Want to build my own mini NAS. Want it really small.

[fuzzybabybunny]

After looking at some of the NAS solutions on the market I think I will be able to built something that is more feature rich and cheaper.

I want it to be very tiny. Support 4 drives in mirrored RAID, hot swappable, have USB 3.0, maybe even HDMI and WiFi. I basically want the case to be hardly any bigger than the drives themselves. I will be moving this thing around because I seldom live in one place for very long. Or maybe I could set it up at a friends house and access it via the internet or ftp or something. Not sure how that would work.

I want to be able to create a system image of my laptop on it and then incremental images every single night so I never have to worry about losing data and losing work.

Being able to use it as an htpc, media server, file server, are bonuses.

What would be really cool is be able to install something like a fast core i7 and 16GB of RAM and maybe even run Windows on it and work on things like Adobe Premiere remotely from my tablet or ultrabook via remote desktop?

Any recommendations for parts?

 

[sm625]

Why does it need to be small when you can stuff it anywhere?

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Why does it need to be small when you can stuff it anywhere?

I move a lot and carry only the minimum to get me by. I don't want the hassle of dealing with a computer case every time I move. But I'd like to keep it with me since it'll be faster that way.

 

[paperwastage]

After looking at some of the NAS solutions on the market I think I will be able to built something that is more feature rich and cheaper.

I want it to be very tiny. Support 4 drives in mirrored RAID, hot swappable, have USB 3.0, maybe even HDMI and WiFi. I basically want the case to be hardly any bigger than the drives themselves. I will be moving this thing around because I seldom live in one place for very long. Or maybe I could set it up at a friends house and access it via the internet or ftp or something. Not sure how that would work.

I want to be able to create a system image of my laptop on it and then incremental images every single night so I never have to worry about losing data and losing work.

Being able to use it as an htpc, media server, file server, are bonuses.

What would be really cool is be able to install something like a fast core i7 and 16GB of RAM and maybe even run Windows on it and work on things like Adobe Premiere remotely from my tablet or ultrabook via remote desktop?

Any recommendations for parts?

would you mind paying to Colo at a datacenter or paying monthly for a server at the datacenter?

for Rdp, a typical home connection wont be fast enough especially for high Res photo editing...

datacenter, you can get a dedicated or shared pipe... if you Colo, you can buy your own perfrmace parts to fit ina 1U/2U rack, pay for support service or set up failover systems in case system goes down




for backing up your work everynight, you could either use something like a git repository to keep track of work progress(hashes andsaves each file during each stage, so would take up a lot of space if you change and save a lot o times), or rdiff/rdiffbackup(which stores diffs between each state, saves a lot of space)

 

[power_hour]

Just get a cheap cloud service. Hardware will break and then you need to worry about data loss and finding parts.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Just get a cheap cloud service. Hardware will break and then you need to worry about data loss and finding parts.

What's a cheap cloud service that offers hundreds of gigs of storage?

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

would you mind paying to Colo at a datacenter or paying monthly for a server at the datacenter?

for Rdp, a typical home connection wont be fast enough especially for high Res photo editing...

datacenter, you can get a dedicated or shared pipe... if you Colo, you can buy your own perfrmace parts to fit ina 1U/2U rack, pay for support service or set up failover systems in case system goes down




for backing up your work everynight, you could either use something like a git repository to keep track of work progress(hashes andsaves each file during each stage, so would take up a lot of space if you change and save a lot o times), or rdiff/rdiffbackup(which stores diffs between each state, saves a lot of space)

What's Colo?

And it depends on the monthly cost. For a server that has hundreds of gigs of space I doubt it would be cheap. Add to that one with processing power enough to render videos via adobe premiere and I don't think it would be feasible.

What's stopping me from successfully remotely edit video or photos on a network? Upload speeds? Latency? Download speeds? CPU? It's streaming a constant 30fps 1920x1080 video stream, isn't it?

 

[EliteRetard]

Just for fun:

14x12x4" should easily fit a nice ITX MOBO, 450W MATX PSU, 6x3.5" HDDs and a decent air cooler. Should be able to get a half height card in as well if you wanted. Simple enough to make it out of thin plywood or plastic.

Vents in the front between the HDDs (on their sides ~1" between each) with the PSU and CPU HS/F pulling air through those front HDDs and out of the case. SATA supports hot-swap with AHCI so you could build the case to allow the HDDs out the front with a simple pull band. The CPU HS/F would be a lower profile heatsink with the fan reversed so it blows air out of the case. Example: GeminII S, Scythe Shuriken SCSK-1000.

I've built my own case before (3/4" maple), its not to hard as long as you know what hardware you'll be using and what the dimensions are. Might be better to use plastic/plexi/acrylic so you don't have to make the case so thick/heavy and it can be built just gluing the parts together. You can use angle aluminum cut a notch and bend it at the corners, use it to wrap the case to add support, and you could set it so the lid can be slid in/out from the front as well. If you actually have some tools, it wouldn't be that difficult to make it from sheet metal either.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Just for fun:

14x12x4" should easily fit a nice ITX MOBO, 450W MATX PSU, 6x3.5" HDDs and a decent air cooler. Should be able to get a half height card in as well if you wanted. Simple enough to make it out of thin plywood or plastic.

Vents in the front between the HDDs (on their sides ~1" between each) with the PSU and CPU HS/F pulling air through those front HDDs and out of the case. SATA supports hot-swap with AHCI so you could build the case to allow the HDDs out the front with a simple pull band. The CPU HS/F would be a lower profile heatsink with the fan reversed so it blows air out of the case. Example: GeminII S, Scythe Shuriken SCSK-1000.

I've built my own case before (3/4" maple), its not to hard as long as you know what hardware you'll be using and what the dimensions are. Might be better to use plastic/plexi/acrylic so you don't have to make the case so thick/heavy and it can be built just gluing the parts together. You can use angle aluminum cut a notch and bend it at the corners, use it to wrap the case to add support, and you could set it so the lid can be slid in/out from the front as well. If you actually have some tools, it wouldn't be that difficult to make it from sheet metal either.

Unfortunately I don't have any tools. My leatherman. That's it. Since I move around so much I don't accumulate hardly anything.

 

[EliteRetard]

For plastic/wood you just need 2 basic hand tools...saw and drill.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

For plastic/wood you just need 2 basic hand tools...saw and drill.

Are there really no off the shelf cases that fit my description that I can just buy instead of taking time out of my day to go to home depot, get hand tools that I'll only use once, wood/plastic, and then spend an hour or more making it myself? I'd rather just spend $100 or less and get a case.

 

[EliteRetard]

Well there are some that get close...I just thought it would be fun to post the suggestion. The problem with most smaller cases is they are limited to 1-2x HDDs and usually one of them is a 2.5" like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811129080 Also note the typical low power PSU.

You could get a larger ITX like a CM 120, that has room for 3x3.5" and you could drop another in the 5.25" bay with an adapter. Its cheap at 50-60$ and would get you decent storage but it'd be twice the volume with less storage than the custom build (4 vs 6 HDDs) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811119261

So there are manufactured options...you just might have to make a compromise or two though.

 

[EliteRetard]

Oh and a 2U rack chassis would be similar size to what I suggested, and probably offer all the features you want (like hot swap)...but they may not be cheap and aren't really designed to be standalone.

http://www.rackmountnet.com/storage...d-175-depth-two-250w-power-supply-p-3899.html

Edit:
Looking a little bit, it may be possible with a 1U rack chassis...and I see some used for under $200. Not sure how good the PSU would be or if it could power a decent system.

 

[EliteRetard]

Oh yeah, theres something like this to:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817993016

Discontinued, maybe you can find it:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811123122

This is kinda fun

 

[paperwastage]

What's Colo?

And it depends on the monthly cost. For a server that has hundreds of gigs of space I doubt it would be cheap. Add to that one with processing power enough to render videos via adobe premiere and I don't think it would be feasible.

What's stopping me from successfully remotely edit video or photos on a network? Upload speeds? Latency? Download speeds? CPU? It's streaming a constant 30fps 1920x1080 video stream, isn't it?

Colo=colocation. you bring your own hardware to the datacenter. you pay the datacenter monthly fees for power, cooling, support, network connection....

so you can put your own Xeon server with 128gb of ram there if you wanted

for remote desktops, I'd say the most important is network latency, then network bandwidth or streaming protocol, then CPU, ram and HDD space

ill elaborate more later

 

[frostedflakes]

Don't have any personal experience with it, maybe it's junk, but this looked like a good case for an SFF file server. Recently built a file server as well and just used a Lian Li mini-ITX case, but had I known about this I might have tried it instead.

http://www.logicsupply.com/products/a7879

Wouldn't expect to be able to cram anything too hot/powerful in it, though. Doesn't seem like video editing over remote desktop would really work well anyway. But couple it with a low power CPU and a bunch of HDDs and it should work great to house a file/print/etc. server.

 

[fuzzybabybunny]

Don't have any personal experience with it, maybe it's junk, but this looked like a good case for an SFF file server. Recently built a file server as well and just used a Lian Li mini-ITX case, but had I known about this I might have tried it instead.

http://www.logicsupply.com/products/a7879

Wouldn't expect to be able to cram anything too hot/powerful in it, though. Doesn't seem like video editing over remote desktop would really work well anyway. But couple it with a low power CPU and a bunch of HDDs and it should work great to house a file/print/etc. server.

I like this. But pricey.

I've also looked at ones on Newegg but I would *really* like to avoid getting one that wastes space and size on a dumb 5.25" CD-ROM bay. It needs to just be straight hard drive bays like the one you linked to. If for some reason I need a DVD drive I can just hook up a slimline external. Not to mention if I did use it as a media server everything would be on hard drives anyway - I don't own disks of any media that I consume.

I looked at and like these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811345017
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811112347

But again, a lot of wasted space on the CD-ROM bay and the handles on the BitFenix.

I LOVE how the BitFenix can support an actual gaming video card though. If this is going to be a video processing box I'll need to install a video card with nVidia CUDA technology.

Anyone know of any other cases like the above, but without the CD-ROM bay?

 

[greenhawk]

Discontinued, maybe you can find it:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811123122

that case is about the best 4 drive hot swap small thing you can get, but last time I checked the prices for it, it is well over $100. Locally. twice, nearly 3 times that budget.

A small case with lots of drives is something like this
http://www.fractal-design.com/?view=product&prod=42



found this as well, but at $80UK, going to be expencive.

http://www.e-itx.com/cfi-a7879.html

 

[paperwastage]

What's Colo?

And it depends on the monthly cost. For a server that has hundreds of gigs of space I doubt it would be cheap. Add to that one with processing power enough to render videos via adobe premiere and I don't think it would be feasible.

What's stopping me from successfully remotely edit video or photos on a network? Upload speeds? Latency? Download speeds? CPU? It's streaming a constant 30fps 1920x1080 video stream, isn't it?

back to this

network latency
If your server is is australia and you're in USA, it'll take the packets considerable time to travel to australia, then back to USA... depending on your application, it might be problematic(eg OnLive Gaming, latency is important), or not(or maybe anywhere within continental USA is fine for whatever you're doing)



network bandwidth or streaming protocol
30fps, 1920x1080 @ 10mbps? firstly, you'll NEED 10mbps of upload bandwidth for your server, something that a typical home connection doesn't (maybe if you have FiOS or something)... secondly, the video card outputs at pure RAW 1920x1080 3MB,30fps = 90MB/s=780Mbps..... to compress it, you'll need some type of protocol, and might have compression artifacts if you choose the wrong bitrate


CPU, ram and HDD space

well, the hardware needed to compress using the protocol, and run your actual programs

 

[stevech]

I shopped, researched, studied.
Bought Synology DS212. Put in my own pair of 2TB drives. Configured as two separate volumes (RAID is not a backup). USB3 for copy to offsite.
Very pleased after many months.
Time Machine backups
Auto backup volume 1 to 2
Key folders to big SD card in drive.

I tried some DIY software. Not even close. So much easire.
Synology or QNAP are the way to go.
(re above links: Geesh $170 for *just* the DIY case, yikes).

The issue is the fine NAS software from the companies mentioned above. Not the hardware.
Try their on-line NAS demos.

 

[midwestfisherman]

Either of these looks like it will suit your needs. They have good reviews on the Egg and on Youtube. Just add drives of your choice and away you go.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822108095

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822108091

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Why do you need hot-swap for a home NAS? Just shut it down, swap the drive, power it back up. You're not going to OMG MUST WATCH MOVIE when you're halfway done fixing your server, are you? (I hope not, anyway...)

Just get any mini-ITX case with 2 or more 3.5" bays, and get adapters to put a pair of 2.5" drives in each one.

Such as:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811108196

Alternatively, I suppose you could use some external eSATA drives. Those are hot pluggable. Then you could make the computer REALLY small and just stack a few external drives next to it.

 

[rdb4133]

I agree with the previous person that suggested the CM120 Mini ITX case.

 

[Zap]

I want it to be very tiny. Support 4 drives in mirrored RAID, hot swappable, have USB 3.0, maybe even HDMI and WiFi. I basically want the case to be hardly any bigger than the drives themselves.
...
What would be really cool is be able to install something like a fast core i7 and 16GB of RAM
...
I would *really* like to avoid getting one that wastes space and size on a dumb 5.25" CD-ROM bay.
...
If this is going to be a video processing box I'll need to install a video card with nVidia CUDA technology.

Anyone know of any other cases like the above, but without the CD-ROM bay?

Lian Li PC-Q25B
$130 shipped
14.41" x 7.83" x 11.02"
lightweight aluminum
can hold up to SEVEN 3.5" HDDs
uses mini ITX motherboard (good luck on finding one with 7x SATA ports though)
no 5¼" optical drive bay
can hold ANY dual slot CUDA card
uses normal ATX PSU (can't be super long)

 

[Evadman]

Stop trying to reinvent the wheel. Just get an NV+ which meets all your requirements except for the htpc and USB3 (which aren't needed on a NAS anyway) and is smaller than that mini itx case up there.