[Boyboyd]

Capacity counter: 8.1 TiB.



I was rapidly running out of space and SATA ports in my case so i decided to build an inexpensive nas.

Recently i've started ripping my Blu-ray movies and DVD TV Series (not bothering with DVD movies. I have hundreds) to my computer, which means i fast ran out of space. Inspiration came form Murlocke's mighty 52TB unRaid server, but without the unraid. and i'm 48TB short.

It has movies / tv / download folder / documents / and a backup of my photos. There's another backup in raid1 on my sigrig.

Spoiler: old configuration

It's 4 2TB drives in raidZ (essentially software raid 5 but without the write hole). Giving a total useable space of about 5.3TB. I'll definitely be adding drives to make it 8x2TB raidZ2 (raid 6) when I can get 2TB drives for less than £50 each again.


Parts list:
Intel Pentium D 820 £7
Asus P5KPL-CM (support for Core 2 processors) £25
4GB DDR2 (hard to get hold of) £35
800w PSU £0
x-case RM-400-10-4u £82
4 x 2TB Seagate barracuda 7200RPM drives £328
1x 250GB WD-IDE Drive (boot) £0
Ikea lack side-table (to make a LackRack) £5.99
20m cat5e £1.99
Freenas 8 £0

Total: £485 (and most of that was HDDs)

Pictures:
Really loud 80mm fans


The hard drives (lol ide)


Temporary resting place until I get some cable clips and take it to the cellar and attach the rails to make it a lackrack.


The front


Speeds: (click to enlarge)
Watching video


Reading video. Edit: This read speed is bottlenecked by the speed of my steam Raid0 array. I wrote here because I thought it would be the fastest drive but evidently I was wrong.


Writing video


Small read (.NEF Photos. 30MB each)


Small write (.The same .NEF files)

New Configuration


Parts list:
Intel i3 530 £40
Asus P7P55-M mATX 1156... £35
1x4GB DDR3 19
450w PSU £25
x-case RM-400-10-4u £82
4 x 2TB Seagate barracuda 7200RPM drives £328
1x 250GB Drive (boot) £0
Ikea lack side-table (to make a LackRack) £5.99
20m cat5e £1.99
FlexRAID £38.16

Total: £575.14

Without drives: £247.14 ($394 as of 9th November 12)

Overall i'm really happy with it. It's very very loud but the fans push a lot of air through. With the door shut though I can't hear it now from the next room. Will be able to hear it even less when it's in the cellar. I'd recommend the case to anyone. Lots of room for expansion.

Here's a video of how loud it is. It's mostly the 80mm fans.

Thanks for looking.

 

[JCG]

Looking good Boyd. It's funny how the RAM costs more than your CPU, motherboard and PSU put together

And I'm jelly at your write speeds.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boyboyd

I'd recommend the case to anyone. Lots of room for expansion.
Thanks for looking.

Amen! You should probably should tidy up those wires a little bit though ..

 

[Boyboyd]

yeah the wires probably aren't helping airflow. I've replaced the 2 front 120mm fans with AP15s. It was NOT easy to do. I had to cut the molex connector of the old fan to get it out because of the way they've assembled the case.

That's definitely one of my priorities.

 

[JCG]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boyboyd

yeah the wires probably aren't helping airflow. I've replaced the 2 front 120mm fans with AP15s. It was NOT easy to do. I had to cut the molex connector of the old fan to get it out because of the way they've assembled the case.
That's definitely one of my priorities.

Hahaa! Should've gone with the mid-plate version

I had no trouble at all, although my cables are far from tidy.



Also, having three of them in the middle meant I could take out the two 80mm at the back, they are way too noisy for a bedroom.

The fans are Zalman ZM-F3 FDB - cost me a fiver each, but they're really quiet and push a lot of air. All drives are under 30C, and they've been under load for ~12hrs now ..

 

[Boyboyd]

I wanted air going straight over my HDDs because I can't check temps and i'm paranoid. So so hard to change though. easy to get the fan out but hard to get the old molex connector through.

PS have you tried to fit 5 HDDs per rack yet? They literally touch.

 

[JCG]

I haven't, no. Only got 5 HDDs at the moment, 6th is on the way, so I'm leaving it as 3 per rack, which is probably why they're running so cool.

 

[Boyboyd]

Mine are in a 3 - 2 configuration. I've set up smart to email me if they go over 30, or if the temp changes by more than 10 degrees from the last email.

Now I have to just wait an hour for it to run. lol

Loving this case though, thanks for the recommendation.

 

[JCG]

Smart emailing. Will have to look in to that. Thanks!

And you recommended it to me! Or was it Adz; I forgot ..

 

[Boyboyd]

It might have been adz. I recommended the lack rack. I'm hesitant to do it though because i've never ever had an experience with rack server chassis.

 

[JCG]

Yeah, you brought up Lack, so it was Adz. I've never had any experience with rack-mount chassis either, and I can't for the life of me figure out how the included rails work. So I'm leaving it for now. But if you do take the plunge at some point, I demand pics/vids/instructions

 

[Boyboyd]

Yeah i'll definitely do that. If i try the first time and i'm not successful i'm willing to just buy another lack for £6 and keep trying until I get it right.

 

[Matt-Matt]

Loving how the CPU cost basically nothing!

I take it that it's a dual core? Lol your RAM costed you more then the CPU many times over!

 

[Boyboyd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matt-Matt

Loving how the CPU cost basically nothing!

I take it that it's a dual core? Lol your RAM costed you more then the CPU many times over!

haha yeah it's such a shame about the ram. I had to scour ebay for 2x2GB sticks because i've only got 2 dimm slots.

The CPU was a great buy. and as you can see i'm not even close to using 100% of it.

 

[LoNeLyKiLLeR]

Boyboyd excellent work. I have to say i am really impressed by this NAS build. I have read all the topic but i must say that i don't have a lot of knowledge in servers and i would like your help if you can of course. As i understand you had build a server to have all your storage wireless because you didn't have so much space for those HDD? If you can help me figure it out i would be very grateful. And how can i set up one like this in my new house ? Sorry for those questions but i am a noob in this.

Thanks

 

[Boyboyd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LoNeLyKiLLeR

Boyboyd excellent work. I have to say i am really impressed by this NAS build. I have read all the topic but i must say that i don't have a lot of knowledge in servers and i would like your help if you can of course. As i understand you had build a server to have all your storage wireless because you didn't have so much space for those HDD? If you can help me figure it out i would be very grateful. And how can i set up one like this in my new house ? Sorry for those questions but i am a noob in this.
Thanks

Hey, If you PM me a question i'll help out If i can.

You're partly right. I ran out of HDD space in my desktop, but the server isn't wireless. It's wired but with a very long cable.

 

[reezin14]

Hey BoyBoyd your setup looks great,but if your going to use RAIDZ I'd highly recommend you add more ram.I know DDR2 is more expensive then DDR3??? But the FreeNas website says that you should use a minimum of 6GB's+.But if your happy with the results then... Some interesting info can he found here that may help your NAS run better.

 

[Boyboyd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by reezin14

Hey BoyBoyd your setup looks great,but if your going to use RAIDZ I'd highly recommend you add more ram.I know DDR2 is more expensive then DDR3??? But the FreeNas website says that you should use a minimum of 6GB's+.But if your happy with the results then... Some interesting info can he found here that may help your NAS run better.

Yeah I really should have goten 8GB. One of the major shortfalls of the motherboard I have is that it only has 2 slots for ram. I'll be keeping an eye out for 4GB sticks (or maybe even 8) on ebay and the OCN marketplace.

I've been thinking about adding my spare SSD into the build as an L2ARC drive, either as a log drive or cache. I know it's not the same as RAM but it's a step in the right direction.

 

[reezin14]

The SSD would be an excellent addition,and definitely help.Keep us updated.

 

[Boyboyd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by reezin14

The SSD would be an excellent addition,and definitely help.Keep us updated.

Thanks. I definitely will. I may actually put the rails on next weekend and use it like a rack. FreeNAS strongly advise against the use of a single log drive though, because if it dies you'll loose all un-written data. Not really a problem for me though, think it's mainly suggested for enterprises where data is money.

 

[Boyboyd]

Update, so I put the rails on and mounted it under a lack table. It took some cutting and hacking but it works quite well I think. Not pretty from the back but that's why i put those spacers there and not at the front.





I'll write up a guide later tonight.