Hi, I have a friend running a iXsystems TrueNAS system and it's very impressive. Unfortunately I can't afford to purchase one but I'm hoping from the help of this forum, and the community members here, that I can piece together a NAS system that I can afford. Looking forward to any suggestions from others as to what they're running or some ideas of what I'll need for a NAS. I will be the only user of this NAS, but it will be used to backup different servers I self-host. Thanks in advance!
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new to NAS
- Thread starter jgreyz
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- May 28, 2011
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Welcome to the forums.
Unfortunately there is no cheap way to build a reliable server. The amount of money you spend will depend on the "use case" of your NAS. For example, if you just want a simple NAS that can host video files and they do not need to be transcoded then the hardware could be as cheap as maybe $400-600 USD, plus the cost of the hard drives.
My advice, write down exactly what you want the system to perform, how much storage space will you need for at least the next 3 to 5 years (hard drive warranty are in this area), and is the data stored important, which is where redundancy comes in play.
Make no mistake, building a NAS yourself for the feature set is drastically cheaper than buying a QNAP or Synology NAS. If building a system is not for you then you can buy a prebuilt TrueNAS system.
Also understand that if you dive into a TrueNAS system, you should become familiar with how to set it up and how to recognize failures (typically hard drive failures) and how to correctly replace a hard drive in the system.
Some things you should know... You cannot just add a hard drive to add additional space, not yet at least. If you do, then you likely did it wrong unless you are running a stripe of single drives, which is not recommended.
Big mistakes from the past: Using a Laptop as the server, Less than 8GB RAM (8GB works for a bare bones NAS, more is preferred of course), Hard Drives all connected by USB (very slow), using SMR hard drives vice CMR (be careful here).
Search the forums for inexpensive hardware builds. And there is a Resource section that has minimum requirements. Read the User Guide, it is full of answers.
If you really want a NAS, TrueNAS is a great free product that has been well developed.
Best of luck to you and I hope you enjoy the forums.
Unfortunately there is no cheap way to build a reliable server. The amount of money you spend will depend on the "use case" of your NAS. For example, if you just want a simple NAS that can host video files and they do not need to be transcoded then the hardware could be as cheap as maybe $400-600 USD, plus the cost of the hard drives.
My advice, write down exactly what you want the system to perform, how much storage space will you need for at least the next 3 to 5 years (hard drive warranty are in this area), and is the data stored important, which is where redundancy comes in play.
Make no mistake, building a NAS yourself for the feature set is drastically cheaper than buying a QNAP or Synology NAS. If building a system is not for you then you can buy a prebuilt TrueNAS system.
Also understand that if you dive into a TrueNAS system, you should become familiar with how to set it up and how to recognize failures (typically hard drive failures) and how to correctly replace a hard drive in the system.
Some things you should know... You cannot just add a hard drive to add additional space, not yet at least. If you do, then you likely did it wrong unless you are running a stripe of single drives, which is not recommended.
Big mistakes from the past: Using a Laptop as the server, Less than 8GB RAM (8GB works for a bare bones NAS, more is preferred of course), Hard Drives all connected by USB (very slow), using SMR hard drives vice CMR (be careful here).
Search the forums for inexpensive hardware builds. And there is a Resource section that has minimum requirements. Read the User Guide, it is full of answers.
If you really want a NAS, TrueNAS is a great free product that has been well developed.
Best of luck to you and I hope you enjoy the forums.
