Off the Shelf NAS or DIY?

[DLimmer]

I'm in the market for a NAS and have been advised to check out Thecus. Looking at their product line, I'd probably need one with 4-bays (1.5 to 2tb) RAID-5. That runs 380+/- plus hard drives.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-026-_-Product

Alternatively, I'm considering making one using the following parts (or similar):
rough pricing from newegg

$66 AMD Phenom II X2 545 (may be capable of unlocking up to 4 cores)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103817
$76 ASUS M4A88TD-M/USB3 Micro ATX Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E16813131654R
$80 Antec Mini P180 White Steel MicroATX Mini Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129044
$45 Antec EarthWatts Green EA-380D Green 380W Continuous power 80+ Bronze
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817371033
$70 Kingston ValueRAM 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 ECC Unbuffered Server Memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820139077
Free OS from Dreamspark (Server 2008R2)
Reuse old hard drive for OS (7200.10 500GB)
$337 + hard drives

Eventually would probably want at least 8GB memory, but it seems that this would be a more capable device.

Thoughts? Do I forgo more power in favor of simplicity and less electricity used? Or do I go with a NAS that comes with ZFS out of the box and all the items working perfectly.

My primary use would be to store and serve my DVD collection (1tb+) to a PS3 as well as safely store 500GB of pictures taken with my Canon Rebel XT and underwater photos taken in Raw. Storing and streaming my CD collection would consolidate multiple copies currently saved on various laptops.

All thoughts greatly appreciated!

 

[fffblackmage]

You could go cheaper with the CPU for the custom build. I got a Sempron 145 that unlocked to an Athlon II dual core. That should be more than enough for a NAS.

 

[Zap]

Eventually would probably want at least 8GB memory, but it seems that this would be a more capable device.

Thoughts? Do I forgo more power in favor of simplicity and less electricity used? Or do I go with a NAS that comes with ZFS out of the box and all the items working perfectly.

My primary use would be to store and serve my DVD collection (1tb+) to a PS3 as well as safely store 500GB of pictures taken with my Canon Rebel XT and underwater photos taken in Raw. Storing and streaming my CD collection would consolidate multiple copies currently saved on various laptops.

It seems like huge overkill for just basic file serving (unless streaming to a PS3 requires more oomph - I don't have a PS3 so I don't know). I would personally go for low power consumption. BTW Lian Li has a new case coming out, the PC-A04.

Lian Li PC-A04

It is a micro ATX case that is 15.2" tall that can take SEVEN 3.5" HDDs! Heck, you can toss a bay adapter into the two 5¼" bays for three more drives, making this chassis hold 10 drives, for 20TB data! Soon to be 30TB with the upcoming 3TB drives! More exclamation marks per paragraph!

 

[DLimmer]

It seems like huge overkill for just basic file serving (unless streaming to a PS3 requires more oomph - I don't have a PS3 so I don't know). I would personally go for low power consumption. BTW Lian Li has a new case coming out, the PC-A04.

Lian Li PC-A04

It is a micro ATX case that is 15.2" tall that can take SEVEN 3.5" HDDs! Heck, you can toss a bay adapter into the two 5¼" bays for three more drives, making this chassis hold 10 drives, for 20TB data! Soon to be 30TB with the upcoming 3TB drives! More exclamation marks per paragraph!

That is a great case! Probably raises my cost by a significant amount, though.

You're right... quad core is overkill, but it's shaving only about $30 off to get the Sempron and cutting my processing capability in half. Since I don't currently have a dedicated RAID card, the processor will have to do all the parity calculations for RAID 5. Maybe I'm losing focus, or maybe I'm attempting to get closer to "best bang for the buck", but it seemed like a good deal for $30.

As long as I'm shaving off $, I suppose I could go for 2x2GB memory instead for $61 vs $70, and max out at 8 or 12gb.

Let me ask you this: If my current desktop is an Intel D820 (2.8 GHz dual core Pentium D) that I don't really use (since my laptop is faster), should I just convert it to a server, or would that be throwing money in the wrong direction?

If this new "cheap" machine is that much better, would it be wrong to put my moderate video card from the old rig into it and using it as a spare (light) gaming machine as well as video ripper? Or how about loading a VM with PBX software and connecting it through Google voice to get free VOIP at the house?
Google Voice + Asterisk = Free USA VOIP service
It's not as though the system couldn't take it...

I guess that would make this more of a "Server vs NAS" discussion instead of "DIY vs Off the Shelf".

I'm just thinking out loud; and appreciate any thoughts on how to leverage today's technology.

 

[boran]

I had the same dilemma that you have, only 6 months ago.
I bought the cheapest processor I could find, combined that with 512 MB memory and got a decent psu/mobo (with built-in graphics)

That is already way overkill for simple nas functions (I do run RAID 1 instead of 5 tho)

I would recommend against running more than nas functions on the server. and definitely not something internet facing, this is mainly to prevent a script kiddie running off with your family photos or tax records.

On my nas server I only have the basics + mdadm + mta + samba + Rsync-backup installed.
I use my old computers as toy servers for the stuff you mentioned later (MineCraft server, webserver, etc)

 

[Rifter]

Well i can tell you that right now my "server" is a AMD 7750BE(2.7Ghz dualcore, kuma) with 3 1.5TB drives in RAID 5 running ubuntu server. Has 4GB of ram. It streams all kinds of media to my Ps3 as well as my laptop and even my main pc and the GF's comp. It has never gone to more than 70% CPU usage or %60 mem usage and thats when it was sustaining 3 1080P steams of video at the same time, and running a few IQ filters on the ps3 stream. Also the computer is a print server for my 3 printers and is running a transparent/bridging firewall with packet inspection.

Bottom line you dont need a hardcore computer to stream media.