NAS on a budget

[Droc]

Well, im all out of bays and sata ports on my computer, and all my usb is used up.

I think its about time I roll a NAS, but on a budget.
Im looking for something small and efficient that i can just grab, toss some drives in and let it run.

Looking around, im totally confused on what to get and prices are all over the place.
If anyone can point me in the right direction with some units to consider that would be great.

 

[spankit]

Synology and Qnap are often praised on these forums although they will come at a cost. The cheapest route would be to build your own. With software similar to FreeNAS it has never been easier to do it.

Can you give us a bit more details? How many disks do you want it to support?

 

[sdkidx]

Synology and Qnap are often praised on these forums although they will come at a cost. The cheapest route would be to build your own. With software similar to FreeNAS it has never been easier to do it.

Can you give us a bit more details? How many disks do you want it to support?

I am interested in doing this.....I've built lots of computers, but have never done this before. so do I get a barebones enclosure? Do I need to build a computer? How do you embed FreeNAS onto the hardware?

Point me in the right direction and get me started...

 

[blurp]

I am interested in doing this.....I've built lots of computers, but have never done this before. so do I get a barebones enclosure? Do I need to build a computer? How do you embed FreeNAS onto the hardware?

Point me in the right direction and get me started...

Did this last august. Built a FreeNAS server with the low cost (on sale) hardware bellow. Couldn't be happier.

Coolermaster Elite 343
Intel Pentium G630
Kingston HyperX 2x4GB
Antec Basiq VP350
Intel DH77EB mATX (6 SATA ports and intel NIC)
WD green 3 x TB RAIDZ1

Read thoroughly the documentation and the FreeNAS forums before even choosing the hardware. Especially the different RAIDz setup and the best number of HDs for parity and performance. FreeNAS boots from a USB flash drive. That frees up all the HDs.

 

[Billy_nnn]

You can build a server for peanuts if you look carefully on eBay - minus the actual drives of course (which you are better getting new)

 

[blastingcap]

If you don't mind the lack of ECC and don't pay high electricity prices (or plan to turn your NAS off when not in use, or use WOL etc.) then the cheapest method is to get an old PC and install NAS4Free/FreeNAS/OI+NappIt etc.

If you do want ECC then it gets more expensive. My rec is to get any ASUS motherboard of the 7-series AMD flavor or later, even some old ASUS 780G mobo and stick a Sempron 140 on it, a few gigs of unregistered ECC memory, and you're good to go. If you want the more energy-efficient version of that, you need to go Intel with a C202/4/6 chipset and slap a G530 on there, but beware because I had a HORRIBLE time getting ASUS to confess to me that they never updated their BIOS on the P8B WS and thus be very careful to ascertain that an Intel mobo really does support ECC even with a non-Xeon CPU. I eventually gave up on waiting on ASUS to fix its damned P8B WS and got a Supermicro C204 board instead and that works just fine with a G530 + unregistered ECC.

And if you want to do it the "right" way you want a full blown server with registered RAM and Xeon CPU. But that costs too much imho.

 

[Droc]

Synology and Qnap are often praised on these forums although they will come at a cost. The cheapest route would be to build your own. With software similar to FreeNAS it has never been easier to do it.

Can you give us a bit more details? How many disks do you want it to support?

Im thinking 4 WD 2TD green drives. I dont know anything about RAID, but I hear RAID5 is the way to go.

If you don't mind the lack of ECC and don't pay high electricity prices (or plan to turn your NAS off when not in use, or use WOL etc.) then the cheapest method is to get an old PC and install NAS4Free/FreeNAS/OI+NappIt etc.

If you do want ECC then it gets more expensive. My rec is to get any ASUS motherboard of the 7-series AMD flavor or later, even some old ASUS 780G mobo and stick a Sempron 140 on it, a few gigs of unregistered ECC memory, and you're good to go. If you want the more energy-efficient version of that, you need to go Intel with a C202/4/6 chipset and slap a G530 on there, but beware because I had a HORRIBLE time getting ASUS to confess to me that they never updated their BIOS on the P8B WS and thus be very careful to ascertain that an Intel mobo really does support ECC even with a non-Xeon CPU. I eventually gave up on waiting on ASUS to fix its damned P8B WS and got a Supermicro C204 board instead and that works just fine with a G530 + unregistered ECC.

And if you want to do it the "right" way you want a full blown server with registered RAM and Xeon CPU. But that costs too much imho.

lol, I didnt understand any of that

I have an old q6600 PC thats collecting dust, but it was a power hog and in a huge case. Im looking to go as small as I can.

What about one of those premade tiny 4 drive boxes? whats the cheapest ones to consider? brands to avoid?

 

[brianmat]

I think if you define what "budget" means to you it may help with some suggestions.

 

[ne1wantaride]

Im thinking 4 WD 2TD green drives. I dont know anything about RAID, but I hear RAID5 is the way to go.



lol, I didnt understand any of that

I have an old q6600 PC thats collecting dust, but it was a power hog and in a huge case. Im looking to go as small as I can.

What about one of those premade tiny 4 drive boxes? whats the cheapest ones to consider? brands to avoid?

Spend the extra couple bucks and get WD Red drives. They have TLER for RAID so they will error correct using SMART. The WD Green do not in a RAID configuration.

 

[SemiLucid]

Having ECC memory in your NAS would be best practice. Since we are talking budget build, how about a mini-ITX mobo with integrated cpu? You could slap that into a cheap case or possibly re-purpose an old one.

The mini-ITX boards are not going to set any speed records, and usually come with an Intel Atom or AMD APU. They have a limited number of SATA ports and often don't support above 4GB RAM.

If you are looking for something cheap and no fuss its probably the way to go.