Is it cheaper to Buy or Build a NAS?

I don't have experience building my own NAS, but if you have time to build it then why not also building your own probably will give you more rooms to upgrade, hand-pick your components and probably a bit cheaper.

to make it easier and no time to build? Buy a NAS.
 
You probably could build one cheaper, but I think you'd struggle to do it by much.

Take a look at the Synology DS213+ for example:
YOUR BASKET
1 x Synology Diskstation DS213+ 2-Bay Gigabit Ethernet Network Attached Storage Enclosure £295.99
Total : £305.59 (includes shipping : £8.00).



This includes everything you need including the software with very good functionality and a web-based interface. The downside is that your upgrade options are limited - only 2 bays and that's it. The most you can do is upgrade to larger drives or add a second box.

If you go down the "build your own" route, possibly you could save some money but do you really want the hassle? Upside is that you should have lots of capability to upgrade it.
 
Havana_UK said:
You probably could build one cheaper, but I think you'd struggle to do it by much.

Take a look at the Synology DS213+ for example:
YOUR BASKET
1 x Synology Diskstation DS213+ 2-Bay Gigabit Ethernet Network Attached Storage Enclosure £295.99
Total : £305.59 (includes shipping : £8.00).



This includes everything you need including the software with very good functionality and a web-based interface. The downside is that your upgrade options are limited - only 2 bays and that's it. The most you can do is upgrade to larger drives or add a second box.

If you go down the "build your own" route, possibly you could save some money but do you really want the hassle? Upside is that you should have lots of capability to upgrade it.
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Thanks for the suggestion, I really liked the Synology NAS, But I'll need minimum 3 bays (so a 4 bay nas is best) and the way the prices were going I was thinking I could surely build cheaper.
But lack of NAS knowledge really.

I don't know of the RAM requirements, are there purpose build linux packages I could get....
That put me off, TBH I was hoping someone would pop up with their custom build spec I could ripoff :p
 
GiraffePencils said:
Thanks for the suggestion, I really liked the Synology NAS, But I'll need minimum 3 bays (so a 4 bay nas is best) and the way the prices were going I was thinking I could surely build cheaper.
But lack of NAS knowledge really.

I don't know of the RAM requirements, are there purpose build linux packages I could get....
That put me off, TBH I was hoping someone would pop up with their custom build spec I could ripoff :p
Click to expand...

Something like this I'm sure would be adequate:
YOUR BASKET
1 x EVGA 600W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply (100-B1-0600-KR) £49.99
1 x Asus A55BM-E AMD A55 Chipset (Socket FM2+) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £37.99
1 x AMD A4-4000 3.00GHz (Socket FM2) APU Richland Dual Core Processor (AD4000OKHLBOX) £31.99
1 x In-Win EM019 Mini Tower Case - Black £28.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite 2GB (1x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Single Channel Module (TED32GM1600C1101) £17.99
Total : £176.56 (includes shipping : £8.00).



You could then bung Linux on it as your OS plus you've got plenty of room for hard-drives. I'm not sure what RAID options that motherboard would support out of the box though, so you might need some sort of multi-channel SATA RAID expansion card too.

Power supply may well be over-spec'd, bur below that and (IMO) you get into diminishing returns having to suffer with much poorer quality PSUs for not very much less money.

NAS isn't particularly processor or RAM intensive, hence the slimmer you can make the OS (why Linux-based is great) then the less powerful hardware you need and the cheaper it becomes.
 
Havana_UK said:
Something like this I'm sure would be adequate:
YOUR BASKET
1 x EVGA 600W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply (100-B1-0600-KR) £49.99
1 x Asus A55BM-E AMD A55 Chipset (Socket FM2+) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £37.99
1 x AMD A4-4000 3.00GHz (Socket FM2) APU Richland Dual Core Processor (AD4000OKHLBOX) £31.99
1 x In-Win EM019 Mini Tower Case - Black £28.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite 2GB (1x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Single Channel Module (TED32GM1600C1101) £17.99
Total : £176.56 (includes shipping : £8.00).



You could then bung Linux on it as your OS plus you've got plenty of room for hard-drives. I'm not sure what RAID options that motherboard would support out of the box though, so you might need some sort of multi-channel SATA RAID expansion card too.

Power supply may well be over-spec'd, bur below that and (IMO) you get into diminishing returns having to suffer with much poorer quality PSUs for not very much less money.

NAS isn't particularly processor or RAM intensive, hence the slimmer you can make the OS (why Linux-based is great) then the less powerful hardware you need and the cheaper it becomes.
Click to expand...

Thanks for this.
While on paper it's as much as NAS, the expandability of a PC is back to the region I understand, Also the Limitations become clearer, while I might Buy a NAS and Keep putting bigger HDD in and not understand where my bottleneck is.
 
http://www8.hp.com/uk/en/products/proliant-servers/product-detail.html?oid=5336624#!tab=features

Current offer is 1st - 31st Jan you get a £50 cashback.

Can be found for £189.99, so £139.99 after cashback.

It offers 4 bays, comes with a 250GB HDD (can run OS off a USB drive and have 5 drives).

You can then extend on NAS in future if you wished, and use it for torrent box, HTPC, virtualisation, etc.

Quick google will find plenty of guides for setting up NAS using FreeNAS for example.
 
+1 vote for a HP Microserver. I've got one running Nas4Free (a continuation of OpenNas before it got bought by a company). Works brilliantly and plenty of mods / howto guides out there for it.

Cheapest way I could find to get 4 drives (plus an optical bay which can take a 5th).
 
The HP is the standard answer for anyone who is willing to manage their own operating system.

There are higher performing, more expensive alternatives - but the HP is fast enough to saturate gigabit ethernet and that's usually adequate.
 
I just put together a build -
g2030 pentium
Asus P8h77-i (well using a foxconn H67M atm as asus mobo was doa)
8gb (single dim) crucial ram
I have a spare corsair psu laying around so
3tb nas drive (seagate or wd take your pick)
then as an od I use freenas
 
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I've wondered the same thing lately but not looked into it yet. Just wanted to mention unRAID, it's a NAS OS but works differently, it's what got me thinking about building my own NAS, that and the price of the damn things anyway.
 
GiraffePencils said:
Home, for backup and sharing.

Hmm, a lot of people for the HP, lots of pluses.

Might have another look at it, I only googled quickly as I was at work
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I use this, keep two copies on two HDD of anything I don't want to lose, keep the HDD safe, back up anything you cannot afford to lose ;)

If you have two HDD lying around - your sorted! You just need the dock.

YOUR BASKET
2 x Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD1002FAEX) HDD £71.99 (£143.98)
1 x Sharkoon SATA QuickPort XT USB3.0 Plus £35.99
Total : £189.56 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 
If you're using it for nas, better with the red disks.

£143 for 2TB though no.

Can pick up 2TB Red drives for £90 each on OcUK, or look at Seagate NAS drives £84 for 2TB (113 for 3TB but OOS)
 
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