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+80TB NAS

R

remi

Joined
Oct 2, 2017
Messages
53 (0.02/day)
Hi everyone,

I would like to build a NAS for my documentary collection.

It's a long term project, so i will be adding 10TB WD RED drives every two months or so.

I was thinking of going with Storage Spaces and not RAID5/6 or freeNAS

What hardware would you recommend ?

For case i was thinking of the
Nanoxia DEEP SILENCE 6 ANTHRACITE (REV. B) Tower - it has 16 HDD bays

But i'm not sure what motherboard, cpu, powersupply or RAM to use, is ECC RAM necessary ?
 
What is your budget???? Thats the most important question here.
 
Without the HDDs, i'm hoping to spend less then 770$.
I dont have the money to build it all at once, that's why i said it's a long term project.
 
In theory... even the lowest tier AMD or Intel system can run a NAS so long as youre not hugely demanding. The problem with that is a raid card to plug in loads of hard drives can cost in excess $200 and go as far as $700 if not more.

So thats where i suggest you look.. Grab a dirt cheap MATX or ITX board, Cheapest AMD or intel Dual or Quad for that platform If you want a little more grunt and a raid card depending on the amount of drives you wish to hook up.... Its only a SOHO NAS you dont really need to expect Enterprise level of performance from it...


If you dont want to bother with any of this.... a QNAP TS-453A-4G-US is a good option for $549 and you can tack on a QNAP Storage Expansion Enclosure UX-500P at a later date if you need more storage space.

Alternatively search for old enterprise rackmount servers on ebay. some businesses sell their old units for a decent price that will come with plenty of hard drive bays to expand into.

I do believe that the Qnap has many great features though. you can plug it into your TV via HDMI and watch your documentaries from it without having to stream it across the network. Might be worth a thought
 
I'm inclined to go with Storage Spaces, but do i need a fast CPU ? cause i read that "All storage-related operations are offloaded to CPU"

And for the MoBo which ones have 16 sata ports ? Also how much RAM do i need ?

This would be used only to backup my files and upload and download from it a few hours a day via USB 3.0
 
You're gonna want to triple that budget for anything decent sir.
 
remi said:
I'm inclined to go with Storage Spaces, but do i need a fast CPU ? cause i read that "All storage-related operations are offloaded to CPU"
Click to expand...

Just upgrade the CPU to a higher tier based on your budget then. With Storage spaces. the hardware recommendations seem to be so long as your system can run "Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2012, Windows 8.1, or Windows 8" -- Go for an mid tier i3 if you wish but it will cost more out of your budget. 4GB of ram is fine.

remi said:
And for the MoBo which ones have 16 sata ports
Click to expand...

There are no motherboards with 16x sata ports that exist for the commercial market afaik. only way to get this is via an add in raid card or go with rackmount enterprise storage which prices can vary on the pre-owned market. Addin cards cost $900 brand new or $300 pre-owned.
 
Toothless said:
You're gonna want to triple that budget for anything decent sir.
Click to expand...
Case - 280$ (Nanoxia DEEP SILENCE 6 )
MoBo - ? not sure what to go with
i3 cpu - 140$
4gb ram - 50$
power supply 850W - 120$

FreedomEclipse the Nanoxia MoBo has 16 HDD bays, so isnt there a cable to expand 10 sata ports of a MoBo to 16 ? $900 is way to expensive, plus i dont want a RAID controler.
 
I wouldn't just have just 4GB of ram and a non-physical 4 core chip. I've seen Explorer eat 3GB+ doing transfers and some decent CPU usage. I'd say at least an it with 2x4GB but then again the board might be an issue with that many drives.
 
i'm saying 16 but 10 will be fine too. I'm just being overly optimistic for the future. Right now there will only be 3 drives and +1 each month
 
remi said:
FreedomEclipse the Nanoxia MoBo has 16 HDD bays, so isnt there a cable to expand 10 sata ports of a MoBo to 16 ? $900 is way to expensive, plus i dont want a RAID controler.
Click to expand...

Thats not how sata works sadly. Its not like IDE back in the old days when you could plug two hard drives onto the same cable.

Eitherway you look at it. What you want is going to cost money. Ive given you various options and choices. Even pointed you towards ebay for pre-owned rackmount units that can give you what you want in a nutshell but it appears that you are unwilling to compromise with any of the options i have given you to fit your budget.

I wish you the best in finding whats right for you but I will be retiring from this thread.

Maybe someone else will step in and take over.

The only alternative that will work but will significantly increase your budget is going with an Asus Workstation motherboard that will come with 6x sata ports.
 
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I recommend checking Unraid you can start with cheap build and slowly upgrade the system or go all out.

I started with old computer parts then eventually replace the mobo, cpu, ram, and even added raid card without recreating my whole data.

buy cheap mobo/cpu/ram combo then grab two 10tb drives, 1 for parity and one storage, then keep adding more one 10tb when you get the money or upgrade the cpu/mobo/ram
 
AsRock X99 Extreme Series comes with 10 Sata Ports with the top model Extreme11 having 18 (10 Sata + 8 SAS)!!!
 
BaRRoS said:
AsRock X99 Extreme Series comes with 10 Sata Ports with the top model Extreme11 having 18 (10 Sata + 8 SAS)!!!
Click to expand...

and thats half the OP's budget gone and he doesnt have Ram or a CPU yet
 
Case - 280$ (Nanoxia DEEP SILENCE 6 )
MoBo - 256$ AsRock X99 - Thanks BaRRoS !!
i3 cpu - 140$
4gb ram - 50$
power supply 850W - 120$

846 $ - a bit over budget but i can make it work :)

ERazer - that's exactly what i was thinking ! thanks !

FreedomEclipse - it's not that i didnt take your advice into account, but i dont want a used rackmount unit, whos parts can die on me anytime. i prefer to do a diy with a great case and a few low tier parts that i can upgrade in the future.
 
Id budget for 12TB drives, they are right around the corner.
 
1 for parity and one storage
Click to expand...

In Storage Spaces dont i need at least 3 drives ? 1 for Parity and 2 for storage ?

Athlon2K15 said:
Id budget for 12TB drives, they are right around the corner.
Click to expand...
do you think they will be more cost effective then 10TB ? at launch i dont think they will ...
 
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If you are technically competent, use something like this
Its buggy at times, and uses port multiplication, so you wouldn't get super fast transfer speeds (around 40-60 MB/s). Since mac doesn't support port multiplication, you can use it with Linux and Windows only.

Drivers too are buggy, but Windows 10 will work great with it. But it gets the job done. You can buy a cheap mobo like this with an i3.

I wouldn't spend too much on NAS hardware except for the hard drives.
 
In Storage Spaces dont i need at least 3 drives ? 1 for Parity and 2 for storage ?
Click to expand...

in simple term:

unraid you can have one or two parity drive its up to you, its not hardware base raid but you can set it up that way if you want.

10tb parity = any storage drive size no greater than 10tb. So you can have buncha low storage drives like: one 10tb parity = 2tb+6tb+8tb+10tb = 26tb storage, later on you can replace the 2tb with 10tb just need to rebuild the data.

Its an option for you to consider might not be the best option for your need, i like unraid due to flexibility you make it simple at first then go all out later on with server grade parts with not much hassle.

Try to 30 day trial
 
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remi said:
Case - 280$ (Nanoxia DEEP SILENCE 6 )
Click to expand...
:eek: You might want to consider a Fractal Design Define XL R2. How much would that be for you? 8 available 3.5" drive bays, with 4 more 5.25" bays that could be converted.
remi said:
This would be used only to backup my files and upload and download from it a few hours a day via USB 3.0
Click to expand...
USB?

OP: the requirements of a file server is quite different than a desktop computer. IMHO, most of the advice that you have gotten in this thread applies to desktop PC's, not a FS. I do not feel qualified to answer your question, and am myself struggling with setting up my own FS with just a couple of drives. Also, Intel made Thunderbolt free, so I'm expecting an explosion of TB external devices, such as: https://www.techpowerup.com/237539/qnap-rolls-out-quad-core-4-bay-ts-453bt3-thunderbolt-3-nas
 
Personally OP should do more research on what software his FS gonna run on.

like if its FreeNas, it uses ZFS and relies on tons of memory (1gb ram per 1tb storage) and ecc is recommended

Hardware will fail no doubt, the question how well your software cope with it. Is it easy to rebuild data? what if the Raid card fail how your data? so easy to slap on hardwares without a second thought what you gonna be running it on.
 
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