What to Buy for a New Home NAS/Server in Boxing Day Sales

LBunningsBaron on 21/12/2023 - 11:07

I'm interested in setting up at least a NAS, if not more of a homeserver in the near future, and expecting the best prices for a long time will be this boxing day. I'd like it for filesharing, plex, homeassistant, maybe more services I don't know about but others find useful.
I'm familiar with Linux, desktop PC's, their parts and operation but get lost quickly going to mini-pc's and servers. I'd rather a DIY build system over Synology/QNAP as I'm a tinkerer and already familiar with CLI admin-ing. I also value replacing single parts that may need replacement instead of the whole unit.
I currently have a desktop PC with 8TB of storage, looking to go to atleast 18+TB in the NAS, preferably with RAID 4 or 5. Power efficiency is desirable, and the less janky it looks is better for the Wife Approval Factor
I've looked at youtube videos on the topic but they're almost universally "this is what I bought" (which will only really be useful/relevant when the video was released), not a comprehensive this is what to look for and why.
I have some super old laptops with bad I/O laying around, a raspberry 4 not doing anything, a standalone intel celeron pfsense router.

Just wondering where I should start / if there's anything particuarly I should be buying now if it's cheap (thinking HDD's/SSD's and CPU/MOBO's).

Finding information in the Australian context has been especially challenging.

Computing NAS

Comments

  • theory on 21/12/2023 - 11:42
    +1

    In the same boat so will be watching this thread.

    Check this out if you haven't: https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/wiki/index/

  • FoxJump on 21/12/2023 - 11:42

    My qnap ts464 uses 21w of power on idle with 2x nvme ssds and 4x sata ssds.
    add 5w on top if you use an expansion card for 2x more nvme slots
    make it 40w idle if you replace the sata ssds with WD EFRX disks.

    Meanwhile, my really slow laptop uses 3w on idle.
    hmm.

  • FoxJump on 21/12/2023 - 11:43

    You can tinker with QNAP
    You can replace the OS with a linux or a trunas.
    You can ssh all you want.
    Mine sits next to the tv, quietly. it's a nice looking box.

  • boomramada on 21/12/2023 - 12:16

    And here me got two 16TB hard disk attached to raspberry 4 and use it as NAS :)

    • jackvdbuk on 21/12/2023 - 13:09

      Are you using two external enclosures with 2x psus?

      • boomramada on 21/12/2023 - 14:41

        yeah they are WD enclosed HD's connected via USB

  • garetz on 21/12/2023 - 13:01
    +2

    First you need to consider your requirements, do you want an always on 24/7 nas, or a only on sometimes nas.

    Will you be backup from it daily, how much storage do you need, if you want to use plex and home assistant you will propably need to get a qnap or synology for its OS.

    If you want to build it yourself there is heaps of guides on reddit.

    I had a self built nas for 10 years, but there was always issues with it, finally got sick of it and got a synology, and its just really you are paying for all in one and ease of use.

  • nedski on 21/12/2023 - 13:18
    +1

    Look into Truenas. Have been using this for years. Spend your money on big hdd's

  • rumblytangara on 21/12/2023 - 13:27
    +1

    HP Microserver for a very neat option. Not real cheap though.

    You sure about running RAID 4? That's an odd one. Conceptually not all that different from 5, but 5 is pretty much the standard.

  • qwijibo on 21/12/2023 - 14:44

    What to look for in a case:
    1. Drive capacity.
    2. Ease of access to the drives. This is often overlooked, but you want something that is easy to get to the back of a drive so you can connect/disconnect the cables. helps not only during drive replacement (which should be rare), but during initial setup.

    There are a crap-ton of cases on the market, but if you're going for 6+ drives, have a look at the Fractal Design 7 or Fractal Design Meshify 2 (not the compact versions, they're crap for this purpose). You could also use the Fractal Design Node 804 if you're doing a micro-ATX build. For a mini-ITX build you could look at the Jonsbo N3 - can fit 8 drives in a pretty small volume. Downside is all these cases $300+. But they're worth it.

    For motherboard/cpu/ram:
    - If it's just going to be a NAS, go for something cheap, simple and low power. If you can find a good deal on one of the N100 NAS motherboards on Aliexpress, they would do the job. N100 uses about 10W idle, and has about the same cpu grunt as a i5-6500T. Around $300 on aliexpress.
    - If it's going to be doing something else (e.g. running cpu-intensive workloads, transcoding, whatever), maybe an AM4 setup (but DDR4 ram is getting expensive now).

    OS:
    If you're going do some form of raid and want an easy setup then use TrueNAS. The great thing about ZFS is it's supported out of the box by TrueNAS, Proxmox, Ubuntu, etc, so if you don't like TrueNAS or you want more versatility, then you can switch over to one of those and just bring your pool across.

  • DGrayson82 on 21/12/2023 - 15:42

    I was looking to build a low powered NAS but just ended up buying a QNAP TS-464. I'm only running a few things on it (Radarr, Sonarr, Bazarr, Plex, PiHole etc) and it hasnt skipped a beat

  • Ozbar Gain on 21/12/2023 - 17:07
    +1

    I've just recently repurposed a very old sff pc with Unraid. I highly recommend Unraid because of how easy it is to use mismatched hard drives and also its vast library of docker apps. It just works.

    If you're building from scratch get a case with enough drive slots and decent airflow, and for CPU you could go for AMD as those normally idle lower.

  • jizmo on 21/12/2023 - 20:44

    Proxmox with truenas mounted running Plex Only have to reboot on major updates. Came from Qnap 453 something, slow and expensive, best move I made after Qnap shit itself after 5 years.

  • Yuri Lowell on 22/12/2023 - 10:42

    TerraMaster F4-423 back down to $559 on Amazon.

  • BunningsBaron on 24/12/2023 - 09:31

    Thanks for the options guys. Considering your advice and other forums, I'll be looking at a decent SFF PC Case, leaning something cheap like Fractal Design Node 304, but considering the Jonsbo's or similiar.
    Probably a N100, maybe something beefier for a little transcode, not sure. Will probably start with 2x high capacity HDD's like 16-20TB mirrored in raid 1, Truenase/ZFS. Will have to see how I go on computer noise levels. Keeping an eye out for some good deals, see how we go.

    • boretentsu on 24/12/2023 - 23:15

      You can pick up cheap fractal nodes on fb marketplace if you camp long enough. I got one and put in intel 12th gen components.

  • BunningsBaron on 01/01/2024 - 11:16

    I live otuside a capital region so fb marketplace is quite lackluster.
    But there was a amazon special, 4tb samsung QVO 2.5" SATA SSD's for $210 shipped from USA, that has quite spoiled me for this build. I missed that special but the more I research, the more I see that was the one to get ha. (If you want SSD mass storage)

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