Massive NAS

WallaceTech · 1 Oct 2011 at 12:33

Hi guys.

Hope someone can help. I am looking at building a massive NAS for at home for the use with VMWare , movies , music, pictures etc. I plan on using Open Filer or Free NAS.

Anyway i am looking to do this as cheap as possible to start off with. There are the requirements.

I will need a case that can hold a minium of 10 SATA drives.

2 x Mirror OS

8 X Raid 5 configuration.

I plan on starting off with 2TB SATA drive and adding as i need but this system shoud give around 16TB which to be fair i wont reach but i like the idea of never having to worry about it.

Now i have seen a couple of cases that have room for 7 PCI slots but do OC do a motherboard that has 7PCI slots or is a daughterboard needed?

Has anyone out there done this kind of seyup before?

Thanks in advance

ChrisD. · 1 Oct 2011 at 13:44

Do you want a NAS or a PC? :confused:

WallaceTech · 1 Oct 2011 at 17:21

Well i want a NAS as said but a 16TB Drobo NAS for example is like mega money.

As said i plan to use Free NAS or Open Filer so i need PC spec hardware with 10 hard drives. Im not looking to to get in to a discussion around which NAS hardware or software as i know what i want and need. Just looking for some advice on what OC supply.

cats_five · 2 Oct 2011 at 07:56

I have no idea why you are equating a PCI slot to an HDD drive.

SMN · 2 Oct 2011 at 10:49

My fractal design define xl has 10 bays

lsg1r · 2 Oct 2011 at 16:33

Not going quite as 'big' as you but this is similar to what I'm aiming at (5 drive raid, 2 'os' drives and into a mitx lian li q08) ..

I'd take a look at a mitx (dtx/matx) fusion motherboard, a dedicated raid card (for 8 drives and has own processor to offload raid processing) and a case (+psu) than can hold the 8 drives either two 3x5.25" to 5x3.5" hard drive caddy (so 6x5.25 inch bays), normally or in combination.

Use the motherboard raid for the os drives and the raid card for the 8 drives.

Add in ram, os and drives of choice and you should be good to go if it's just going to be a nas and not require any heavy processing......

It's low power and the current fusion cpu's are pretty much x2's just lower power and slightly lower clocks...

edit: case suggestion - something like antec 902 could easily take 12 drives, it takes 9 just using 5.25 to 3.5 adapters... (3 appear to be included) so using a couple of adapters for the drive bays to make it so you can do 10 drives (unless you use 2.5" os drives) and jobs done

WallaceTech · 2 Oct 2011 at 21:07

cats_five said:
I have no idea why you are equating a PCI slot to an HDD drive.

Im not. But i may need multiple RAID cards and multiple network cards for what i have planned. The standard 2 PCI will not be enough which is why i see cases with 7 + slots but cant see a motherboard with the same amount of PCI sockets.

If you know of one please let me know

WallaceTech · 2 Oct 2011 at 21:08

lsg1r said:
Not going quite as 'big' as you but this is similar to what I'm aiming at (5 drive raid, 2 'os' drives and into a mitx lian li q08) ..

I'd take a look at a mitx (dtx/matx) fusion motherboard, a dedicated raid card (for 8 drives and has own processor to offload raid processing) and a case (+psu) than can hold the 8 drives either two 3x5.25" to 5x3.5" hard drive caddy (so 6x5.25 inch bays), normally or in combination.

Use the motherboard raid for the os drives and the raid card for the 8 drives.

Add in ram, os and drives of choice and you should be good to go if it's just going to be a nas and not require any heavy processing......

It's low power and the current fusion cpu's are pretty much x2's just lower power and slightly lower clocks...

edit: case suggestion - something like antec 902 could easily take 12 drives, it takes 9 just using 5.25 to 3.5 adapters... (3 appear to be included) so using a couple of adapters for the drive bays to make it so you can do 10 drives (unless you use 2.5" os drives) and jobs done

Thank you. That has been very helpful.