Custom NAS

SoapSurgeon

SoapSurgeon

SoapSurgeon

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Joined
14 Apr 2003
Posts
1,101
Hi,

I am currently converting my music to FLAC and will possibly be doing my DVDs to ISO images at some stage. I have been looking at a NAS that can install slimserver but they seem few and far between.

Therefore I wanted to know how feasible it is to build a linux server to store/share my content. My requirements are as follows:

Small - it has to be as small as possible
Quiet - might have to live in someones bedroom so I want it to be quiet (well, I guess they do :p)
Energy efficient - save the planet etc etc

My idea is to have a small server which I can just attach external drives to as and when I need them. I have looked at micro-itx cases but these seem to have tiny PSUs which I guess wont be able to power a lot of HDDs?

Has anyone tried something similar, in which case what did you end up doing?
 
A mini itx board and however many external USB drives you need sounds a promising plan (as long as the USB drives are externally powered obviously)

It'll be the most power efficient and easy to silence and pretty small. Downside is when I started looking at this (still planning myself) I decided I wanted to transcode and stream on the box as well, which really pushes up your processing requirements. If you don't want to do this sort of stuff then you'll be fine, but best to work out what you might want to play with rather than building an initial system and then finding you need something more powerful.
 
I have been racking my brains over this for ages now and i have gone from a NAS to a file server/linux box to a full blown HTPC and now im thinking I might just get an external hard drive and save the money!!
 
I am in the same boat.

I have seen a few NAS boxes with slimserver installed to buy, but I dont know how quiet they are.

I also thought of using a popcornhour box as the storage for all my media, but its only a single disk model
 
SoapSurgeon said:
I have been racking my brains over this for ages now and i have gone from a NAS to a file server/linux box to a full blown HTPC and now im thinking I might just get an external hard drive and save the money!!
Click to expand...

Join the club, I've been going round in circles deciding exactly what I want. I *think* I'm now set on a server in a datacenter to do my re-encoding and any downloads (work for an ISP - free rackspace! :D). That keeps the nasty noisy box out of my house and I'll add another box at home to actually serve the stuff up (probably combine it with my dev workstation to be honest)
 
SoapSurgeon said:
Hi,

I am currently converting my music to FLAC and will possibly be doing my DVDs to ISO images at some stage. I have been looking at a NAS that can install slimserver but they seem few and far between.

Therefore I wanted to know how feasible it is to build a linux server to store/share my content. My requirements are as follows:

Small - it has to be as small as possible
Quiet - might have to live in someones bedroom so I want it to be quiet (well, I guess they do :p)
Energy efficient - save the planet etc etc

My idea is to have a small server which I can just attach external drives to as and when I need them. I have looked at micro-itx cases but these seem to have tiny PSUs which I guess wont be able to power a lot of HDDs?

Has anyone tried something similar, in which case what did you end up doing?
Click to expand...

I used to have a small file server built on Debian Linux using a Mini-ITX Epia M6000 motherboard as a base. It had a low-noise 80mm fan in the case (Chyang Fun Cube) so wasn't totally fanless as it's not recommended to go completely fanless even with low-spec Epia boards. The case had a 120w power supply so was plenty for what I needed.

It also had room for 2 3.5" hard disk drives and a normal DVD-ROM for installing the O/S though slightly larger than normal Mini-ITX cases. 256 Mb of memory was fine though I upped it to 512 Mb to run Windows 2003 Server at one point as it was a little sluggish with that.

The 60w power supply I had in another case wasn't suitable for running USB devices as I found problems with devices disconnecting at random intervals.

The setup I had with Debian was a simple one using Samba as the basic file sharing with gnump3d for streaming my music to work. I also tried FreeNAS though I had poor Samba performance with transferring files, which might be fixed by now.

Personally I'm thinking of just going with a NAS box as the Mini-ITX cases at the time didn't seem to be too suitable for what I wanted. Also, with the cost of Mini-ITX systems they still seem to be too expensive though hopefully now that Intel are involved prices will come down soon.
 
how about using the smallest matx case going with fan less cooling?

and network it using some home plugs direct to the adsl/cable router
 
i have a m-itx setup at home that i use as a file server, download machine, and also for general surfing. It is also setup so that i can remote control it when im at work :-)

It has 2x small fans. one on the cpu heatsink, and one case fan which ive dropped the voltage on, so it isnt silent, but it is near enough.

Ive been using it with my big Icebox plugged into it, but unfortunately the controller in the icybox has died.. luckily the drive still seemed to work, but then about a week later the drive started playing up, so my plan is to get a slightly bigger m-itx case, and then install 3x hard drives. a small one for the OS, and then a mirrored pair for my data storage.

I have really considered getting a Nas box, but i really didnt want to have another big box sat on my desk so im just going to go with the upgraded m-itx system
 
i'm in exactly same sitaution.

i really need a small NAS box, to share files and printer, possible access to it via RDC from anywhere in the world.

i got 2 options,

1) proper small NAS external caddy

2) windows platform NAS box

i'm not sure which one i should go for. but there are few pro's and con's for each one

1) Pro's - very very small, silent, ultra low power, easy GUI to create share and rules policy etc.
Con's - very limited what u can do with it. dodgy printer sharing , some printers wont work well

2) Pro's - unlimited what you can do with it. any OS you can use, can RDC in, can host website/email server with any hosting software. you get more control with it.
Con's - bigger case needed due cooling, something like one of cheapest shuttle barebone.

i think i'd would prefer the shuttle barebone like this http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-094-SH

shuttle -£185
E2160 -£44
1GB DDR2 -£0 (Already got spare 1GB)
DVD-RW -£18
500GB -£65
OS -£0 (any linux OS)
total = £312

Synology DS-107 - £122!!
500GB - £ 65
total = £187

i wont know if my printer will work well with synology till i buy it and try it. with shuttle, i can have 2 hard drives, what you guys think? do you think i'll have a heat issue with 2 hard drives in shuttle?

oh, another Pro for shuttle, i can install TV Tuner and covert it into PVR and share media cross the LAN etc.

thanks :)
 
im still caught in 4 minds here...

Being the scientist that I am, I want to do some experiments on the power consumption of NASs, micro-itx and a custom linux box. That is my main concern as I wish to leave the storage device on full time. Apparently, normal PCs don't use much power and that would provide me with much more flexibility in terms of making it silent, storage space and performance - which is needed for the latest version of SlimServer.

anyone have any decent figures that show the different power consumptions of NASs and PCs?
 
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