Home Built NAS

Mr Onion · 26 Jun 2016 at 14:02

Having finally finished the job I started about a year ago (building an AMD oct core 4gib PC) I have enough parts left to build a complete small tower with a dual core Athlon 3gb and 4 gb memory.

So, how about making it into a NAS using https://www.amahi.org server software plugged into my Virgin Superhub. The hardware is more than adequate (from their wiki https://wiki.amahi.org/index.php/Requirements ) but is this the best option? Is there better software out there? Any other ideas?

TiA

DragonQ · 26 Jun 2016 at 15:17

I used Amahi about 5 years ago. It's probably improved since then but I found it a pain to work with. My server would sometimes just die in the middle of nowhere and there was no way to gain software redundancy without straight-forward file duplication.

Right now I use Windows Server 2012 with StableBit DrivePool for drive pooling and FlexRAID RAID-F for redundancy. Both of these software packages work on Linux too though - the reason I use Windows is historical but it's also useful for running WSUS. I guess if I was to start again I might use Linux with a Windows VM for that, since I'm far more experienced with Linux since changing jobs.

Mr Onion · 26 Jun 2016 at 16:39

Thanks for that. I'll have a look and do some more thinking

Buffalo2102 · 29 Jun 2016 at 16:09

There are plenty of other options like Freenas, Nas4free etc.. Coming at it as new user, whatever you use will have to be learnt from scratch, so small degrees of usability are less of an issue.

A lot of these are opensource and free so why not just give them a try?

Steveocee · 29 Jun 2016 at 16:56

Freenas would be my go to recommendation for a home brew NAS, if you wanted to expand it a bit more, you could go for a full blown operating system. Personally I use Ubuntu-Server with SMB for folder shares, Transmission for torrents, Plex for media sharing.

Mr Onion · 29 Jun 2016 at 17:06

I have been looking at the open source stuff, and TBH as a newbie is highly confusing. I'll check out the freenas site, and I really MUST get the energy to get into the loft and retrieve the enclosure.

The 'spend lots of dosh on a new NAS box' is bar far the easiest option, but then I'm tight

Steveocee · 29 Jun 2016 at 17:39

Xpenology is worth a look as well. You have to be careful with updates as its s modified synology os but you get all the ease of use from an expensive nas but with your superior kit.

Mr Onion · 30 Jun 2016 at 10:01

I didn't realise that there were so many choices available. As Buffalo said, I'll pick one and see if I beat it or it beats me :rolleyes:

Mr Onion · 15 Jul 2016 at 17:16

Thanks for the help guys. I have finally managed to find all of the bits that were hiding in the loft and got a FreeNAS up and running.

Permissions are a nightmare, but once set they can be forgotten about. Its working well, and will do all that I want (and more)

Easy install too (which is always useful)

neodude · 16 Jul 2016 at 12:07

I highly recommend UnRaid

lmfy2k · 16 Jul 2016 at 13:30

neodude said:
I highly recommend UnRaid

I've been using unraid for years. Spot on never failed me

neodude · 16 Jul 2016 at 20:23

lmfy2k said:
I've been using unraid for years. Spot on never failed me

I've only been using it for a couple of months, it's amazing. Does everything!

lmfy2k · 20 Jul 2016 at 15:02

neodude said:
I've only been using it for a couple of months, it's amazing. Does everything!

just checked and bought the license in 2010, just updated to latest v6 and using some dockers, amazing