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scrubdubbins

Junior Member
May 13, 2012
9
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I am looking to build a headless NAS and purchasing all components to do so. This is my first foray into a NAS so any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

My goals are low energy consumption & cost. Box will be primarily for streaming movies to tv/laptop.

Requirements:

ZFS Raidz
Mirror laptop + desktop to NAS
4 SATA3 inputs
Ethernet
Stream .mp4/.avi et cetera

Thank you for your help!
 
I

iloveATech

Member
May 13, 2012
33
0
0
I use Synology and am very happy with it. Swappable bays that don't require reboots, low energy requirements, and an Os that lets you do som pretty amazing stuff. it's a great machine all round

I know you are looking to build your own, but keep Synology in mind
 
N

nsafreak

Diamond Member
Oct 16, 2001
7,093
3
81
Well here's what I put together as a potential NAS system for you, it should suit your needs just fine without breaking the bank. Well at least up until you buy hard drives since those are still a bit on the high side:

CPU: AMD Sempron 145 - You don't need a lot of computing power for a NAS so this is plenty. $39.99 on Newegg

RAM: G.Skill NS 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3-1333. I suppose you could go with even less at 2GB but sometimes having more RAM helps. $22.99

Motherboard: Your requirement of 6 SATA 3 ports is pushing you out of the less expensive boards that I would typically recommend for this duty. Normally I would recommend the ASrock 880GM-LE at $59.99 from newegg. And in all honesty I would still recommend it, you're going to be using mechanical HDDs on this system so going to SATA 3 really won't help at all. But if you really must have it then I would go with the Asus M5A97 running $94.99 at newegg

Power supply: NAS systems really don't need much juice so a good 350 watt PSU should be plenty. The Seasonic SE-350SFE running $48.99 at newegg should be plenty

Case: I think one of the better cases for a NAS would probably be the Fractal Design Arc. It has 6 internal drive bays and it's fairly small case so reasonably easy to hide away. Currently $99.99 at newegg

Total build price (not including hard drives) $266.94 if you go with the ASRock motherboard and $300.94 if you go with the Asus.
 
Jimmah

Jimmah

Golden Member
Mar 18, 2005
1,243
2
0
nsafreak said:
Well here's what I put together as a potential NAS system for you, it should suit your needs just fine without breaking the bank. Well at least up until you buy hard drives since those are still a bit on the high side:

CPU: AMD Sempron 145 - You don't need a lot of computing power for a NAS so this is plenty. $39.99 on Newegg

RAM: G.Skill NS 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3-1333. I suppose you could go with even less at 2GB but sometimes having more RAM helps. $22.99

Motherboard: Your requirement of 6 SATA 3 ports is pushing you out of the less expensive boards that I would typically recommend for this duty. Normally I would recommend the ASrock 880GM-LE at $59.99 from newegg. And in all honesty I would still recommend it, you're going to be using mechanical HDDs on this system so going to SATA 3 really won't help at all. But if you really must have it then I would go with the Asus M5A97 running $94.99 at newegg

Power supply: NAS systems really don't need much juice so a good 350 watt PSU should be plenty. The Seasonic SE-350SFE running $48.99 at newegg should be plenty

Case: I think one of the better cases for a NAS would probably be the Fractal Design Arc. It has 6 internal drive bays and it's fairly small case so reasonably easy to hide away. Currently $99.99 at newegg

Total build price (not including hard drives) $266.94 if you go with the ASRock motherboard and $300.94 if you go with the Asus.
Click to expand...

This would make for a nice NAS, low power and quiet while being rather inexpensive.

If you wished to go Intel, you could have similar results with a new SB Celeron and keep a more current socket design while having a bit more CPU power with same or less wattage.
 
fatpat268

fatpat268

Diamond Member
Jan 14, 2006
5,853
0
71
Look here:

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=7998.msg113242#msg113242

I pretty much will second what nsafreak wrote, however, I highly recommend using the 5.25" bays as hot slot bays instead of mounting them in the internal 3.5" slots. Makes it trivial to swap out drives or add new ones in the future.


scrubdubbins said:
Thanks for the feedback guys. I suppose SATA3 is not a must have.

I'm thinking of using a mini-box atx power supply

The PicoPSU 120w-25v paired with the FSP120-AAB The duo received excellent marks in johnnyguru's tests. PSU $55 Powerbrick $54.39

For a CPUIntel Celeron G530. It's an LGA1155 Socket. $50

I also saw this board ASUS P8H61-M LX PLUS (REV 3.0) $70

Still undecided on the case.
Click to expand...


I guess it's important to ask, but what kind of enclosure are you going to use? I ask, because if you're not bound by space constraints, it's a waste of money to go for one of those pico psu's. Not only that, but while hard drives aren't the biggest consumers of electricity, you do want a clean source of reliable power though
 
Last edited:
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wirednuts

Diamond Member
Jan 26, 2007
7,121
4
0
depending on how many harddrives you have and what kind, it might be better to get atom or e350 processor. things really add up when you leave your pc on 24/7. if i were going to use a desktop cpu though it would be the intel g530 or similar, as they have excellent idle power draw.

quick check and it seems real world draw at idle between an e350 build and a g530 is 15w to 30w... thats pretty awesome
 
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mfenn

Elite Member
Jan 17, 2010
22,400
5
71
www.mfenn.com
nsafreak said:
Well here's what I put together as a potential NAS system for you, it should suit your needs just fine without breaking the bank. Well at least up until you buy hard drives since those are still a bit on the high side:

CPU: AMD Sempron 145 - You don't need a lot of computing power for a NAS so this is plenty. $39.99 on Newegg

RAM: G.Skill NS 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3-1333. I suppose you could go with even less at 2GB but sometimes having more RAM helps. $22.99

Motherboard: Your requirement of 6 SATA 3 ports is pushing you out of the less expensive boards that I would typically recommend for this duty. Normally I would recommend the ASrock 880GM-LE at $59.99 from newegg. And in all honesty I would still recommend it, you're going to be using mechanical HDDs on this system so going to SATA 3 really won't help at all. But if you really must have it then I would go with the Asus M5A97 running $94.99 at newegg

Power supply: NAS systems really don't need much juice so a good 350 watt PSU should be plenty. The Seasonic SE-350SFE running $48.99 at newegg should be plenty

Case: I think one of the better cases for a NAS would probably be the Fractal Design Arc. It has 6 internal drive bays and it's fairly small case so reasonably easy to hide away. Currently $99.99 at newegg

Total build price (not including hard drives) $266.94 if you go with the ASRock motherboard and $300.94 if you go with the Asus.
Click to expand...

This looks good, but I would consider paying $10 on the CPU to get a Sandy Bridge dual core like the G530. ZFS is highly multi-threaded, so the extra core will be put to use during heavy load. Don't be fooled by the G530's TDP, it will idle at or below the Sempron. A good mobo with 6 SATA ports (6Gb/s is pointless for HDDs) is the ASRock H61ICAFE at $65.
 
ethebubbeth

ethebubbeth

Golden Member
May 2, 2003
1,740
5
91
I'm running FreeNAS 8.0.4-p2 on an e-350 mini itx board from ASRock with 8gb of ddr3-1333 (ZFS loves lots of ram, throw as much as you can at it). I have two 8tb RAID-Z arrays, each consisting of 4 3tb hitachi drives. Cooling is provided by 2x 120mm 1850rpm Gentle Typhoon fans undervolted to 7V. I have the CPU fan turned down as low as it will go in the BIOS. The whole thing is powered by a picopsu and draws 61W watts most of the time, 83W when all 8 drives are going full tilt. I'm not sure what it's at during idle because I'm running the transmission torrent client at boot so I always have drives doing something.

I'm very happy with the performance, functionality, and power usage of this setup. It's my torrent box, I share each of the arrays via CIFS (for windows clients) and NFS (for linux clients), I backup my computers to it via rsync and access it remotely to add/manage torrents and to access my files via SFTP.
 
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scrubdubbins

Junior Member
May 13, 2012
9
0
0
fatpat268 said:
Look here:

I guess it's important to ask, but what kind of enclosure are you going to use? I ask, because if you're not bound by space constraints, it's a waste of money to go for one of those pico psu's. Not only that, but while hard drives aren't the biggest consumers of electricity, you do want a clean source of reliable power though
Click to expand...

Fatpat,

I would like to get the smallest possible case to fit a minimum of 4 drives. The rosewill case found on the Limelight link looked like a good option.

The choice of the picopsu + fsp power brick was from reading about the extremely low wattage draw and desire for small form factor. Finding a case to fit at least 4 hdd's that isn't meant for HTPC's has proved to be a challenge.

Having done more research with the help of you wonderful folks, i've come to the realization that my primary goals are low power, low profile, 4+ hdd bays. This NAS will also serve critical data (family photos) so the plan is 2 mirrored arrays hence 4 drives for physical redundancy.

EDIT: 6gb SATA is not a requirement. I saw some 1TB Hitcahi 7200rpm 3gb/s drives for $100 that I had my eye on.
 
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Venom20

Venom20

Senior member
Apr 12, 2011
259
0
0
if you are planning on using ZFS then you should most definitely up your RAM. Obviously more is better, but I believe the minimum is about GB to be able to use ZFS's features.
 
M

mfenn

Elite Member
Jan 17, 2010
22,400
5
71
www.mfenn.com
scrubdubbins said:
Having done more research with the help of you wonderful folks, i've come to the realization that my primary goals are low power, low profile, 4+ hdd bays. This NAS will also serve critical data (family photos) so the plan is 2 mirrored arrays hence 4 drives for physical redundancy.
Click to expand...

There's no reason not to do a parity RAID-Z if you doing FreeNAS. That gives you 3/4th usable capacity instead of 1/2.

scrubdubbins said:
EDIT: 6gb SATA is not a requirement. I saw some 1TB Hitcahi 7200rpm 3gb/s drives for $100 that I had my eye on.
Click to expand...

Even if you get drives with a SATA 6Gb/s interface, they physically cannot push data out at 6Gb/s. SATA 3Gb/s is fine for mechanical drives in pretty much all cases.
 
S

scrubdubbins

Junior Member
May 13, 2012
9
0
0
mfenn said:
There's no reason not to do a parity RAID-Z if you doing FreeNAS. That gives you 3/4th usable capacity instead of 1/2.
Click to expand...

I never quite understood parity until I forced myself to re-read several articles on it until I got a firm grasp. I think it would be prudent to reserve 1 physical drive for parity, which, i'm assuming was your suggestion based on the 3/4 statement.

I'm looking forward to learning ZFS!

Even if you get drives with a SATA 6Gb/s interface, they physically cannot push data out at 6Gb/s. SATA 3Gb/s is fine for mechanical drives in pretty much all cases.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how the 6Gb/s came into play, I think someone mis-read. I plan on buying 3 Gb/s drives.

Any suggestions on a compact case that can hold 4-6, 3.25" drives?
 
M

mfenn

Elite Member
Jan 17, 2010
22,400
5
71
www.mfenn.com
scrubdubbins said:
I never quite understood parity until I forced myself to re-read several articles on it until I got a firm grasp. I think it would be prudent to reserve 1 physical drive for parity, which, i'm assuming was your suggestion based on the 3/4 statement.

I'm looking forward to learning ZFS!
Click to expand...

Well, technically with ZFS (and RAID5 for that matter), there isn't a dedicated drive for parity. Instead, one drive's worth of space is used for parity. In your case, the actual distribution would be that each drive is 3/4ths data and 1/4th parity.

scrubdubbins said:
Any suggestions on a compact case that can hold 4-6, 3.25" drives?
Click to expand...

Define compact. MicroATX size or Mini-ITX size?
 
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