Build a mini-ITX NAS or just buy a dedicated NAS?

[birthdaymonkey]

I just ran out of hard drive space and impulse ordered two Samsung F4 2 TB drives. Now I'm thinking about how to implement them. I'm out of room to put drives in my main PC, but I can put them in my GF's PC (connected via a decent Wireless-N connection... less than ideal), or I can buy something like a D-Link DNS-323 (currently $170 on Newegg) or I can build a NAS mini-ITX computer (using free software, this would probably end up costing me around $250-300?). I've never used a NAS before and I have minimal experience with Linux/BSD. I'd like to share the drives as seamlessly as possible on my Windows 7 network. What do you guys think?

 

[DrGreen2007]

I bought the Intel AtomD410 itx combo, added 2x 1Gb sticks and 2x 2TB F4's and installed Freenas.
Works great, threw it all in an old Dell case and popped it behind the TV, dont even know its there

 

[Emulex]

the qnap/drobo units have special drivers that do not care if the drive has TLER/green/TLER=0 whatever. mix n match. This is something no freenas software has on the stack which is a critical advantage to qnap/drobo.

if you were in atlanta i'd give my boat anchor poweredge SC420 lol. you shouldn't spend $0 unless you are going for a custom qnap/drobo solution. everyone has an old boxen to throw out that will do the job for free

 

[nanaki333]

all pre-built NAS systems i've gotten have died within a year. i'm going based on buffalo and lacie, but i've had several of each. i bought an intel NAS (not sold anymore) that is basically a c2 based celeron PC with 2GB ram running intel's NAS software. i put freeNAS on it instead and so far it's almost at a year *fingers crossed*.

 

[birthdaymonkey]

So the early consensus seems to be that FreeNAS and a low-power ITX computer would be the best bet? That would probably keep me busy and be more fun than buying a ready-to-go box while providing the most flexibility. Of course I'd want a board with more than 2 SATAs and a decent case with room for expansion. Does FreeNAS have any issues with advance format drives like the F4s? Does it play nice with Windows 7 shares? Is it relatively easy to set up?

EDIT: I see after looking around a little that it's hard to find an Atom board with more than 2 SATA. I guess I could always add a SATA card later if necessary.

 

[Emulex]

weird my qnap is an atom board with a 4 drive riser. perhaps you are looking for the wrong thing

its very underpowered if you have multiple users. things like ntfs and usb just crash the system under any sort of load.

 

[Reliant]

I ended up going through this debate recently. Ended up with a micro atx mobo for more sata ports. Paired it with a low power consumption AMD CPU. Not as low power as an Atom but I won't run in to horsepower issues with multiple users hitting it and the price difference wasnt all that great.

 

[adairusmc]

I am running a homebuilt one with an Atom D510, add in PCI sata card, and 1gb of memory, and it has about 200 days of uptime on it now. Works flawlessly so far, I have been very happy with the setup.

 

[Zap]

I've read some reviews of small dedicated NAS boxes and they all seem to have lousy file transfer performance.

I would do either a dedicated build (recycled hardware or low end new stuff) or a WHS box. The WHS boxes tend to be small like dedicated NAS boxes, but are basically just a real computer, albeit in a small chassis. Lower end ones have Atoms and higher end ones have, well, faster CPUs. WHS (Windows Home Server) is also popular on its own for misc purposes, but it certainly can file serve just fine. This isn't the cheapest route, but it will get you the performance that the little NAS boxes can't give, with the small size that a recycled computer can't give.

HP and Acer makes a few popular models that can hold up to 4 drives. The Acer one is the cheapest at around $400 (includes first drive). HP models are available with more CPU power.

 

[beginner99]

I've been thinking about this too. The thing is I think building it yourself will cost you the same amount or more than an out of the box nas and will cost some nerves.

As you said Atom boards don't have enough SATA ports. 4 if your lucky but you also need 1 for an OS drive so for a 4-drive nas you need at least 5 ports. So you either need to go for a mATX non-Atom solution or a super expensive server board with atom like from supermicro.

Cases are also an issue for me because I don't have space for second case even not a mid tower and micro towers usually don't offer like 5 drive bays. So you have to either have space or buy an expensive small server case (like one from Chenbro).

Advantage of doing it yourself is you can get a bit higher powered hardware and maybe also use it as HTPC if needed.

See here for NAS reviews:

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas

Some are pretty good. Some get 90 MB/s Reads writes in RAID 5 over gigabit ethernet. that's more than I get between 2 internal wd green drives in my pc.
Or said otherwise if it is about having a NAS and not building it, I would buy an out of the box solution but not the cheapest one. I would go with an Atom one.

 

[RonniJamesDiode]

I've got the DNS-321 and it's been reliable and very low power with two 500GB green drives in RAID-1. However, transfer rates leave much to be desired... I get about 12MB/sec over my gigabit network.

 

[Yellowbeard]

Do you already have an existing MOBO + CPU combo laying around that you are not using?

FYI, I did FreeNAS several years back and it was easy. And, it's easier now and documented much better. If I can figure it out, a chimp can.