using the device to stream content to my TV's and PC's. All the computers at home are running Win 7 but I will be needing help in choosing the OS for the NAS.
I have looked into pre build NAS servers and none of them offer me what I need and they are just OVERPRICED. I need something that is expandable and is future proof.
Currently I have 2 2TB WD Green HDD's which are both a little more then half way full. I am not sure how reliable these drives are and if I should upgrade to 3TB WD Red Drives. I need help deciding on what RAID is best for my needs and how many HDD will I need. Also suggestions on backup will be appreciated.

This is the Setup I plan on getting. If any one has any suggestions let me know.

• Case: LIAN LI PC-Q25B
  Need something with atleast 6 HDD bay's
  
  
• MB: ASUS Intel H77 P8H77-I
  Choosing this because of the number of SATA ports.
  
  
• CPU: Core I3-2120
  The Core I3 I believe is more then enough to handle my needs.
  
  
• MEMORY: CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB
  Do I need more?
  
  
• POWER SUPPLY: Need help choosing this one.

Appreciate all the help

 

[tipstir]

Wow how much did the above cost you? What OS are you going to run on that FreeNas? How much RAM are you using.

Yes you should get WD RED since those support NAS and Media Streaming. I still use WD Blue 2x TB 32MB Cache SATA III 6.0Gb/s on my NSA325 as I did on my AMD Black Edition 2.5 Quad-Core 8GB File/Media Server WD TB 32MB Cache SATA II 3.0GB/s. Ran that since 2009 none of the WD Blue have ever failed the only thing failed was the PSU and PCI-E OBO GiG. Replaced that with Mini-PCI-E GiG twice until I got one that would work. No issues.

 

[hyelife]

Wow how much did the above cost you? What OS are you going to run on that FreeNas? How much RAM are you using.

Yes you should get WD RED since those support NAS and Media Streaming. I still use WD Blue 2x TB 32MB Cache SATA III 6.0Gb/s on my NSA325 as I did on my AMD Black Edition 2.5 Quad-Core 8GB File/Media Server WD TB 32MB Cache SATA II 3.0GB/s. Ran that since 2009 none of the WD Blue have ever failed the only thing failed was the PSU and PCI-E OBO GiG. Replaced that with Mini-PCI-E GiG twice until I got one that would work. No issues.

It cost me $0 lol. Don't have the parts yet. Waiting to see whats the best build before I order. Without the HDD it will cost probably around 450.. I still have not decided on the OS yet.

 

[travisco_nabisco]

8GB of RAM should be enough to start with.

If you decide to go with FreeNAS as the OS, they recommend 1GB of memory for each TB of usable storage.

 

[hyelife]

Do you guys recommend UnRaid? I heard allot of good things about it and want to get some opinions on people who have experience with several of these OS's.

 

[stevech]

It's just me and an opinion: but I wanted to use, did try both unRAID and FreeNAS.

Neither were feature-full enough, and simple enough to sustain. For me. I could learn/do it (wrote Unix code for years in my job), but I wanted to devote my time to other things. So I did a buy rather than a make.

 

[hyelife]

I don't want to buy Pre-build NAS servers due to there price and limitation. I want something I can work with and make my own.

 

[tipstir]

I don't want to buy Pre-build NAS servers due to there price and limitation. I want something I can work with and make my own.

I can understand that.. Still pre-made works for the soul purpose to be a NAS. Mine does everything else though it does work. You should do what most corp industry do tie all systems together and use them as one super NAS.

 

[stevech]

"I don't want to buy Pre-build NAS servers due to there price and limitation. I want something I can work with and make my own."

Opinion: having been there, done that: If you want DIY for the fun of building, fine. But that's what it is, in a make vs. buy decision.

 

[hyelife]

Just looked at synology and there NAS builds are expensive. Reason for a DIY is to avoid the premium cost and build something expandable.

 

[GregN]

Just looked at synology and there NAS builds are expensive. Reason for a DIY is to avoid the premium cost and build something expandable.

Expandability and flexibility is where the commercial NASes fail, if you have the chops to put a NAS together, go for it.

Stevech, is I swear to god a stealth rep for Synology, in each and every thread that someone posts to DIY he asks the same question, states the same opinion, and generally gets the same answer.

Your parts build out looks fine, though I prefer Supermicro to Asus, it is a judgement call. SuperMicro has Dual Intel NICs, say like the X9SCV-Q.

 

[hyelife]

Expandability and flexibility is where the commercial NASes fail, if you have the chops to put a NAS together, go for it.

Stevech, is I swear to god a stealth rep for Synology, in each and every thread that someone posts to DIY he asks the same question, states the same opinion, and generally gets the same answer.

Your parts build out looks fine, though I prefer Supermicro to Asus, it is a judgement call.

Thanks Greg. I will look into Supermicro to see if it falls into my budget. What about the OS. What would you recommend? This is the setup I I will have.

• Living room TV has a Popcorn Hour A-200 box
• Bedroom is PS3
• 2 PC's with Win 7
• 2 Laptop's with win 7

 

[GregN]

An active project with ZFS.

FreeNAS seems to have the momentum, and is relatively turn key. NexentaStor CE is the Dark horse (and size limited), but offers some great features that FreeNAS is just catching up to.


There are other ZFS choices if you don't need a GUI.

The focus on the slickness of the GUI is a personal thing, if you feel comfortable at the CLI, your options are wider. I last used the GUI on Ol' Shuck 3 months ago, and that was to add some disks, previous to that it was at least another 4 months (and I had to dig in my notes for the password). You use the GUI to set it up, and if it is good, it just runs.

 

[hyelife]

From what I have read ZFS is not friendly with WD Green drives and I already have 2. I also read that these drives work great in Unraid OS. Is this true and if so I can save allot of money by not switching to WD Red.

 

[GregN]

From what I have read ZFS is not friendly with WD Green drives and I already have 2. I also read that these drives work great in Unraid OS. Is this true and if so I can save allot of money by not switching to WD Red.

UnRaid sounds like your choice.

I am not a fan of WD, the 512E (emulating of a 512k block) creates problems in a bunch of places. And WD is not known as an upright straight player.

But since there is like only 2 mass hard disk vendors now, I should get my mind right.

 

[hyelife]

I will probably go with Unraid if it saves me some money. I have not had any negative experience with WD in the last couple of years, 4 to 5 years, so I will stick with them for the time being until we see 2-3 TB SSD drives and then make the switch.
Another question I have is regarding "Dual NICs". What are the uses and how can I utilize it in my setup?

Also would it be possible to stream the content to Android devices?

 

[GregN]

Dual NIC is useful for aggregating your connections, or segmenting your network.

When two gigabit connections are aggregated any single connection can't exceed the speed of a single NIC (1G), but the total amount of traffic is limited to twice that (2x1G)

You'd need a switch that supports aggregate/bonding and NIC that can configured for aggregation (the Intel NICs are the gold standard)

More importantly, it is a "nice to have" in terms of future-proofing your NAS.

For segmenting, you might want to put your HTPC <->NAS on a separate say iSCSI network giving giving that traffic a full 1G. And run your other traffic through the other NIC.

As you can see having another NIC options up options that you otherwise don't have.


For Android streaming take a look at Subsonic.