Building a PC: NAS on a budget

[markds75]

I've got 4 good 120 GB IDE drives sitting in four bad enclosures. The cost to replace the enclosures (which seem to have only 1-2 years of reliability under light usage) is $200-$250. So I started looking around for multi-drive enclosures that would support Firewire 800; that didn't turn out so well as most of those drives are about double what I'm looking to spend. Then I turned my attention to NAS boxes that support Gigabit Ethernet and found they were few and far between, and generally only support one drive.

Then it occurred to me that I might be able to build a low cost PC. So here's what I'm looking for:

Requirements:
- gigabit ethernet on-board with Jumbo frame and Wake-On-Lan support
- graphics on-board
- sound on-board
- Quiet
- Boot off USB drive initially (just to get Linux running).

Preferences:
- Small case: small form factor or micro ATX

Basically, I'm looking for a Mobo/Case combination where I can add the cheapest CPU possible and a small amount of RAM (128 or 256, depending on prices), attach my disks, install linux off a flash drive or attached USB/Firewire drive, and be up and running.

Any suggestions?

As a note, this won't be my first homebuilt PC. My old one is just too bulky and loud for this purpose.

 

[mdd1963]

Some fo the latest Nforce 6150 based boards have integrated video, sound, GB lan, etc., and I'm sure you could slap in a 3200+ for about $165 or so....

(The sustained read/write throughput of drives attached via USB/Firewire interface usually never rivals even an ATA100 native drive, as I believe most are in the 25-27 MB/sec range, which is rather slow;...you might fare better performance-wise with a board using all four drives in their PATA ports)

 

[ale2world]

if using low power AMD's mobile CPU (SKT 754) then MSI's RS482M-F (or RS482M-FI with firewire) is a not bad choice, got everything you need. GLan, on-board VGA, on-board sound, RAID 0,1 on IDE & SATA. It will be very quite too with a mobie CPU. Also it's a microATX mobo, but it will be difficult to put all 4 hard drives into a mATX box internally.

 

[markds75]

Well, I'm not planning to attach the drives to the NAS box with Firewire or USB2. The whole reason for doing this is that their enclosures are broken. Inside, they're ATA 100 or 133 drives, so I'll be hooking them up to the IDE ports on the mobo.

I spent most of yesterday pouring over specs, froogle, and cnet's shopper, and here's what I came up with:

Motherboard:
MSI RC410M-L Buy.com 78.83
Processor:
Celeron D, 2.53 LGA775 newegg.com 67.00
Case:
Codegen 1012-ca-12cm dealsonic.com 28.99
Network Card:
US Robotics USR997902 Comp USA.com 24.99
RAM:
PC24300 DDR2-553MHz Non-EEC 512MB
memory4less.com 40.28

I'll probably spend $25 more for a PCIe x1 Gigabit ethernet card.

MSI seems to make good motherboards, and this particular one supports a wide range of processors. It supports 4 IDE and/or 4 SATA drives, depending on how much fits in the case.

Is this a combination that makes sense?

Thanks!

Mark

 

[Madwand]

I like cooler drives, so I suggest closing the side intake so that you force air to go front to back, and hopefully come in over the drives.

Alternatively, look for a case that allows a 120mm in front of a removable drive cage. The Antec SLK3000 can do this, but is not small & not beautiful, and a lot more expensive than your find.

I'd also be a bit concerned about the dirt-cheap PSU included with that case. Some cheap PSU's don't do very well at higher temperatures, and if your PSU's weak, the multi-drive startups, etc. could be a challenge.

Hmm, from this review, I see a 12A 12V rail -> 144 W. If your drives each take 25W on 12V to start, that could be 100W. Some put the rule of thumb at 15W, so you might be fine. Not sure; voicing a concern; you could fix this problem later if it arises.

http://www.mikhailtech.com/articles/psu/codegen350/

 

[linux_0]

Here is a much more capable system for $301 delivered from newegg:

http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/Wishlist/WishShareShow.asp?ID=1937171

It just needs a case and you're good to go.


Has Corsair Dual Channel RAM + PCI-Express + socket 939 + onboard VGA until you are ready to upgrade if you ever need to ( you won't need to on an NAS - unless you decide to convert it into a Linux workstation later )

 

[mdd1963]

You might be able to find an older NF3 board (socket 754) and 754 Sempron for less money, and with integrated GB ethernet port...(plus, standard PC3200 usually costs a litte less than DDR2 sticks...

The Semprons are a bit faster than Celeron variants, yet still inexpensive; anyone recall off-hand if the socket 754 NF3 boards have 2 IDE ports?

 

[linux_0]

You might be able to find an older NF3 board (socket 754) and 754 Sempron for less money, and with integrated GB ethernet port...(plus, standard PC3200 usually costs a little less than DDR2 sticks...

The Semprons are a bit faster than Celeron variants, yet still inexpensive; anyone recall off-hand if the socket 754 NF3 boards have 2 IDE ports?

NF3 certainly has 2 PATA IDE connectors + SATA

Even though an NF3 motherboard + socket 754 CPU would be cheaper I would still recommend a 939 because it supports much better CPUs including dual core CPUs, has Dual Channel RAM and PCI-Express which is the interface of choice for new VGA cards as opposed to AGP which is still being supported but is being phased out fast.

Besides despite the upcoming socket AM2 the socket 939 platform is here to stay and has quite a bit of life left in it.

By the way connecting 2 IDE HDDs to one PATA IDE channel is supported but not recommended.