Greetings,
I am looking to replace my old, slow NAS (currently 2 - DNS-323 and 1 external USB drive shared via my Asus router) with a single centralized unit to hold all of my data plus something to stream my media throughout my house. I am using a little over 6TB of my (combined) ~11TB of network storage. I will have a max of 4 simultaneous users.
I have read the recommended hardware section, I know I want a Xeon machine with ECC RAM, I would like 6 SATA ports (I could live with 4) that will accommodate larger than 2TB disks, and hopefully end up with one large RAID-5/RAIDZ or RAID-6/RAIDZ2 array with 4, 5, or 6 3+TB drives. I understand if I go ZFS I should aim for 16GB (or more) of RAM. I will keep my other devices as backup, so UFS is an option. Now, to my question:
Older workstations can be had inexpensively online. Is there an Optiplex (or HP/Lenovo) equivalent with ~6SATA ports, Intel Xeon, 8+GB ECC, supports GPT disks that someone can recommend prebuilt? I see users here running Optiplex 755/745 but they are disk limited for my purposes. I can also get used supermicro or other retired servers on fleabay that come with tonnes (32GB+) of ECC RAM, dual quad xeon, but are typically loud and rackmount, and are limited to 2TB disks. I prefer my machine to be quiet and in a full/mid tower form factor.
I am not afraid of a DIY approach (I work in IT) so I will consider any hardware suggestions, but am strongly leaning toward something prebuilt, as myself and colleagues can often buy retired machines reasonably.
I also have my former gaming machine that is sitting here doing very little, specs are as follows:
Core2Quad Q9550 (currently at 3.4Ghz), MSI Neo3-FR P45 motherboard, 6GB DDR2 @960mhz 5-5-5-12. Of course it will never support ECC RAM, and I will need an add-on card as motherboard is 2TB limited. Will it have enough horsepower to RAID-6 or RAIDZ2 ~16TB?
I don't want to break the bank, my budget is ~$500 CAD/USD not including drives of course. Any insights would be appreciated.
-T.J.
I am looking to replace my old, slow NAS (currently 2 - DNS-323 and 1 external USB drive shared via my Asus router) with a single centralized unit to hold all of my data plus something to stream my media throughout my house. I am using a little over 6TB of my (combined) ~11TB of network storage. I will have a max of 4 simultaneous users.
I have read the recommended hardware section, I know I want a Xeon machine with ECC RAM, I would like 6 SATA ports (I could live with 4) that will accommodate larger than 2TB disks, and hopefully end up with one large RAID-5/RAIDZ or RAID-6/RAIDZ2 array with 4, 5, or 6 3+TB drives. I understand if I go ZFS I should aim for 16GB (or more) of RAM. I will keep my other devices as backup, so UFS is an option. Now, to my question:
Older workstations can be had inexpensively online. Is there an Optiplex (or HP/Lenovo) equivalent with ~6SATA ports, Intel Xeon, 8+GB ECC, supports GPT disks that someone can recommend prebuilt? I see users here running Optiplex 755/745 but they are disk limited for my purposes. I can also get used supermicro or other retired servers on fleabay that come with tonnes (32GB+) of ECC RAM, dual quad xeon, but are typically loud and rackmount, and are limited to 2TB disks. I prefer my machine to be quiet and in a full/mid tower form factor.
I am not afraid of a DIY approach (I work in IT) so I will consider any hardware suggestions, but am strongly leaning toward something prebuilt, as myself and colleagues can often buy retired machines reasonably.
I also have my former gaming machine that is sitting here doing very little, specs are as follows:
Core2Quad Q9550 (currently at 3.4Ghz), MSI Neo3-FR P45 motherboard, 6GB DDR2 @960mhz 5-5-5-12. Of course it will never support ECC RAM, and I will need an add-on card as motherboard is 2TB limited. Will it have enough horsepower to RAID-6 or RAIDZ2 ~16TB?
I don't want to break the bank, my budget is ~$500 CAD/USD not including drives of course. Any insights would be appreciated.
-T.J.