cost of custom built nas

jaket · 12 Sep 2016 at 14:40

Just wondering if anyone has managed to build a home server for nas / file / plex / download purposes cheaper than the cost of Microserver?

I've hit £226 for a low powered AMD mini itx without a case!

Imgoingtobed · 12 Sep 2016 at 16:15

I made of one out of an old PC and some spare hdds for that exact same reason. t's running freenas and works well, the CPU is reasonable enough for plex encoding as some low spec pre made nas units can't cope properly from what I understand.

Total cost of free, well ish as I would have bought the parts at some point but they were just sat here. To buy bits from scratch 226 is pretty good depending on what disk space you have

I

TechMinerUK · 12 Sep 2016 at 16:28

You can't build one for cheaper than that but you can get a Dell T20 Pentium for cheaper (After cashback around ~£120 IIRC)

I can send you a link to one if you like

jaket · 12 Sep 2016 at 16:59

I have a broken N54L, the 250GB disk went and looks like it fried the motherboard as i'm not getting any boot. I have 4 x 2TB disks already.

I thought £226 was good too, that was with 16Gb memory. If I upgraded Gen8 with an 8GB stick it brings me to £225 before £55 cash back but that ends this month so no guarantee.

Yes, saw the T20 too! Very temped by this too and adding some more RAM is cheaper than both options. Will check the CPU rating, if its better than the N54 then i'm happy.

Edit: CPU benchmark is way higher than base Gen8 and the AMD built! I think I'm going with T20!

TechMinerUK · 12 Sep 2016 at 17:04

jaket said:
I have a broken N54L, the 250GB disk went and looks like it fried the motherboard as i'm not getting any boot. I have 4 x 2TB disks already.
I thought £226 was good too, that was with 16Gb memory. If I upgraded Gen8 with an 8GB stick it brings me to £225 before £55 cash back but that ends this month so no guarantee.
Yes, saw the T20 too! Very temped by this too and adding some more RAM is cheaper than both options. Will check the CPU rating, if its better than the N54 then i'm happy.
Edit: CPU benchmark is way higher than base Gen8 and the AMD built! I think I'm going with T20!

If you need even more power there is a variant of the T20 containing a Xeon however it's not available currently but now and then they list them

jaket · 12 Sep 2016 at 17:07

Saw that but think the G3220 will be fine for what I need it for.

jaket · 12 Sep 2016 at 17:23

Hmm
£120
£40 for 8gb ram
£?? for raid card to allow 5 drives, OS + 4 disks. Brings it to similar price to Gen8 but better spec, also much bigger.

jaket · 13 Sep 2016 at 11:52

Right... I would like some help in deciding what to purchase.

Requirement is 5 drives hence the sata card on custom / T20.
Will be running Centos with BTRFS on 4 x 2TB disks. 120GB SSD for Boot Drive.
NFS/CIFS/NzbGet/Sonarr/Plex/CouchPoato

Custom Build -
REMOVED - No links / price hinting at competitor sites - Armageus

HP Microserver Gen8 Build- - CPU Mark 2336 - SingleThread 1200 - Idle: 25w? Peak: 45w? plus 10-15w per drive?
Server: HP G1610T - 4GB - (£164.47)
Memory Upgrade: Kingston KVR1333D3E9S/8G - (£36.54)
Total: £201.01 - £55 cash back available so £146.01

Dell T20 Build - CPU Mark 3178 SingleThread 1744 - Idle: 30w? Peak: 42w? plus 10-15w per drive?
Server: Dell T20 G3220 (£119.94)
Memory Upgrade: Kingston KVR1333D3E9S/8G - (£36.54)
Sata Card: Syba SATA III 4 Port PCI-e 2.0x 2 Card with Marvell HyperDuo RAID Mode Support and Low Profile Brackets (£32.55)
Total: £189.03

neodude · 13 Sep 2016 at 12:58

Have you had a look at UnRaid? Looks perfect for what you want.

jaket · 13 Sep 2016 at 13:04

neodude said:
Have you had a look at UnRaid? Looks perfect for what you want.

I know of it but I can build centos myself to avoid the extra cost of the unRaid licence?

I think I'm set on Gen8!

crinkleshoes · 13 Sep 2016 at 13:12

It's not possible to build one from scratch for less than the Gen8/T20 IMO... certainly nothing that can compete with those units.

My early home NAS / servers have been built from older computer parts that I didn't want to keep in my main system any longer... so they've been "cheaper" but only because I had the parts available.

jaket · 13 Sep 2016 at 13:17

crinkleshoes said:
It's not possible to build one from scratch for less than the Gen8/T20 IMO... certainly nothing that can compete with those units.

My early home NAS / servers have been built from older computer parts that I didn't want to keep in my main system any longer... so they've been "cheaper" but only because I had the parts available.

Looks that way, I'm leaning towards the Gen8 Price/Performance/Compact factor its the best I think!

crinkleshoes · 13 Sep 2016 at 13:27

Yes, it's great

ov_sjo · 13 Sep 2016 at 16:23

The T20 Xeons are available.....

ov_sjo · 13 Sep 2016 at 16:29

jaket said:
Right... I would like some help in deciding what to purchase.

Requirement is 5 drives hence the sata card on custom / T20.
Will be running Centos with BTRFS on 4 x 2TB disks. 120GB SSD for Boot Drive.
NFS/CIFS/NzbGet/Sonarr/Plex/CouchPoato

I would seriously look at an operating system which can restrict cpu utilisation as sab will destroy your cpu potentially breaking plex transcoding unless you cap the sab cpu remit.. this is particularly an issue on the lower spec boxes you detail.

jaket · 13 Sep 2016 at 17:18

ov_sjo said:
I would seriously look at an operating system which can restrict cpu utilisation as sab will destroy your cpu potentially breaking plex transcoding unless you cap the sab cpu remit.. this is particularly an issue on the lower spec boxes you detail.

Thanks for tip. I will be using Nzbget rather than Sab. Nzbget has a ton of options for tuning so happy on that front. I don't do a huge amount of transcoding, mostly all native.