Home budget NAS — Hardware part
This is live post I’m updating it as I go. Atm waiting for last drive to arrive.
For the last 3 years, I’ve been using a single 8 Tb HDD drive and available space is running out. WD 8 TB Elements Desktop External Hard Drive.
The plan is to keep the HDD mentioned above and add an extra 3 HDDs so total would be 4 drives in RAIDZ1 configuration. Very simple math, one disk redundancy.
Raw available capacity — 32 TB
Available for storage — 24 TB
One drive used for redundancy
I need to explain why 8 TB each while diskprices.com shows the best return on investment for HDD with higher capacity. The reason is that I’m fortunate to have a friend who is lending me 2 of those — WD Red Pro 8TB NAS HDD 😋.
Because I’m building budget NAS and application for it will be primarily store files, no intensive read and write, the 4th disk will be cheapest available on market Seagate Desktop 8TB on the moment writing this post.
All 4 HDDs have 256 Mb cache and 5400 RPM speed.
I also want to use this NAS as a PC for docker containers and a media server. Chosen motherboard is iKuaiOS produced by BKHD (written on motherboard at the bottom).
Celeron N5105 is very good at energy efficiency. After some thinking and debating with my friend, I came to the conclusion that it is still much more efficient to stay with the x86-based system.
RK3588 vs N5105 vs N6005 basically first 2 almost the same but N5105 winning by other parameters, such as extensibility and software support.
Other components
- RAM — I decided to go with 32 GB — 2 x Crucial RAM 16GB DDR4 3200MHz alternatively you can get 1 of Crucial RAM 32GB DDR4 3200MHz and later add an another one because motherboard supports up to 64 GB. From Aliexpress. But I don’t know why someone needs so much memory with this CPU.
- High Speed 6Gbps Sata III cables — 6 sata cables in one.
- Get 200–300 watt PSU should be enough, I got this one .
- Cheapest NVME will do — Integral SSD NVME M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3x4 — TrueNAS is our software and you can’t do much with bigger disk. I got second hand ADATA SSD Legend 700 for 20 euros on after market. Basically disk will be dedicated only for the system!
- Optional. Get second NVME for VMs and other bits — Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1 TB PCIe NVMe M.2
Choosing a PC case is hard; there are not many budget versions, and if there are, then delivery is approximately the same as the price for the case itself! I started my search with Fractal Design Node 304 as an option and ended up ordering it but then found Cooler Master Elite 130 on after-market website just for 30 euros!
I purchased some of the components on Black Friday Sale and some from Aliexpress.
Full list so far (prices in euros):
Motherboard — 147 euro
32GB RAM — 61 euro
Secondhand NVME 500GB — 20 euro
600W PSU — 40 euro
SATA cables — 5 euro
F̶r̶a̶c̶t̶a̶l̶ ̶D̶e̶s̶i̶g̶n̶ ̶N̶o̶d̶e̶ ̶3̶0̶4̶–̶8̶3̶ — Cooler Master Elite — 30 euro
Without HDDs total is: 302 euros
Adding final 8 TB Seagate HDD — 149
My Total: 451 euros
Buying 4 HDDs + PC above would be: 149*4 + 302 = 898 euros
Stay green buy components on after-market websites.
Software part is coming soon…