Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in
Your question

Custom Built Nas Help

Tags:
  • Western Digital
  • Storage
  • NAS / RAID
  • Hard Drives
  • Servers
Last response: in Storage
Share
February 18, 2014 5:04:54 AM

Hi everyone,

After owning a WD My Book Duo 6TB, its come to a point where I'm wanting; A. Higher capacitiy storage deivce. B. The abilty for plex to run on the NAS as its own server instead of my computer.

I'll want to use the NAS server to store and stream my 1080p videos using plex as the server.

Currently I'm looking to use Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Case as it provides 6 hard drives slots which would go nicely with 6x 4TB WD Red Hard drives.

My question and where I get stuck is what sort of system spec is required to run plex to transcode and stream? (motherboard, ram, cpu, psu etc)

My next question is when researching motherboards I couldn't find any with x6 sata points in that case what would be the best way to hook all the hard drives togeather to work as a raid?

Finally understanding I only want to use the NAS server as somewhere to store and stream my 1080p videos what raid would you use?

Any help would be great,

fiby




More about : custom built nas

a b G Storage
February 22, 2014 11:05:14 AM

Some of your specs are going to depend on the OS you plan on using to run your system. However, for transcoding with Plex, you'll want something with a little power.

I would suggest an i3 at minimum or go with an AMD FX-4300 or fx-6300.

Why AM3+? Because when paired with most Asus motherboards, you can use ECC memory for much less than dedicated server hardware.

There are plenty of motherboards with 6 SATA ports. You can add a PCIx SATA adapter for $20-$30 that will work fine for your purposes.

Then, you need to look at your RAID/NAS options:

FreeNAS
unRAID
FlexRAID
SnapRAID
Motherboard's onboard RAID
OS based RAID
Software RAID with an add-in card

If you use FreeNAS, NAS4Free or any ZFS based systems, it's recommended to have a GB of memory for every TB of storage. The other solutions aren't as memory hungry.

If it's just a NAS, find a motherboard with a built-in graphics chip or just get something like a $30 GT210 that's fanless but then it's gonna eat up a slot on your motherboard that could be used for SATA adapters.

What is your budget (before drives)?
a c 84 G Storage
February 27, 2014 10:28:17 AM

Another 2cents:
Window OS and HW raid controller - the one that I use
Or Linux OS, when it transcode, you do not want ANY additional load to you CPU
Therefore a low cost HW RAID like SPM393/SPM394 work real good
Of course you can use PCIe HW RAID too, but with it's over kill for Media Server.

I would not with MB's or software (fake) RAID
!