Top products from r/HomeServer

> My main purpose for it is really to do backups with a RAID setup and photo and other file storage.

RAID is not a backup solution. It is simply a way to utilize multiple disks to increase storage space or overall performance. You will still need some kind of backup, whether that is some kind of external USB drive like a WD Passport or using a cloud-based service like CrashPlan, that's up to you.

> I’m willing to spend about $300-$250 on the case and any components needed for it.

If you're planning on building your own server, $300 won't get you very far at all. Depending on the size you're looking for, the hard drives alone will cost more than that.

> If I wanted to “build my own” how are NAS cases usually sold?

Unfortunately there aren't a lot of NAS-centric cases around.

The SilverStone DS308 is kinda neat. It has 8 hot-swappable drive bays.

What a lot of people do is go with some sort of tower case and some hot-swap trays like these.

>Is it likely that I’ll need to buy a power supply, RAM, fans, or any other components for them?

Unless you already have an old PC laying around that you can use, then yes.

>If I built my own how hard is it to install software, etc. to run it?

Do you have experience installing an OS on a PC or laptop? I would recommend going with some flavor of Linux like Ubuntu Server. The installation process is very easy, especially if you're doing it on a brand new computer where you don't need to worry about overwriting anything important.

>What’s the minimum processor speed and memory I should aim for?

Unless you plan on doing things like Video Transcoding or running Virtual Machines, CPU speed and RAM aren't really that important. What's more important is the network hardware and your SATA controller. You want to make sure it has a good 1Gbps network card (Intel is preferred). You also want to make sure that it has SATA-III and that there are enough ports for each hard drive.

>Am I likely to get better performance by tailoring it to better specs (faster processor, more RAM) by building my own then buying a “diskless” setup?

Almost certainly. It will also be more flexible and able to do more things. It will also give you valuable knowledge and experience that you can use in the future.

>Even if I buy a "diskless" system am I going to need to buy an OS? Which one would be best?

No, you will not need any separate OS. These systems are basically little self-contained PCs with an ARM (or sometimes an x86) processor and some sort of Linux-based OS running on them. They're pretty much Plug 'n Play, just load them with some hard drives, set up networking and they're good to go.

> If I just wanted to buy one that’s completely setup, or a “diskless “ that I would add my own NAS HDs too what would you recommend?

Whatever is the least expensive, highest rated and has the features you require. The rest does not matter.

Ultimately what you decide to do depends on your goals. Do you want to learn about building and configuring a server? Then you might consider sourcing the parts and building something yourself. This will be the more expensive approach but it will also be more flexible, have much more performance than a pre-built solution and give you knowledge you can use in the future.

If you want something that Just Works™ then I would go with a prebuilt NAS like the DS216, it looks like a decent system and will give you the features you require.

Hope that helps!

It really depends on what you want to do now and potentially later. You can buy...

1. an external HDD like the WD 10TB My Book Desktop External Hard Drive for $206.98 USD and connect it to the laptop,
   
2. a consumer NAS like the Synology 2 bay NAS DiskStation DS218+ (Diskless) for $289.62 USD plus the cost of HDDs,
   
3. a PC that can take a couple of hard drives like the HP EliteDesk 800 G1 SFF i7-4770 3.40Ghz 16GB RAM 2TB HDD 240GB SSD Win 10 Pro (Renewed) for $315.99 USD plus a larger HDD,
   
4. something like the HP ProLiant MicroServer Gen10 Ultra Quad-core 8GB DDR4 SDRAM Serial ATA/600 Controller Micro Tower Server Model P03698-S01 for $395.00 USD plus the cost of HDDs, or
   
5. any number of other options.
   
   Since you are familiar with Ubuntu, which is based on Debian, you should look into Proxmox VE, which is a Debian server with custom tools and a web UI for creating and managing Linux containers (LXCs) and kernel-based virtual machines (KVMs) and storage management. LXCs are similar to Docker containers except they behave more like virtual machines. Pre-built LXC containers including tons of web development frameworks like LAMP, Node.js, Drupal, Django etc. are available from TurnKey Linux for downloading and installing in minutes. Great fun!

On Synology, using PhotoStation, you can tag: Location, People, and generic tags. So, outside of the location and people in that photo, you can tag specific qualities of the photo (landscape, car, dog, animal, black and white, birthday, etc etc)

You also have the option to share the photo or add the photo to a shared album so you can share multiple photos at once.

At the top of the linked page, you can click a link for a live demo of DiskStation Manager, of which PhotoStation is a part of. And you can explore it on your own. They don't give you a username and password, but I was automatically logged in after I waited a short while. Once logged in, click the set of four squares in the upper left and select PhotoStation. Play around with it and see if that's what you want.

Keep in mind the the 2-bay Synology's don't come with hard drives, so that'll be a separate expense:

• $150USD - https://smile.amazon.com/Synology-bay-DiskStation-DS216se-Diskless/dp/B014SKVQR8/
  
• $84USD (x2) - https://smile.amazon.com/Red-2TB-Hard-Disk-Drive/dp/B008JJLZ7G/
  
• $318USD - Subtotal (doesn't include tax)
  
  I linked to a WD Red HDD because those are rated and designed for use in NAS systems, it's a drive I'm familiar with, and a brand I trust. But, in the end, you can go with whatever drive you want. For what it's worth, the 2TB Seagate IronWolf, another HDD made for NAS systems, is only $79USD, bringing the subtotal down to $308USD.
  
  I'm going to assume you have minimal knowledge of NAS systems so I'll add some additional info. You also may need more than 2TB drives, depending on how you set up the volume, RAID1 or RAID0, you'll have 2TB and 4TB of space respectively. I’m not saying you’ll need 3 drives but if 2TB or 4TB isn’t enough space, you’ll n Ed to purchase larger drives. But, that should be plenty of space.
  
  RAID1 will mirror the drives, so all the data is both drives. So if one drive fails, all the data is still available. Just put in another 2TB drive and the system will copy the data over to the new drive. RAID1 has redundancy and you're protected against a drive failure.
  
  RAID0 will combine the drive space. So, two 2TB drives is now 4TB of space. However, if one of those drives fails, you lose all the data. RAID0 is particularly useful for speed, and for program scratch discs. I would never keep important stuff, like photos of my family and vacations, on a RAID0 NAS system.
  
  Of course, RAID is not a backup. Just because there is redundancy doesn't mean your data is safe. I'm not sure if it's the same in Canada but if you have Amazon Prime, you can back up all your photos to Amazons Cloud Drive. Depending on how/where PhotoStation stores your photos, you may be able to set up a backup task to copy the photos on the NAS to Amazon Cloud for you. That way, should the RAID1 array fail, and you need to replace both drives, your photos are still secure & safe and you'll be able to download them off Amazon.

I recently bought one of these with this RAM and this hard drive to replace my virtualized pfSense install after I was away for two weeks and had ESXi issues that took my VPN offline. I know this sub isn't a fan of Realtek NICs, but what I was looking for was: a processor that supports AES-NI, fanless, compact, dual NICs, low power consumption, and decent price. This machine hit all of those, with the only drawback being non-Intel NICs. So far, I've had absolutely no issues with it. It's a little overkill if you just want basic routing, but I wanted to be able to run OpenVPN, Snort, pfBlockerNG, etc. and have a comfortable overhead for anything I wanted to try in the future.

For an access point, Ubiquiti UniFi UAP-AC-LITE or UAP-AC-PRO are pretty popular "prosumer" products. I'm sure someone can recommend some good switches, but I'm currently running a Netgear GS724T and it provides me with the features I need (VLAN, LAG/LACP) and I'm happy with it.

> Stick to the 1Gbps switches, but you will also need a NIC that can run at 1Gbps. You can use two NICs to aggregate for redundancy or use MPIO for more throughput.

Don't almost all newer motherboard support 1Gbps? I'll most likely get a decent NIC for the NAS system, though I don't think I'll benefit from using NICs for the PCs themself.

Would it be better to buy 2 of these Intel Gigabyte NIC over a more expensive dual Gigabyte NIC like this broadcom NetXtreme II or this Intel NIC?

If I were to use MPIO, would I need a more intelligent switch to handle the errors? Or is getting 2 NICs enough to get that running? Since NICs aren't too expensive, this seems like a good option.

> Do yourself a favour; don't go out and spend too much money right now. You will regret it if you purchase something that will be made redundant 2 months later because it doesn't fit in with your setup. Have a look at this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/HP-G1610T-ProLiant-Micro-Server/dp/B00DDIC1DA/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1427034818&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=dell+gen+8+microserver

I'm here to find the right solution, though I don't want to get a low end system that will need to be replaced in a few years. That would be more expensive in the long run, especially since the file sizes have been increasing extremely fast. I've seen these HP Proliant servers, which are nicely priced, but won't meet my "storage needs". I've almost filled the 4 drives I have, so that doesn't seem like a good option.

Are there other things I could have overlooked? Thank you for the advice!

The USFF has internal room for a 2.5 drive, and a second one in place of the slim dvd.

The DT holds 1x3.5 and 1x2.5. You can replace the full size dvd with another combo adapter, but there are only three SATA ports on the motherboard, you you’ll want something like a Perc H200/h310.

The MT holds 2x3.5 and 1x2.5 and 2x3.5.
You can easily expand that to 5x3.5 using one of these 3x HDD to 2x 5.25 adapters:
https://www.amazon.com/EverCool-Dual-Drive-Triple-Cooling/dp/B0032UUGF4

Once again, you’ll need a HBA for more SATA ports. You can pretty easily add another 2-3x 3.5 drives on top of the stock 2x if you want to put in some work. Bringing the total 3.5 drives to 8x.

Hello! A small NAS should be a good solution for your company. If you want to increase the level of security you could always buy another NAS which replicates the first one. Another option would be a daily backup which you carry home with you after a work day. If your server gets destroyed the data is still save.


I don't know what exactly you mean with your question but some companies allow thier users to use addons or other services to download stuff directly on you NAS-Server (e.g. Synology, QNAP). For your local network the speeds should be sufficent but they won't be really good. Consumer NAS servers usually have a gigabit connection and can therefore transfere at a speed of ~100 MBps. For normal office work the speed should be enough and you won't notice any slowdowns.

​

If you haven't bought a device yet you should consider buying an used industiral server with a good RAID controller and sufficent RAM. You can find these all over eBay and other platforms.

​

Synology and QNAP are known for reasonable prices, easy installation and good speeds.

https://www.amazon.com/Synology-bay-DiskStation-DS218j-Diskless/dp/B076G6YKWZ/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=nas+server+2+bay&qid=1563207524&s=gateway&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&sr=8-4

​

https://www.amazon.com/Synology-Bay-DiskStation-DS218-Diskless/dp/B075N1BYWX/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=nas+server+2+bay&qid=1563207533&s=gateway&sr=8-3

Not turnkey, but a much better option than a QNAP or Synology.

Workstation: ~$300
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F302947028588

Hard Drives: 6x$105=$630
WD Red 3TB NAS Hard Drive - 5400 RPM Class, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64 MB Cache, 3.5" - WD30EFRX https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008JJLW4M/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_XyZ-BbKN4D314

OS: Free
FreeNAS

Total: ~$1000

12TB Usable In raidz2 18TB Total.

In a 4-bay NAS the best you could do is raidz1/Raid 5. Raid 5 is worthless. Source: https://www.zdnet.com/article/why-raid-5-stops-working-in-2009/

I got an iStarUSA S35 with a trayless drive cage, it will probably run about 170'ish. I like it a lot, but you'll have to go another route on the PSU as it takes a Flex PSU. Not a huge deal, they are on Amazon, NewEgg, etc

The tray less model I got... https://www.amazon.com/iStarUSA-S-35-DE4BL-3-5-Inch-Trayless-mini-ITX/dp/B00EC32KEA/ref=sr_1_24?keywords=istarusa+s-35&qid=1564973279&s=gateway&sr=8-24

A trayed version is also on Amazon as well, but I have no experience with it. You could save a little coin and go this route:

https://www.amazon.com/iStarUSA-S-35EX-Compact-3x5-25-inch-Mini-ITX/dp/B017S6RIU8/ref=sr_1_18?keywords=istarusa+s-35&qid=1564973279&s=gateway&sr=8-18

Then buy this...

https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-5-25-Inch-3-5-Inch-Hot-swap-SATAIII/dp/B00DGZ42SM/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=rosewill+drive+cage&qid=1564973142&s=gateway&sr=8-2

My friend uses that drive cage in a generic tower case so he has hot swap, and he likes it.

Synology is a good choice. QNAP is another vendor that a lot of people like. Regardless of vendor, I would get something with Ethernet connectivity so you can stream media from it, back up your computers, etc. I would also set it up with mirrored drives, so that if one drive fails you don't lose your stuff.

The Synology DS218+ looks pretty reasonable. That and a couple of big cheap Black Friday NAS drives and you could be up and running for $600-$900 depending on the size of drives you get. I don't know if this sounds like a little or a lot to you because I don't know your budget.

I do have a preschooler though, so I know how kids can impact disposable income. I have $2.5k in my 8-bay e3 xeon freenas box, luckily completed before my son was born. It's powerful and it does everything I need it to do. I highly recommend this solution if you like to tinker and spend money.

A lot of folks on the datahoarder subreddit buy western digital easystore external usb drives for bulk storage. I believe the last DAT sale had 8tb easystores going for $160 or so. They are just normal sata drives inside.

That sounds perfectly promising, thanks for providing one complete reasonable setup, thats pretty much what I wanted to see under my post :)

So just for my conclusion:

I buy the TS440 (standard version 4GB RAM/ NO HDD)

1x Crucial 16GB Kit

1x SSD 120GB

1x HDD 3TB

• I currently only have 1TB of media, and MC/CSGO won't fill the rest that fast, so I guess 3TB is more than enough
  
• I know 20GB RAM might be much, but I "helped" hosting a public minecraft server external and there it ate all the RAM it could get :P
  
  I still have one more quesiton:
  I think I'll just buy one standard lenovo 3.5 inch caddy to start, but where do I put my SSD? It's 2.5 inch. You said 'laying on the bottom' did I understand it correct you just wrapped it in somehow? xD
  
  Second question:
  I can't find the TS440 that cheap anywhere else, amazon won't ship it outside the US, and I don't live in the US...any ideas where to get it?

So the Perc H200 does connect to the backplane but requires some interesting connectors. I couldn't find the part numbers for the actual dell equiv.

I picked up these

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008VLHOR2/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-685183-001-Proliant-DL360E-Gen-8-90-Degree-Mini-SAS-SFF-8087-Cable-672240-001-/332276019068?hash=item4d5d31af7c

​

Now for the flash guide... I had no issues using this guide:

​

https://techmattr.wordpress.com/2016/04/11/updated-sas-hba-crossflashing-or-flashing-to-it-mode-dell-perc-h200-and-h310/

​

But the issue I was having was; I could not flash the card in the T410, I had to use another computer I had around.

​

Hopefully thats not the case for you!

​

Good Luck!

​

​

Lovely when they do that.

What's your budget? I could see this as an easy upgrade path:

• Purchase an HP ML10 Server
  
  
• Move your disks over
  
  
• Move RAM over (if you'd like.)
  
  
• Sell off your current computer (or use for a media PC/friend/Whatever.)
  
  Gives you 4 clean easy to use drive bays plus a fifth if you take out the cdrom. Better CPU and RAM. This one would be even faster for PLEX and more VMs.
  
  

I've just built a FreeNAS box on a Dell T310. Xeon 2.4Ghz x3430, 8GB. 4x3.5" bays, with 2x5.25" bays you can do what you like with. I put two of these to give me 6x3.5" and 4x2.5" bays. There are 6 onboard SATA ports, so I'm using a Dell H200 card for the 3.5" drives and my 2 SSDs with 8087 to 4xSATA cables. It runs idle at about 80w, and kicks up to 120w when it's transcoding a Plex 1080p stream.

You could use whatever hypervisor you like on it.

It doesn't take just any mishmash of RAM though, so either find one with 16+ installed already, or be ready to shell out a bit more to get yourself to the maximum of 32GB.

The Dell T320 is a great looking box too, and newer, with 8x3.5" bays, bigger RAM capacity, etc.

This is considerably better for about the same price.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01230V2U6/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_nfIMybWC7AJQQ

It has a much better CPU and it's in a platform where you can easily upgrade parts.

It also comes with a 500GB HDD and 8GB of Ram for on $10 more than what you posted.

Also it has a fan to cool the CPU. Fanless stuff is not good for anything that requires a decent amount of CPU usage. It will just thermal throttle.

There's a good deal on 3TB WD red...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B008JJLW4M/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?qid=1451405948&sr=8-4&pi=AC_SX220_SY330_QL65&keywords=4tb+wd+red&dpPl=1&dpID=51Fqd4-lDPL&ref=plSrch

4TB Seems to be going for £120

So £240 for 8TB/9TB

So maybe more like £400

You'll need case / mobo / CPU / psu

I feel your pain about Supermicro's EEATX standard. I misread it as EATX and purchased a used X9DR3-LN4F+ and stuffed in dual Intel Xeon E5-2670s with 192GB Samsung ECC PC3-12800R and then went to drop it into my Rosewill RSV-L4412 case...and...it extends into where the PSU goes. Crap.

I purchased some nylon risers to keep the top edge of the board from leaning too much, but it's not going anywhere and then I decided to order SFX-L SilverStone 700W PSU and it fits RIGHT in between the motherboard and the top of the case. I need to create a bracket for it, but it fits nicely above the board and will supply enough power for everything. Just gotta wait for the wires & connectors so I can make some custom cables, but this has been a sweet setup so far.

Picture (with SFX psu standing in/doing nothing): http://i.imgur.com/0NUvo64.jpg

Another picture: http://i.imgur.com/7Rpwg7V.jpg

Have you considered a commercial NAS product, like Synology? With your light needs, you would probably be safe with a 2-bay and a couple of 2-4TB hard drives.

However, remember that the online systems handle a lot of things for you, such as disks dying, that you will need to handle yourself if you go local. With only two disks I would enable a feature called "RAID 1" that will help protect your data if one of the drives dies. However, the redundancy means that if you (for example) have two 2TB disks inside the NAS your available space will only be 2TB - the second disk will always be a "backup."

Also, considering this is for a business you should also think about backing up the data somewhere off-site for emergencies (such as your office burns down, or gets robbed). This could even be OneDrive - you wouldn't need to use it except if something happens to your data, and every week you could add any new/changed files to OneDrive from the NAS.

Synology supports Dynamic DNS. I assume your firm has a website; the person who manages that may be able to help you get the NAS set up on a domain like cloudfiles.website.com that would let all employees connect and download files from anywhere.

This is, of course, assuming you only need the server for data storage - that is what a NAS is good at. It can do other kinds of calculations and processing too, but it would not be as good as a typical server for that purpose.

Well consider what you're paying for: you're not paying for just a box of parts, you're paying for everything that went into the design, testing, and refinement of the entire system.

You're paying for all the design work that went into laying the system out so it's as compact as possible without making it run too hot or making the fan run too loudly. And at the same time that design allows access to any component without any tools at all, coming apart in a very simple, intuitive, and modular way.

You're paying for the testing of how big a fan do they need to effectively cool something as powerful as a Xeon E3 without sounding like a jet engine (and whether or not a Xeon E3 was even reasonably cooled within these design parameters) and the strategic placement of temperature sensors to ensure no component was over-heating and nor were they generating too much noise over-cooling components running within acceptable parameters.

You're paying for all the system integration that went into making iLO a brain-dead easy to use system that, aside from replacing components, totally eliminates the need to ever physically touch the machine. A system that can stream an ISO across the network and make it appear to the machine itself, before the OS is even loaded, as if you have physically plugged a DVD drive into a SATA port. A system that, even though the entire rest of the machine is powered down, can still give you sensor read-outs and status reports, and then can turn the machine on and give you full access to a remote terminal that the machine believes isn't remote at all.

And then to top it off it comes with a full one year warranty, where if anything goes wrong you can simply hand the thing off to HPE and say "fix it." Or, hell, depending on the warranty terms and the nature of the problem you can even have a guy come right out to you and fix it on the spot.

And this has all been tested to run at full tilt, all cylinders firing, for twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, fifty two weeks a year.

That's what $429 gets you. Now if that's not important to you, and it sounds like it isn't, then I'd say just go ahead and build one then. You'll get more power for less money and you can drop a bunch of features you'll probably never need, like ECC RAM (unless you decide to go FreeNAS, then ECC RAM is strongly recommended).

Just a word of warning about your budget, though: depending on how you want to handle storage the majority of your $500 budget is probably going to be eaten up by hard disks. If you're going to set up like a RAID5-like system you generally want to lean towards NAS/RAID drives because non-NAS drives handle read/write errors in a way that can make your whole system hang, and those'll set you back $100 per 3TB disk.

ECC RAM 16GB: http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-DDR3L-1600MT-PC3-12800-CT2KIT102472BD160B-CT2CP102472BD160B/dp/B008EMA5VU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1452264155&sr=8-2&keywords=ecc+ram

SSD 128GB for the FreeNAS will be valuable if you are going to have lots of traffic in your home server. Then the SSD will act as cache, increasing the speed of the transfer.

Mobo: http://www.amazon.com/Asrockrack-Motherboard-Mini-DDR3-E3C224D2I/dp/B00G9U6FIQ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1452264276&sr=8-3&keywords=asrock+rack
I have this mobo. It works well. But I'm facing some issues with the IPMI (simply is dead), so I cannot remote power on the server. Now it is 100% powered on all the time. not an (big) issue.

Case (came with all fans needed): http://www.amazon.com/Fractal-Design-Mini-ITX-Computer-FD-CA-NODE-304-BL/dp/B009LHF4FO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452264378&sr=8-1&keywords=fractal+design+node+304

This is my server setup. Bought the itens in USA when I was on vacation there.

For the HDDs a little tip: Buy all same sizes (does not matter the brand).
Security tip for paranoic: buy same hdds sizes, different brands, and different batchs.

If you use the HDD same size, you can setup the storage in RAIDZ. Get full features that ZFS can bring.

Suggest the video of a webinar shown yesterday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJa94v_PKWA

Yeah that's actually a pretty decent machine for a simple home server. You could run FreeNAS or Openfiler or OpenMediaVault on there pretty easily. The RAID configuration you're proposing is perfectly fine. You could then put the two RAID volumes into one LVM group to make one big LVM volume, if you want.

One thing I worry about is the available SATA ports. The specs don't list what's available but I'll assume it's four ports. If you want to add more drives, you'll need a SATA controller card, and it looks like there's only one PCIe x16 slot and one regular PCI slot. You'd want to use the PCIe slot for a SATA controller for its throughput, but the video card is likely occupying that slot, and if there's no on-board video, you'll have to install a PCI video card or use the PCI slot for the SATA controller or sacrifice video altogether, all of which seem problematic.

If there's not enough room inside for all four drives, you could install something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-5-25-Inch-3-5-Inch-Hot-swap-SATAIII/dp/B00DGZ42SM/

Also, this is probably the correct sub for what you're asking.

You've been gracious, please double check my setup for me?

• Dell Studio XPS 9100
  
• https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005JZDUHQ/?coliid=I37PVAE7FH82JM&colid=4GMQANWRNRES&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it
  
• https://www.amazon.com/dp/B018YHS8BS/?coliid=I3IEENMIJPIFYW&colid=4GMQANWRNRES&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it
  
• https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EHBERSE/?coliid=INZLNO6VWT4CM&colid=4GMQANWRNRES&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it&th=1

Yeah, you need something like a Kill A Watt to measure the actual electricity usage. Run for 10 minutes or an hour to get an energy usage rate (e.g. a = .5 KW/hr). Then you need to know how much electricity costs in your area (I use a rough guess of b = 25c/KW). Combining those numbers by multiplying gives you units of cents per hour (c = a * b = 12.5c/hr).

The problem is now we need to guess what a new server will use, let's say it uses half the electricity. For every hour you run your new server instead of the old one, you're saving about 6c/hr.

Divide the cost of a new server by this number to figure out your break-even point ($500 / $.06/hr ~= 8300 hr, approx 347 days). Meaning if you run your new server for a year straight, it will have saved you money over your old server.

Router: Low power, low cost, fast, 3 gigabit interfaces, Linux, good WebUI, good forum support, no moving parts/reliable... http://www.amazon.com/EdgeRouter-ERLite-3-512MB-Ethernet-Router/dp/B00CPRVF5K/

Wireless: http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Networks-UniFi-Enterprise-System/dp/B004XXMUCQ/

Let the router be a router, don't have 1 box try to do too many things. Keep your router/firewall separate from being a server, it's better that way.

Fantastic! I'll probably just buy the LSI SAS card you listed along with this cable then.

Most of my confusion stemmed from motherboards having "SAS support", but I'm assuming that's if you are hooking up directly to the motherboard opposed to a PCIE controller?

Thanks for the in depth information!

I'd suggest replacing it with a DD-WRT capable router. This will support hairpinning and you can knock that rental fee off of your bill.

Edit: If you want to really go all-out, pick up an EdgeRouter Lite and a UniFi Access Point. This setup will do hairpinning out of the box

Thanks to your recommendation I'm now looking at the roswell 12 bay hotswappable case. I quite like hotswappable cases as they make life easy.

Would I simply buy the optiplex and stick the hardware in there and it would work out of the box?

Sounds quite appealing, if it's the case.

Here is a link to the case: https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-Rackmount-Computer-Pre-Installed-RSV-L4500/dp/B00N9CXGSO?th=1

EDIT: Would there be any problem in using 10TB HDDs? I know sometimes drives of high capacity create some problems.

How about a TS140 for $220 - http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkServer-70A4000HUX-i3-4130-Computer/dp/B00F6EK9J2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421116847&sr=8-1&keywords=ts140

Paired with two WD Red 3TB drives for $230 ($115 each)- http://www.amazon.com/WD-Red-NAS-Hard-Drive/dp/B008JJLW4M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421116933&sr=8-1&keywords=wd+red+3tb

You'll have two extra SATA for future expansion, and WHS can run without issue on 4GB.

I'm not sure what kind of RAID card you're going to end up with but if it's the norm around here you'll likely want one of these and then 3 of these little guys.

You could probably find those cheaper somewhere else but that would work fine. Then you'd just need one SATA power connector from your PSU and it looks like it would power all 3.

The Rosewill RSV-R4000 is a great case. It's highly modular and upgradeable. The only issue is that you have to buy sliding rails separately... OR you can get universal "shelf-style" rails.

For that kind of use, almost any kind of low-powered home server would be suitable - just shop around based on price and power consumption. Even a fanless, Atom-based, NUC-sized unit would suffice.
e.g. This one: http://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-GB-BXBT-2807-Barebones-Celeron-Included/dp/B00KR0QHXW

Same goes for disk performance - any modern HDD will provide more than enough throughput for your needs. Put a small SSD in the machine for the OS to boot from and use for swap and temporary processing, 120gig would be more than enough and that size SSDs are dirt cheap now.
e.g. This one: http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Digital-SSDNow-SV300S37A-120G/dp/B00A1ZTZOG

A simple external 3.5" USB connected drive would be fine for your actual files. You said 6TB would do so this would seem to be a decent choice: http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Desktop-External-Storage-STDT6000100/dp/B00R1P2WDK

You don't need a RAID array either, just get a second external drive of the same size as the first and sync to it on a regular basis to keep your main media archive backed up.

Just make sure to put a decent amount of RAM in there (4GB min, preferably 8GB) - http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-Technology-1600MHz-PC3-12800-KVR16LS11/dp/B00CQ35HBQ - and you're set.

That's about $350 (based on Amazon prices) to get started with another $175 to get a backup solution (second 6TB drive) in place, which you could do at a later date.

Here's a trustworthy cable to try: https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Internal-SFF-8087-Breakout/dp/B018YHS8BS?th=1

I may be late to the game but this may help as long as AHCI is enabled.

/u/clickwir has basically summed it up. The "header cable" that you are describing is actually a board known as a backplane which your HDDs will slot into and on the back are the SATA connections. Hot swap is fancy terminology describing harddrives that can be easily accessed and replaced without shutting down or stopping the machine.

The reason why a SAS addon card is good is because each SAS port can take on 4 SATA connections making your wiring look very sleek. The downside is that you will likely have to buy the card and won't be able to take advantage of all your motherboard's SATA ports.

+1 for two different machines. Especially if your desktop has a nice video card and pulls a lot of power. Your Core2Duo machine sounds similar to my Plex server and it uses about 40W. You can get a Kill-A-Watt if you really want to measure the usage at idle and load and do the math.

Rosewill RSV-R4000 will fit 3 of these

This was my build in October of 2011 so these parts will not be available now but there should be something similar.

• CPU - Intel Celeron G530 $56.99
  
• Motherboard - ASUS P8H67-M LX $89.99
  
• Ram - Team Elite 8GB (2 x 4GB) $39.99
  
• Case - NZXT Source 210 $54.99
  
• PSU - Corsair CX430 $39.99
  
  Total Cost before Hard drives: $281.95
  
  This was my first build and it did me well (I only replaced it around 5 months ago)
  
  Here is a very similar build that has in stock parts
  
  
• CPU - Intel Celeron G1820 $45.99
  
• Motherboard - ASRock H97M 69.99
  
• Ram - [G.SKILL NS Series 8GB (2 x 4GB)] (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231645) $54.99
  
• Case - NZXT Source 210 $54.99
  
• PSU - Corsair CX430 $39.99
  
  Total Cost Before Hard Drives: $265.95
  
  As for a storage drive since you only want 2tb I'd suggest this drive
  
  
• WD Red 2TB NAS $95.99
  
  If your planning on buying Windows server I'd look here for a copy of Server 2012 R2 Essentials /r/microsoftsoftwareswap/
  
  

Quad nic is nice to have. It has 2 already built in. (I believe). The box uses ECC unregistered mem.

Crucial 16GB Kit (8GBx2) DDR3/DDR3L-1600MT/s (PC3-12800) DR x8 ECC UDIMM Server Memory CT2KIT102472BD160B/CT2CP102472BD160B

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008EMA5VU/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_LR8jxbY4T8S72

Still a bit pricey but it basically has the same features as the gen8:
https://www.amazon.com/ProLiant-Server-System-Dual-core-i3-4150/dp/B01230V2U6/

Edit: this is a discontinued model as well, I bought this server before I bought a Gen8, it's more modern though.

Those bays will fit in the same manufacturer's 4u rack mount cases.

https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-Rackmount-Computer-Pre-Installed-RSV-R4000/dp/B0055EV30W/

One of the options listed already includes 3 of them. If you already purchased 2 of the holders, the least expensive option will be $99 for the dual bay case.

For the chromecast option, look at VideoStream (an addon for chrome).

Because your NAS is essentially just storage, it's just storage space so will of course need compute resources (CPU/RAM) etc. for the webserver to run.

Stick to the 1Gbps switches, but you will also need a NIC that can run at 1Gbps. You can use two NICs to aggregate for redundancy or use MPIO for more throughput.

The cluster solution; it is possible (stick to the same hardware).

Do yourself a favour; don't go out and spend too much money right now. You will regret it if you purchase something that will be made redundant 2 months later because it doesn't fit in with your setup.

Have a look at this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/HP-G1610T-ProLiant-Micro-Server/dp/B00DDIC1DA/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1427034818&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=dell+gen+8+microserver

If you get rid of the rack that's fine those can be acquired. But leave all the CAT6 wiring intact. That is a ton of work and if you ever want to have wired Ethernet (even if it's just all goes into a switch) it saves you a ton of time than doing your own runs.

Edit: If you wanted to you could get a wall mount network rack. (https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-Mounting-Bracket-Patch-Panel/dp/B000VDPBXM) and mount it to the wall closer to the ceiling. Then you keep the patch panels already run. Then if you wanted to run it all to a switch you could buy a cheap gigabit unmanaged switch and at least be able to have hot ethernet everywhere in the house. That way you preserve the hard work done and reclaim some floor space for more storage.

Sure - Just measure your cables and check if your want straight or 90 connectors. This is one that I bought for the A to A side, but mine is a tower, not a rack mount.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008VLHOR2

Yeah I have these just have to hook sata power to them. I'm also using these converters to go from the 8080 to 8087

The DS380 is one I've been looking at. (https://www.amazon.com/SilverStone-Technology-Mini-ITX-Computer-DS380B/dp/B00IAELTAI)

I really like the Hot Swap bays, and the FreeNAS forums have stories of people who have used this case with lower powered Atom builds (C2550 or C2750). Some people say that the drives get warmer if you put higher end CPUs in place, but they mitigated that by adding cardboard to direct airflow.

If you plan to use an ITX board, the Fractal Design Node 304 is quite small and gives you more options for expansion. If you want something that's insanely future proof, you can go with a Silverstone DS380B. Again, I'm assuming you are using an ITX board.

I've heard generally good things about Kingsington SSDs but you're gonna run out of space on that 30GB way too fast.

At least spend the extra £5 and get 4x the storage (120 GB) http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00A1ZTZOG/ref=mp_s_a_1_5?qid=1450887459&sr=8-5&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=ssd+drive&dpPl=1&dpID=41ZfguPSNoL&ref=plSrch

Also any modern reputable drive will handle wear just fine. There was an SSD torture test sticks a year or so ago and they said unless you are rewriting the full capacity of the disk as fast as possible (many times per day), any brand name SSD should last the better part of a decade.

Edit: found the article: http://techreport.com/review/27909/the-ssd-endurance-experiment-theyre-all-dead

Not sure how much power your specific machine uses as there are many factors including but not limited to CPU model,hard drive count,quality of power supply(don't forget to enable power saving options for CPU,hard drives,etc). Also, load makes a difference too.

You can check your power consumption by getting a power meter such as a Kill-a-watt .

You want 8087-to-8482. You'll also need SATA power splitters; there are some linked in Amazon's "frequently bought together" section:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013G4FEGG/

There are a few. I actually have the [Norco ITX-S4] (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00J353KH8/) that I use for my NAS and is around the same size as the U-NAS. There's also the Silverstone DS380B, Chenbro SR30169 and Supermicro CSE-721TQ-250B that are slightly larger.

This Rosewill case is one I've been fawning over for a while.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0055EV30W/ref=twister_B01N5HO6X2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

These guys?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DGZ42SM/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

​

What about power, cpu, ram and your MB?

How about mini-itx instead?

http://www.amazon.com/Silverstone-Tek-Mini-ITX-Computer-DS380B/dp/B00IAELTAI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418141421&sr=8-1&keywords=Silverstone+Tek+Premium+Mini-ITX+DTX+Small+Form+Factor+NAS+Computer+Cases%2C+Black+%28DS380B%29

Here:

https://www.amazon.com/SilverStone-Technology-Mini-ITX-Computer-DS380B/dp/B00IAELTAI/ref=pd_cp_147_3?pd_rd_w=m2btz&pf_rd_p=ef4dc990-a9ca-4945-ae0b-f8d549198ed6&pf_rd_r=9MGHG1DYF2GDKZFYH6RW&pd_rd_r=9e7c53ea-6f47-11e9-9381-ffdfe42e5ee6&pd_rd_wg=75dXv&pd_rd_i=B00IAELTAI&psc=1&refRID=9MGHG1DYF2GDKZFYH6RW

Here is the desktop version of your link

It has 2 mini SAS ports, but you can use a breakout cable to connect it to 8 SATA drives.

This is one example: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013G4EOEY/

I've used this to add 3 drives by removing the DVD and spacer:
https://www.amazon.com/EverCool-Dual-Drive-Triple-Cooling/dp/B0032UUGF4/ref=sr_1_14?keywords=2+5.25+to+3.5+bay+adapter+fan&qid=1573668231&sr=8-14

The issue then is that the Dell power supply only has 4 sata power connectors.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352027

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112339

https://www.amazon.com/SilverStone-Technology-Mini-ITX-Computer-DS380B/dp/B00IAELTAI

https://www.amazon.com/Norco-Mini-ITX-Computer-Storage-support/dp/B012UO63TK

I am looking at rolling my own. Here are the components I am thinking about using.

Cables
https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Internal-Mini-SAS-Breakout/dp/B012BPLYJC/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1483843852&sr=8-3&keywords=sas+to+sata

Case
https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-Rackmount-Computer-Pre-Installed-RSV-L4412/dp/B00N9CXGSO/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1483843870&sr=8-3&keywords=rosewill+12

SAS Multiplier
https://www.amazon.com/HighPoint-16-Channel-Port-Multiplier-Rocket-EJ340/dp/B00DWV4SKM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1483843893&sr=8-1&keywords=sas+expander

Grab a killawatt meter, and find out. They're cheap on ebay, and super-useful for everything.

The upside is that you can use it with any equipment you have, or multiple things if you plug a powerbar into it.

Takes all the uncertainty out of the equation. See: https://www.amazon.com/P3-P4400-Electricity-Usage-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1538330960&sr=8-3&keywords=killawatt+meter

Eeek... so that budget is going to be eaten up by just drives. NAS can use consumer drives... but it is far and away better to use drives designed to be in RAID. Otherwise you might spend more as multiple consumer drives die over time.

12-bay hot-swap 4u case: https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-Rackmount-Computer-Pre-Installed-RSV-R4000/dp/B00N9CXGSO/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1504592127&sr=8-2&keywords=rosewill%2B4u%2Bcase&th=1

15-bay non-hot-swap 4u case: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0091IZ1ZG/ref=psdc_572238_t1_B00BQY3916

You could look for craigslist deals for NAS - but they usually use SFF (2.5" 10-16k rpm) SAS drives. Also can be loud.

If you are running CAT cable around the house, you will probably want to run all the cable to a common point where they can connect to your patch panel, switch(es), servers/NAS and routers. Most people locate this place out of the way in a basement, to hide the clutter.

If you are running CAT cable you should really use CAT6A which is certified for 10G speed. CAT6 is not a standard. CAT6A is. I used shielded CAT6A. You should buy a spool of solid CAT6A wire that you can cut to specific lengths.One end gets wired to a keystone jack that is usually mounted in the wall of where you need to connect something. The other end is wired to the patch panel. The patch panel has normal jacks that you would use with regular premade patch cables to connect to switches which then connect to the server/NAS/router, etc.

Examples and tools needed:
CAT6A structure cable: https://www.firefold.com/064-series-cat6a-shielded-cable
Patch Panel: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AQL46TY/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Small Rack to hold patch panel and switches (servers would need bigger rack):https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000VDPBXM/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
keystone jacks: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CLVAJCK/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s03?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Wall plate mounting bracket: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003JQL0S8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Keytone wall plate cover: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0072JVUPG/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s02?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Tools:
Punch down tool:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000AZK4D/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s02?ie=UTF8&psc=1
LAN Cable tester: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OUFX38W/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s02?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Just noticed that monstrosity of a case.

Wouldn't it be better to get a Fractal Design Define R5 and add a 5.25" to 3.5" adapter to drop in more disks?

I have the fractal define r4. I added this bay EverCool Dual 5.25 in. Drive Bay to Triple 3.5 in. HDD Cooling Box https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0032UUGF4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apap_PEx7QErjWZOiN

So now I have a total of 11 3.5" bays. Also, it came with an adapter for mounting quad 2.5" drives. I rigged it onto the base of my case. So now I also have room for 4 ssd's.

But yeah, the r5 already has 3 slots on the back of the motherboard for ssd I think. R4 has some too, but you can't actually mount them without removing the motherboard first (aka useless for me).

> Do you mind sending me a link to that memory? I can only find PC sticks for twice the price.

Sorry in my haste to reply I overlooked the fact that the T20 wants unbuffered ECC ram, which holy crap that jacks up the prices - the registered stuff is cheap, and would be awesome for say a Dell Poweredge server.

My apologies yo.

You say you have 24 gigs of RAM - so you're running 2x8gb & 2x4gb (I'm assuming ECC unbuffered here)? if that's the case, then while it may not be $100 for 32gb Newegg has a 3rd party seller showing $62 per 8GB ecc udimm here.

>Also have you looked into running SSDs? My dilemma is do I get the Samsung 850 Evo or the 950 with a PCI adapter

It looks like you can remove the optical drive and place 2 x 2.5" drives in its place. Me personally, for what you have listed above, I would just install 1 or 2256/500gb 850 evo's in its place and call it a day.

My home server runs all my VM's save for 1 on multiple 120/80/256gb SSD's (basically whatever we had laying around from work after upgrades - that 80 is an old Intel SSD from 2008 or 2009 I think).

So, what I personally would do is:

• upgrade CPU to model with higher clock speed/thread count
  
• upgrade the 4gb sticks of ram to 8gb sticks
  
• remove optical drive, install 2 SSD's connected to motherboard SATA ports
  
• Move quad port ethernet adapter down to the x16 (but 4x electrically) slot
  
• Buy RAID/HBA adapter, install it to top x16 slot
  
• buy 4 of the biggest hard drives I could afford and RAID them (hardware or software)
  
• reinstall pfSense and enjoy full speed internet ;)
  
  For our T30 server on Oahu, we used a 500gb Evo SSD for the 3 VM's, an LSI SAS9260-8i RAID adapter, these cables, and 2 6TB Seagate Ironwolf drives in a mirrored config, and 16gb of NON ECC DDR4 memory (it's not a super mission critical server).
  
  According to this thread you don't need ECC ram, and if you're data isn't suuuuuuuper important (like life threatening important), then to the ebay you find 32GB of non-ecc ram for $145.
  
  FWIW I don't run ECC ram at home, but my home server is mainly for Plex, a single Active Directory server, pi-hole, and pfSense. Not super mission critical, and if one of my Linux ISO's get's corrupted, no big deal.
  
  Our servers in our main office, they get the ECC ram, because that shit's critical - we do electrical engineering w/ AutoCAD, I don't need hours of work down the drain.
  
  Errrrr shit sorry I kinda rambled on and brain dumped. I hope something in that wall of text is useful. Aloha :D
  
  EDIT: forgot a word and a letter :/