Is it possible to build a near silent NAS for Xpenology?

Thanks for that.

Is 2gb and a dual core cpu enough for running DSM without it being terribly laggy navigating the UI?
 
Yes - that system will be substantially faster than the standard Synology NASes that the OS is built for...

The Gen8 is a relatively slow dual-core and it runs DSM soooooo much quicker than the 2x DS214js I have.

My Gen8s only came with 2GB ram, the latest ones come with 4GB. If you really wanted... the 1x4GB stick is only £18 compared to £12 for 1x2GB... but I'm 100% positive 2GB is enough (actually, 2GB is overkill for DSM).

DSM is really pleasant to use and quick on Gen8 with 2GB... 0.5-1GB would be enough.

DSM reports that it is using 300MB and that's on the one that's running a few packages.
 
Ok cool. Having done a bit more research it seems I will need a fast CPU you than you want specc'd because I'll want to run the NAS as Plex server too which will need to transcode 1080p. According to the Plex help page the CPU needs a passmark score of 2000+ which the A4-4000 falls short of.
 
Then you will want to spend a abit more money... a Pentium G3220 isn't that much more expensive and gives you a passmark score of 3200

Otherwise there are more expensive CPUs/combo available of course... I was just trying to get you as close to the Gen8 price as possible.

Less than £20 more expensive...
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You might also benefit from 4GB ram for transcoding... but that's only another £6
 
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Goose said:
Yeah I did actually think about that, if one comes up 2nd hand for a reasonable price I'll probably go for it. Is the N54L upgradeable like the Gen8?
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You can't upgrade the CPU like you can the Gen8 but the G7's can handle running ESXi with a few VM's if needed.
RAM can be upgraded and they will happily take 6TB drives, there is a BIOS mod to allow extra SATA and eSATA usage as well.

Fans can be upgraded/quietened as well as the PSU and if I'm right the Gen8's don't like HP drives? (may be dreaming that one up) so you get no fan constantly on problems.
 
Is it not possible to just keep the G8 and just move it to a location where it can't be heard and invest in suitable network infrastructure to make it work (cables, wifi, home plugs etc...)?

My NAS is in the garage, an NL54. It was in the attic previously. It's wired to my desktop via 1Gbps. My TV, HTPC etc... reach it via homeplugs and my laptop and phones etc... via wifi.
 
ecksmen said:
Is it not possible to just keep the G8 and just move it to a location where it can't be heard and invest in suitable network infrastructure to make it work (cables, wifi, home plugs etc...)?

My NAS is in the garage, an NL54. It was in the attic previously. It's wired to my desktop via 1Gbps. My TV, HTPC etc... reach it via homeplugs and my laptop and phones etc... via wifi.
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Unfortunately not in my teeny tiny little flat :(
 
I was wondering if I could actually build a system that would be both an HTPC and a NAS? What I mean is that I could run a Windows machine that would be the HTPC and then run Xpenology in a VM to act as the NAS.
 
Steveocee said:
RAM can be upgraded and they will happily take 6TB drives, there is a BIOS mod to allow extra SATA and eSATA usage as well.
Click to expand...

Can you expand on that?

I've not changed the BIOS on my N54L and had originally been using 5 SATA ports for drive, but recently the SATA port not connected via the backplane (the one you'd use for a DVD drive) has been experiencing problems - windows fails to boot, server posts but fails to load windows.

I originally had an SSD which was booting from that slot. It was an old SSD and was low on health so figured that was the cause. Swapped it out for a mechanical 1Tb drive (brand new). A few weeks later this started suffering the same problems. Swapped it out for the SSD in my main PC as just upgraded. That was running OK for a little while and then that too went, same problems.

My suspicions are with the slot rather than a cable problem - which i haven't yet swapped out. Resorted to shrinking a partition on a drive in one of the slots to install the OS on, not had any problems since.

Sorry to the OP for jumping in.

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Just to add my 2 cents to the OPs topic...

The problem you have building your own is cost. Everyone jumped on the microserver bandwagon because of the cashback deals that were around. You could pick one up for £80-100 at least. I think you'll seriously struggle to put together a HTPC for that sort of price.
 
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Goose said:
I was wondering if I could actually build a system that would be both an HTPC and a NAS? What I mean is that I could run a Windows machine that would be the HTPC and then run Xpenology in a VM to act as the NAS.
Click to expand...

Yes you can, although I wouldn't necessarily recommend running a NAS operating system in a vm as that's a higher probability of failure and corrupted data. Shouldn't happen, but it's much more likely to occur from a VM than it is on base hardware.

You could run the drives through the HTPC OS, however, without any trouble...

Depending on how future proofed you want it, it might be worth upgrading the processor to an i3 for that though and then you will be confident that you can run 4K content when you want to.

Give us an idea of budget and it'll be possible to spec something...
 
I was thinking something along the lines of this, max budget of £200.

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I'm not opposed to buy some parts 2nd hand fwiw. You can actually buy the Celeleron g1610T CPU from the HP Gen8 on ebay, the only issue being the need to also source a M-ATX 1155 motherboard.
 
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I only just bought a new 1080p TV a couple of weeks ago so 4k wont be a consideration for me for a good few years yet.

Thanks for pointing out the mobo/case compatibility, never done a SFF build before :)
 
I like the look of that case... great how many HDDs you can fit in such a small space :)

That Asus board comes with good fan control software, be sure to use it as it'll keep the noise right down.

You'd be surprised by quite how quiet I can get my rig while it's idling thanks to the same software. And I live in the middle of no-where... can even hear hard drives spinning!
 
Could always just build a desktop PC and use flexraid software. I have been considering doing this at my next motherboard upgrade. Using my old mb to create a NAS/media pc using flexraid. With the focus on my new main pc being a small case and just a high end gfx and ssd in there.
 
A lot of people seem to run multiple VM's in ESXI, including Xpenology, so I might try that. This is all new to me and i'm quite keen learn about it all. I'm not overly concerned about the increased risk of data corruption since it will only really contain my music, movies and tv shows, all of which I can recover from various sources.
 
I think you'd be better off investing longer term with a proper server board from Supermicro or Asrack either using one with integrated cpu or (if wanting to transcode) going with an i3 variant so in the future you've got ECC functionality if you want to flesh out your build. Sure it pushes your budget to the right but having the option for the future is always a good one rather than buying from scratch again.

On a similar note I'd look at the SIlverstone DS380 for 8 bay hotswap; again if you decide to expand later on and the fact it was built in mind for home NAS builds.

I know that neither of the above are "as budget friendly" but I'd consider delaying a build to do it right once.
 
Or other way round... use this as HTPC with potential in buying dedicated server down the line... there's nothing wrong with this spec for HTPC

I'd stick with separate server and standalone htpc... but I had the budget to do it, so I did...
 
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