Low Power Nas

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schmity

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Hi,

Looking to build a low power nas. Mainly for backup and storage, but I can see possibly using it as a media server later. Leaning towards some flavor of linux.

I was thinking of using this motherboard:

GIGABYTE GA-C1037UN Intel Dual-core Celeron 1037U (1.8 GHz) Intel NM70 Mini ITX Motherboard/CPU/VGA Combo

I have a couple of 3ware raid cards laying around that I thought I could use with red wd hard drives.

I was planning to use an old ATX case.

Wasn't sure on how much memory I should get.

Also I have and Antec Trio 550 PSU, and a Rosewill RP500-2 PSU laying around. Are either of these good enough or should I get something more efficient?

Thanks, Brent
 
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popatim
Horse power is needed when transcoding is needed. Trancoding changes the format of the file so the receiving end can play it. Eliminate the need to transcode and horsepower isnt needed. My server is only powered by an old athlon2 240 (dual core) and can easily stream 3 shows at once.

Dnla comes into play if the files have copy protection on them. Things like you own home movies won't and therefore it would just use normal file sharing/network protocols as I understand it.
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drtweak

drtweak

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I would use the Antec if you wanted to use what you got. Its got a 85% Effency vs the Rosewill 70%

As for the motherboard keep in mid it ONLY has a PCI slot! So if you ever want to upgrade to a better raid card it will most likely need a PCIe slot. But if you got some that use PCI then it would be ok. You wouldn't get great speed out of them. What model raid card do you have exactly?

And if you just run basic linux, and you just connect to it over the network 2-4 gigs will be plenty. The CPU is crap but if its just a NAS on Linux you'll be fine. Maybe try using FreeNAS OS? Heard a lot of good things about it. Don't even need a raid card if you want to just do software raid.
 
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schmity

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As far as the PSU I saw a couple on newegg that seemed to be geared toward low power consumtion in the $50 range. Is it worth the money to get one of those?

I have a 3ware 9550 sxu but it is a pci-x...so would have to do another mb to use it.
I have a 3ware 9650se-2lp. I can use it but can only use two drives.
Or I could use no raid at all. Or part raid and part Sata...

I know the CPU is slow but I was looking for low power consumption. I also have an old AMD Athlon 64 3200 and a dfi nf4 sli infinity MB that I could use as well, but again I was going for low power consumption.
 
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drtweak

drtweak

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Yea Good luck finding a MoBo with a PCI-X slot anymore lol You only really find those in Servers.
Also the other uses a PCI-e 1x slot which it doesn't have. You WILL have to pick a different motherboard. neither one of those will work with that motherboard.

You could go for another PSU. Just the Antec is better between the two you got.

Yea the CPU is fine for a NAS. Maybe rather than getting that CPU and Mobo since it just won't work and getting a PCI raid card will hinder your performance A LOT just get like a Atom or AMD APU Board. Those are pretty good for NAS uses. A lot of NAS's you buy and ever High End Server NAS uses Atom CPUS

 
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schmity

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What about the ASRock AD2550R/U3S3 Mini ITX Server Motherboard DDR3 1066. Is that enough CPU for a media server assuming there is no transcoding? Is 4GB of Ram enough (I saw in one of the reviews where somebody got 8GB to work???)? Is the Raid for this board setup in the Bios, or is it software?
 
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drtweak

drtweak

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OH yea that would work nicely! And there is probably a boot up config (Like after POST screen something like CTRL+I or something) and then you can configure raid there. And for just a NAS 4 gigs is more than enough. Memory is more for the OS not Hard drives. I run 6 and thats more than enough for what I do and i play games and do 3D rendering which is more CPU intensive though but never had memory issues. And even if there is transcoding it will just take a while which a small thing like that IMO would be nice. I might look into one now lol. If you play on running Window on it then yea i would make sure its got 4 Gigs or ram. If its just Linux or FreeNAS 2 should even be fine.
 
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schmity

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Hmmm...I've been doing some research. It looks as if there is limited support as far as linux goes for this board. I wasn't planning on using fedora. I was actually thinking of trying Arch. Anyone know if this board will work?
 
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schmity

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The more I thought about this the more of a headache it appears to be. I finally settled on two "QNAP TS-212P-US Diskless System Network Storage" systems, and two WD RED 2tb drives and I already have two WD Blue 1tb drives.

Pros
No matter how you figure it, it never seems possible to design a system that has power consumption as low as the pre-built NAS units.
I have limited experience with linux, hopefully the setup time much more streamlined with the qnap software. (I've never been so tired searching the internet just searching for how to build the thing...Then linux, Freenas, BSD....then tweaking.....and first time builds never work exactly right....someone with experience maybe)
I'll have two Nas units for backup Rather than a single nas unit with Raid Backup
At a later date the should serve as good backup devices when I build/purchase a newer/better Nas Unit
A dedicated media Player such as Apple TV or Roku can be purchased for much less $ than a NAS Unit with 1080p capability.

Cons
Not as "customizable"
Not as powerful as far as computer hardware
Missed learning opportunity.
Unable to stream videos at 1080p. and possibly 720

The QNAP software looks like it has just about every feature that I would want and way more. I'm interested to see how much I will like it. I'm also thinking that this will get my feet wet as far as NAS goes and I can figure out what features are lacking and decide if I need a custom built unit. Also thinking I can buy an Apple TV for the media player or wait for the QNAP TS-470 to become more affordable.
 
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Look at here, one of the low power NAS.
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1868436/nas-media-server-raid-questions.html#xtor=EPR-8807
 
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schmity

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That is what I was thinking, so if you're careful to save files in the correct format why do you need to have a NAS with lots of horsepower?

When you send files to the player do you send through dlna or the hdmi port...I'm guessing dlna?

 
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popatim

popatim

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Horse power is needed when transcoding is needed. Trancoding changes the format of the file so the receiving end can play it. Eliminate the need to transcode and horsepower isnt needed. My server is only powered by an old athlon2 240 (dual core) and can easily stream 3 shows at once.

Dnla comes into play if the files have copy protection on them. Things like you own home movies won't and therefore it would just use normal file sharing/network protocols as I understand it.
 
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