First NAS build?

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Joey Martin

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Sep 27, 2013
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Hello everyone,

As this is my first time building a NAS I just want to ask if all my components look good and everything is compatible. I decided to not go with ECC ram due to cost. I plan on adding another 2 4TB WD Reds in the future for two sets of RAID 1 for 8TB of redundant storage. I will be running windows 7 and plex and streaming media. My media is already formatted as MP4 so transcoding should not be necessary. A max of 2 users will be streaming video at one time.
(The prices that do not have a specified location are rough estimates based on what I saw on ebay)

CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor ($100.00)
Motherboard: ASRock H97M-ITX/AC Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard ($93.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($57.99 @ Adorama)
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 60GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (Purchased For $42.50)
Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive ($80.00)
Storage: Western Digital Red 4TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive ($80.00)
Case: Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case ($84.99 @ Directron)
Power Supply: EVGA 600B 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($38.98 @ Newegg)

Total: $578.45

Thanks!!
 
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There's no need for 16gb for a file server/media streamer for 2 people. If you are going to add two more drives later i would use raid 5 instead of 1. You still have redundancy plus you can utilize all of the drives for performance benefits and more storage space for the money. My personal recommendation. Similar setup that i am utilizing. By the way i can serve 4 high def movies at the same time. But i am using the 7200 rpm drives though.
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indsup

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Apr 26, 2015
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There's no need for 16gb for a file server/media streamer for 2 people. If you are going to add two more drives later i would use raid 5 instead of 1. You still have redundancy plus you can utilize all of the drives for performance benefits and more storage space for the money. My personal recommendation. Similar setup that i am utilizing. By the way i can serve 4 high def movies at the same time. But i am using the 7200 rpm drives though.
 
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Joey Martin

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Sep 27, 2013
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Thanks for the reply! I thought the rule of thumb for NAS devices is 1GB RAM for each 1 TB of storage? Or is that only if I went with like FreeNAS or something? As for the RAID 5, I know I would have 12TB versus the 8TB with two RAID 1s (or a RAID 10) but it just seems a lot more complicated and more difficult to use and recover a RAID 5 array vs RAID 1.

Do you think the 5200 rpm disk speed of the WD Reds (non pro) would hinder my ability to stream 2 1080p videos? Would it be worth the extra money to get the WD Red Pros with the 7200rpm disk speed?
 
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indsup

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It's actually easier to recover a raid 5 array. All you would have to do if a drive dies is insert another good drive and it will automatically rebuild the array while you keep serving your media. It will degrade the speed for a little bit while it is rebuilding but will keep going just fine. Raid 5 is also faster than raid 1 due to the fact that the data is broken up in pieces and served from all the drives at once. Raid 1 only reads from one drive at a time so the speed of that one drive will dictate the read speed. Write speed is where raid 1 really suffers though due to the controller having to write the data twice in it's entirety. If you use it in a raid 1 then you may notice the difference but in raid 5 probably not due to the larger files all together. You also don't have to worry about fragmentation on a a raid 5 array. Raid 1 you will have to.
 
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Joey Martin

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Sep 27, 2013
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Well I can't argue with that then ha. Thanks for explaining it all so clearly. I think I will be going with RAID 5 now :)

Would the 5400 rpm disk speed of the WD Reds hinder my ability to stream 2 1080p videos?
 
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indsup

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The amount of memory you need is dictated by the type of files and users that are using them. If you are serving remove desktops or vm's then you would need memory like that but your only streaming media so you do not need that much. The only things that will really be in memory is Windows and plex. The other files will only be passing through the memory for a very short period of time not staying resident.
 
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Joey Martin

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Okay that makes sense. So 8GB would be good?
 
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indsup

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Not likely to hinder the streaming of the two streams due to the nature of the videos. It will be reading sequentially for all the files. If you were having to serve numerous smaller files then it would make a difference. Just not that likely for files of that nature. I can pretty well saturate my gigabit network with 4 high def videos with my raid 5 array. Still don't have any real troubles at all.
 
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Joey Martin

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Sep 27, 2013
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Okay good to know. I may go with 16GB since there are some pretty good prices out on ebay where the difference between 8 and 16 is negligible (~$15) but it's good to know that it isn't necessary. Thanks for all your help indsup I really really appreciate it. :) :)
 
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