Home photo/video NAS

[JAT]

Hello all,

I am wanting to build up a very budget friendly NAS for safely storing video and photo work.

Unsure with my tight budget if I could build something up that's strong enough for live files (do my Post production) from the nas itself.

Or if since budget is low get a less horsepower system and just export all files to the NAS, after all work is done just so it is safely backed up.

I do have a few older 125gb ssd's so I can easily use one of those as the Boot drive.

outside of that i was thinking a few WD reds for actual storage

Side note i do have access to a bunch of old Dell optiplex 790's but issue with them is they are small form factor and only have room for 1 HDD. I would think using USB bays with the hard drives is probably not a good solution for this though.


Apologies as I am all over the place hopefully you can all make sense of my scatter brain :)

 

[nightshade00013]

My system is based on a Supermicro X8dt6-F board with a pair of Xeon E5640's and 48 GB of ram. I have actually built out three based this way now and with 7 7200RPM drives it idles around 180 watts and since my power rate is cheap I don't fret over it. The board cpu and ram cost is around 200 and if you grab a 1U you can get the PSU as well. The most cost is the drives since going used or refurbished probably isn't the best idea.

Something like http://www.ebay.com/itm/1U-Server-S...-E-2-0-IPMI-/132268209329?hash=item1ecbccb4b1 would get you started and then add a few sticks of ram and four hdd's. Just use one of your SSD's internally with some velcro to hold it in place.

As far as post processing that will depend on what you want to run and if you can get it to work in a jail or VM. If you already have something that can do it then it's a lower priority.

A couple pointers as well. ECC ram....get it, use it, respect it especially if you savor your data. The more ram the better. Don't buy cheap parts.

While the system I linked is cheap now it wasn't when it was originally made but it doesn't suit the needs of where it was so you can get a discount. The trade off is that it does use more power.

 

[JAT]

Hmm not a bad deal at all for what it is. Unsure though if I have a good spot to slot a server rack style system.

Maybe i should look around at tower style old servers.

 

[danb35]

The HP Proliant ML10 is under $200 from Tigerdirect.com. As far as I know, it's the best bang-for-buck out there for a new box, and better than a good many choices for a used one as well.

 

[JAT]

My budget is extremely tight on this but currently my stuff is sitting on a single drive in my computer and then i am backing up to an external drive from time to time. Completely unreliable as i do not back it up regularly enough. (I know that's my own fault) Main reason wanting to make change is the current spin disk i feel is having issues and is getting sluggish at handling data so wanting to get better backup and also better performance.

I am right now at little over 1 tb of data but my rate on how much I am storing is going up a lot quicker as i am moving into video now and not just photo work.

Technically i could get my hands on an old Dell poweredge 2900 but its 7 years old and unsure really how well it'd work out here are its specs:

223-4722 : Dual Core Xeon Processor 5110 4MB Cache, 1.6GHz, 1066MHz FSB PE2900
341-2522 : 39320A SCSI Internal Controller Card,Ultra 3 lead free, Low Voltage Differential for PowerEdge/SC
310-8172 : Optical Two-Button Mouse USB, Black
310-8170 : Keyboard, USB, Black
313-5854 : 16X DVD-ROM for PowerEdge 2900
341-3053 : 1.44MB Floppy Drive, Internal Black
430-2077 : Broadcom NetXtreme II 5708 1GbE NIC, TOE Capable, PCIe-4
341-5443 : 400GB 10K RPM Serial-Attach SCSI 3Gbps 3.5-in HotPlug Hard Drive
341-5699 : PERC6i SAS RAID Controller Internal with Battery
420-7119 : Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition with SP2 Includes 25 CALs
311-6198 : 8GB 667MHz (8x1GB), Single Ranked DIMMs
430-1765 : Broadcom TCP/IP Offload Engine Not Enabled
311-6228 : Dual Core Xeon 2nd Processor 5110, 4MB Cache, 1.60GHz 1066MHz FSB, PE 2900
341-5756 : Integrated SAS/SATA RAID 5 PERC 6/i Integrated
310-7407 : Redundant Power Supply with Dual Cords for PowerEdge 2900
313-5853 : Tower Chassis Orientation

 

[danb35]

Dual Core Xeon Processor 5110 4MB Cache, 1.6GHz, 1066MHz FSB PE2900

Bad. You don't want anything with a front-side bus.

 

[Jailer]

Bad. You don't want anything with a front-side bus.

Agreed.

Take a look at that one @danb35 posted. Add some more memory and 2 drives in a mirror and you've got a cheap, reliable, expandable starter system that meets the hardware requirements that will provide data integrity. As your storage needs grow just add another mirror of 2 drives.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5038747

 

[JAT]

So your saying something like this

HPE Proliant ML10 $180
Looks like it says DDR4 4gb guessing max 4gb per slot? So would that mean 4x4gb sticks? $65x4 = $260
2-4 hard drives: WD red ? or other solid options? 2x4tb to start $129x2 = $260
then the one of the 120gb or so ssd's i have for the freenas install drive. Free

Would 2 drives even give good failure protection or would 3 be best for minimum drives?


With 2 drive option that puts it at $700

Secondly how much of a performance difference is this giving over just getting something like this?

https://www.amazon.com/QNAP-TS-251-...=UTF8&qid=1501189694&sr=1-1&keywords=qnap+nas

Then the 2 4tb drives

Cost for this would be $510

 

[danb35]

Looks like it says DDR4 4gb guessing max 4gb per slot?

No, 16 GB per slot max. A single 8 GB DIMM would be adequate; a single 16 GB DIMM would be better.

Would 2 drives even give good failure protection

Two drives would protect you if one failed. You could set up a three-way mirror, but not too many users do that.

 

[JAT]

Ok so then can save about $100 as can snag something like this for memory then:

https://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Tec...=UTF8&qid=1501190339&sr=1-7&keywords=ddr4+ecc

 

[Stux]

You probably don't want to be doing production photo editing direct off the NAS.

Best to use it as an archive/backup target. Of course, if it's an archive you still need to back it up.

The ML10 is probably your best option. New hardware is significantly more power efficient than old hardware and will pay for itself in most jurisdictions.

A couple of drives, and a backup plan. Upgrade the ram with a 16GB dimm. If it comes with 4GB then you now have 20GB. If you wanted to cheap out you could go with an extra 4GB for a total of 8GB instead.

 

[Stux]

Ok so then can save about $100 as can snag something like this for memory then:

https://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Tec...=UTF8&qid=1501190339&sr=1-7&keywords=ddr4+ecc

Yes. (I haven't checked specs)

 

[JAT]

You probably don't want to be doing production photo editing direct off the NAS.

Best to use it as an archive/backup target. Of course, if it's an archive you still need to back it up.

The ML10 is probably your best option. New hardware is significantly more power efficient than old hardware and will pay for itself in most jurisdictions.

A couple of drives, and a backup plan. Upgrade the ram with a 16GB dimm. If it comes with 4GB then you now have 20GB. If you wanted to cheap out you could go with an extra 4GB for a total of 8GB instead.

Hmm i have never been a fan of mixing memory sizes... But i guess in reality it shouldn't be an issue.

Would the main advantage of doing something like this over say the Qnap that just needs drives tossed in it. Be that it's slightly more expandable as this would support up to 6 drives at a lower price point than getting a 6 drive qnap system?

As I will not be able to do actual production from this and it would just be a simple file store server for backups. What is the need of that much memory?

Sorry for silly questions I just have not done much work on NAS systems so figured this would be good place to get info. :)

 

[Stux]

The minimum is 8GB. If you're adding ram, the max per slot is 16GB, and the max total is 64GB.

The assumption is that one day you'll want more ram and thus it's better to get a 16 now rather than a 4 or 8 and end up throwing it away. Your choice.

Why not a QNAP? Because you are interested in the industrial strength integrity, reliability, expandability and configurability that FreeNAS offers, presumably.