SFF NAS

Soldato
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Hi all

I am replacing my aging HP Microserver with something that will give me a bit more flexibility and expandability in the long run. I have decided on the Silverstone DS380B as the case but everything else is up in the air.

Can anyone recommend a Mini ITX mobo with 8+ sata ports OR, maybe a 6 port mobo and 4-6 port SATA PCI-E card?

I am aware of the ASRock server board but reading around, it can be quite a headache. Looking for easy sailing here so where I haven't totally discounted it, other recommendations are appreciated. Thanks!
 
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supermicro do a 'atom' server as well iirc.

Personally I'd be going down the mitx with haswell/skylake cpu (would think i3 would be fine) and raid card to get the benefits of redundancy and quicksync this makes a huge difference on cpu usage during playback. My i7 4790k seems to only use about 10% cpu even on 720p 10-bit H.265.

I plan to at some point turn my i7 into a server based on this approach eventually but it really depends on your intended use as if you intend to do is serve files you could likely go lower still.
 
Soldato
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Should have explained further I guess. No need for a RAID card as I will not be doing traditional RAID or software RAID so I will only need something low power. Have been looking at the G3258 for CPU duties.

I will be using uNRAID 6 so each drive is pretty much treated individually and then a parity drive for protection. This is my current setup in a Microserver (using unRAID 5) using 4 drives. I have 2 more 4TB I wish to add but I didn't want to go down the route of squeezing the drives into the 5.25" bay (Have done this previously and have all the gubbins to do it, just thought migrating to another system with better expansion would yield a better outcome in the future).

So with this in mind I found the Gigabyte GA-H97N-WIFI which has 6 onboard SATA. I can add in a 4 port PCI-E 2x SATA controller to give me a total of 10 drives. Paired with the G3258, 8GB of RAM and the Silverstone DS380B case, I think this will make quite a decent box.

Duties are purely SMB/NFS as I have an HTPC and a NUC in the bedroom running Kodi for playback. The server will be doing no transcoding or anything heavy duty. With this in mind, even the above spec is complete overkill but it would last me a good number of years for not a great outlay.

Thoughts?
 
Associate
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Not really sure why would you put a desktop motherboard in a file server? Unnecessary addons that you won't use (audio etc.) all consuming extra power - an atom based asrock or supermicro would be far better and provide all the sata ports you need without having to resort to add on cards.

An Asrock C2550D4I / C2750D4I and max 8gb of ECC seems ideal for your needs in every shape.
 
Soldato
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Cost?

Old desktop motherboards/cpus etc are cheap and plentiful.

Spot on. Those ASRock mobos are the better part of £250. The Gigabyte is still more.than I wanted to spend at just over £100 but it has everything I need at a price point that isn't too ridiculous. The ASRock are soldered CPU's, the Gigabyte I can upgrade over time. Etc etc. People think you need server grade hardware for a home build but I have 0 use for iLO/KVM, ECC memory or anything like that.
 
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Desktop products are fine; but I'm more of the opinion it's up until something goes wrong somewhere, be that during that one in a millionth transfer (or random act of god) that corrupts or worse, and irreplaceable things like family photos are lost; all because somewhere along the line it was easier to cheap out.

I know I'd be p***ed if I lost my music collection, let alone things like family photos. Guess you have to weigh up your time, effort and personal value to a like for like £ cost.

Like most things it's only opinion so it was weighed in after "thoughts" were asked for. Good luck with your future build.
 
Soldato
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You should never use redundancy/server grade hardware etc as a substitute for backups of your important data. If it is that important to you, it needs to be backed up to at least 2 other locations, one of them being off site.

Also, "I'm more of the opinion it's up until something goes wrong somewhere", you seem to be of the opinion that server grade hardware does not fail? I have more failures at work on £100k server racks with all the redundancies known to man built in than I do with the desktops out on the floor.

You need to weigh up what your data means to you I guess and mine is pretty "throw away", hence not needing to worry about the hardware too much. Just need to be able to throw a number of hard drives at it.

Your opinion is very welcome, a healthy discussion is what these forums is all about :)
 
Soldato
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So, I have done some more research and come up with the below spec. Anybody spot anything wrong with the below?

Case: Silverstone DS380B 8 Bay NAS Chassis
PSU: Silverstone Strider SST-ST30SF SFX Series - 300 Watt '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply

Motherboard: ASRock FM2A78M-ITX+
Processor: AMD A6-7400K
CPU Cooler: Arctic Cooling Alpine 64 PLUS
RAM: Team Group Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit

All together it comes out at £320. Don't think I could do any better than that for the money?
 
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So, I have done some more research and come up with the below spec. Anybody spot anything wrong with the below?

Case: Silverstone DS380B 8 Bay NAS Chassis
PSU: Silverstone Strider SST-ST30SF SFX Series - 300 Watt '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply

Motherboard: ASRock FM2A78M-ITX+
Processor: AMD A6-7400K
CPU Cooler: Arctic Cooling Alpine 64 PLUS
RAM: Team Group Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit

All together it comes out at £320. Don't think I could do any better than that for the money?

you could do a lot better.... BRB

Ok so here you are. if you want a nas you dont need hi speed cores so the set up i have given you will be fine as a nas, and come in at just over £250. but i also think you have the wrong choice of case so could cost even less

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £142.42
(includes shipping: £10.50)

your choice of case is from a competitor at 116... but i think this is a bad choice, the type of system your looking at cant run 12 drives so why buy an expensive case that cant do something you cant use. only a VERY expensive raid card will fit in the case because of size problems. you would be better with a case that as the option to hold 6 drives at a better price point?

Forgot to mention this needs a pcie sata or raid card + £30 to cover that.
 
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Associate
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^ +1

My NAS is based on the AM1 5350 - worth the extra £6 IMO.

I'm running Proxmox with 3 VMs running 24x7 and the occasional others for playtime. It's only ~35w TDP iirc so cheap on the leccy!
 
Soldato
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Thank you for the input however it isn't ALL about cost. The aim of this build is functionality. I think you missed the point of the chosen motherboard in that it has 6 on-board SATA ports. Add in a 4 port PCI-E SATA card and that gives me 10 drives to play with. 8 of them being via the removable drive bays that my chosen case offers.
 
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Thank you for the input however it isn't ALL about cost. The aim of this build is functionality. I think you missed the point of the chosen motherboard in that it has 6 on-board SATA ports. Add in a 4 port PCI-E SATA card and that gives me 10 drives to play with. 8 of them being via the removable drive bays that my chosen case offers.

I can understand that. But there are AM1 boards with 4 sata ports. If you add the raid card, that's 8 drives. Why do you need 10?

So the difference between your build and p4clock's is half the price at the cost of two drives. Plus lower power requirements and costs going forward.

Not trying to persuade you at all - the decision is totally yours. Just playing devil's advocate really.
 
Soldato
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I can understand that. But there are AM1 boards with 4 sata ports. If you add the raid card, that's 8 drives. Why do you need 10?

So the difference between your build and p4clock's is half the price at the cost of two drives. Plus lower power requirements and costs going forward.

Not trying to persuade you at all - the decision is totally yours. Just playing devil's advocate really.

That board had 2 SATA though. Can you show me a 4 port AM1 board? Very open to suggestions as long as they fit my goal :)
 
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Thank you for the input however it isn't ALL about cost. The aim of this build is functionality.

My spec even tho chep was nothing about cost. it was showing you what spec a nas needs to be. if anything am1 is high spec for a home nas/media server, and a quad core is way over kill.

the board was an over sight on my part how ever with a better board and am1 build would perform on par with your build.
 
Soldato
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Perfect! Thank you. I had looked but I could not find a 4 port AM1 board. Obviously I did not look hard enough :p

My spec even tho chep was nothing about cost. it was showing you what spec a nas needs to be. if anything am1 is high spec for a home nas/media server, and a quad core is way over kill.

the board was an over sight on my part how ever with a better board and am1 build would perform on par with your build.

Don't get me wrong, I know exactly what a NAS should be, I was just having trouble finding what I needed. Hence my post here! Thank you for your input, it has been quite invaluable. My revised spec list is below. I am sticking with the Silverstone PSU purely because it is very recommended in the unRAID forums as it has a single 12v rail, which apparently unRAID prefers.

Case: Silverstone DS380B 8 Bay NAS Chassis (£116.51)
PSU: Silverstone Strider SST-ST30SF SFX Series - 300 Watt '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (£41.99)
Motherboard: ASRock AM1B-ITX (£31.51)
Processor: AMD APU Athlon 5350 Quad Core Processor (£31.89)
CPU Cooler: Arctic Cooling Alpine M1 (£5.35)
RAM: Team Group Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (£29.99)

SATA Card: Syba SATA III 4 Port PCI-e 2.0 x2 Card with Low Profile Bracket (33.79)

All of that for a smidge over £290 saving me ~£60 and is without a doubt a better build for a NAS system.

Thank you both for your time and efforts and sticking with me :D

EDIT: Been a while since I have had to build anything and just wanted to check. Will the SATA card, being a PCI-e 2.0 x2 card, work with this board which is a PCI-e 16x slot but operating at 4x. The slot will allow a lower operating speed?
 
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the only thing i would say is if you are going 8 bay chassis you might be worth looking at a 8 port hba card so you have more future capacity space, you can get them pretty cheap off the bay

especially if you know what you are doing with flashing them
 
Soldato
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the only thing i would say is if you are going 8 bay chassis you might be worth looking at a 8 port hba card so you have more future capacity space, you can get them pretty cheap off the bay

especially if you know what you are doing with flashing them

Thanks, but with 4 SATA onboard and a 4 SATA PCI-e card at ~£30 that gives me the 8 ports I need already.
 
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