Budget NAS with Room to Grow

[disky]

Hey everyone, I'm looking to build as affordable a NAS as possible, without compromising on basic performance or limiting the potential for future growth. My first NAS was a 4-bay Synology, which quickly became quite annoying after I realised the difficulties in upgrading in-place disks. I'd really my second NAS to have 8 bays at minimum, so I can start with ~4 drives and continue expanding from there.

In terms of NAS use, I mostly want to running a Plex server for LAN clients (not transcoded, just streamed), run a few other servers (e.g. Sonarr, rTorrent) and provide a local fileshare. It's just my roomies and I, so I think I should be able to get away with a fairly low-spec CPU and RAM. I'm leaning pretty strongly towards a rackmount chassis. Space is a bit of an issue for me, and I plan to build a custom set of drawers/8RU server rack to go under my desk. I know that a desktop chassis would be a little cheaper, but overall I think the slight expense would be worth it for me.

The main areas I'm not clear on are the CPU and motherboard. After a fair bit of research on my end, they seemed to be the best I could come up with while still meeting minimum requirements for an 8-bay system. The PSU seems like it may be overkill but I'm pretty unsure there too.

FWIW I'm in Canada, so far I've been checking NewEgg US for prices but I plan to dig deeper once I have a build finalised. Here's the part list I have so far:

Google Drive Spreadsheet

 

[jgreco]

Well it's probably worth pointing out:

1) That Ark chassis will handle about two drives, maybe three, four if you don't mind some double-sided tape in the mix.

2) The X11SAE is a workstation board. You'd be better off with a server board.

3) Your links don't work so it's hard to see if that Xeon is compatible, or the RAM is compatible. But 8GB is barely enough for FreeNAS itself, and hoping that Plex will live within that is probably overly optimistic.

 

[jgreco]

Also

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/proper-power-supply-sizing-guidance.38811/

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/hardware-recommendations-guide.12/

 

[Ericloewe]

Drop the Xeon for an i3-6xxx or 7xxx and get a Supermicro X11SSM-F. Maybe a better PSU, depending on where the Silverstone unit slots, quality-wise. A more reputable boot device would also be nice.

As for the chassis, I expect very little at that price, but getting a good rackmount is significantly more expensive than your option there, even if you get a good deal on used gear.

 

[rvassar]

You're going to need more RAM. I have trouble living on 16Gb. As for @jgreco comment on it being a workstation board: Look at the ratio of PCIe lanes per slot. You have x16's and x1's. Most of the PCIe cards you would use to grow the system (HBA's, NIC's, etc...) are going to require x4 or x8 slots. Also 5v 32-bit PCI slots are a waste of MB real estate in 2018.

On cases... I went with a cheap $60 gaming tower (see build #3). I have 10 drives in it now (two are 2.5's for the boot pool), and still have room to expand.

 

[Chris Moore]

FWIW I'm in Canada, so far I've been checking NewEgg US for prices but I plan to dig deeper once I have a build finalised. Here's the part list I have so far:

You have some good advice already I just wanted to add that it appears you need to do a lot more reading and ask questions before you begin to pick parts.

 

[Chris Moore]

PS. I went and looked at that case and I was amazed:

ARK 4U406 Black 1.0mm thick 4U Rackmount Server Chassis 2 External 5.25" Drive Bays
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811128064

It is almost exactly the same as one of the first rack mount cases I built a server in back around 2001. I will just say this about it. It was the worst case I have ever dealt with. When we bought a replacement system, it got thrown from the second floor of the building into the scrap metal recycling dumpster. Everyone that touched it hated it, me worst of all. I wouldn't wish it on my enemy.

If you need a rack mount chassis, get a better one. Do you really need a rack mount system?

 

[jgreco]

PS. I went and looked at that case and I was amazed:

ARK 4U406 Black 1.0mm thick 4U Rackmount Server Chassis 2 External 5.25" Drive Bays
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811128064

It is almost exactly the same as one of the first rack mount cases I built a server in back around 2001. I will just say this about it. It was the worst case I have ever dealt with. When we bought a replacement system, it got thrown from the second floor of the building into the scrap metal recycling dumpster. Everyone that touched it hated it, me worst of all. I wouldn't wish it on my enemy.

If you need a rack mount chassis, get a better one. Do you really need a rack mount system?

Yeah, in the late '90's we used a better version of that produced by Antec, the 3460B. It had some significant things going for it, and several of them are still around because they were easy to retrofit into hypervisors that run nearly silent in an office setting. But they're really not suitable for any large number of drives. When we had to hook up more than three drives, that meant an external shelf for the drives. The Antec had very good cooling and was pleasant to work with, in part because it was really very similar to a standard ATX desktop chassis.

 

[disky]

2) The X11SAE is a workstation board. You'd be better off with a server board.

Ah woops, it did say "Server Motherboard" in the title on NewEgg: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182986

Most of the PCIe cards you would use to grow the system (HBA's, NIC's, etc...) are going to require x4 or x8 slots.

Are 16x not compatible with 8x or 4x? I might swap to the X11SSM-F as suggested:

Drop the Xeon for an i3-6xxx or 7xxx and get a Supermicro X11SSM-F

Also went for a desktop case and upgraded the RAM (originally I'd planned for 2x 8GB rather than a single 8GB as someone seeme dto think, but it looks like 32 is going to be necessary.

What's happening when the links aren't working for you? They seem to work for me just fine.

 

[rvassar]

Are 16x not compatible with 8x or 4x? I might swap to the X11SSM-F as suggested:

Sure. But the x1's are mostly useless, as are the 32 bit PCI slots, unless you have legacy NIC's or something similar put in them. You'll likely have driver problems with legacy PCI cards. What do you do when you need three x4 slots? You'll have two x16 slots occupied, but under utilized. The x16 slots are for GPU's, which you don't need on a NAS.

Consider: The X11SSM-F has an IPMI controller that hangs out on an extra NIC. You connect that NIC, and get a complete remote console over your network. You don't even need a monitor & keyboard attached, so no need for a video card of any sort. So save the PCIe lanes for something useful in the future, like a 10GbE NIC, a SAS HBA.

I could see you selecting this board if you think it will get pressed into duty as a workstation at some point in the future. But only you can make that call.

 

[CraigD]

Your latest build has a problem:

The RAM is incompatible with your board

Have Fun
PS Off-topic: An x16 card will work in an x1 slot at x1 speeds if you cut out the back of the slot, another way around this is to use an x1 to x16 adapter (the same thing miners use)

 

[Chris Moore]

Ah woops, it did say "Server Motherboard" in the title on NewEgg: https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182986

The people at NewEgg just don't have a clue about some things, but it might be called a server board by Supermicro. The thing that makes it 'not a server' at least not for FreeNAS is the missing IPMI and the fact that it has audio out. FreeNAS does not need and can't use, any type of advanced video or audio capability and it can't directly use any WiFi network adapter that I am aware of.