NAS Spec

Tinology · 18 Sep 2016 at 09:58

Currently I'm using a Synology DS212 which was doing the job but the last couple of months I've been hitting my storage limits and it has limitations on plugins that work with its processing power unfortunately.

So, even though it's OS is really easy to use I've decided to build my own this time instead of buying another ready made NAS. FreeNAS is the OS that I'm going to choose.

Mainly it'll run plex to stream all my media to devices locally so I don't need to really worry about the transcoder. Secondly it'll run sabnzbd etc. to acquire media and organise into folders.

This is what I'm come up with so far

I wasn't sure if to run the OS off a USB or go ahead and buy an SSD?

Thoughts?

peterwalkley · 18 Sep 2016 at 10:45

I'd go with an SSD for the OS. You can get 120 Gig for just under £40 here.

It gives you scope for doing more down the line. My NAS just started as a file share, now its running Plex, MariaDB and a couple of other things.

ANDARIAL · 18 Sep 2016 at 11:25

How about Xpenology for the OS?
It is Based on Synology nas OS

jigger · 18 Sep 2016 at 16:03

peterwalkley said:
I'd go with an SSD for the OS. You can get 120 Gig for just under £40 here.

It gives you scope for doing more down the line. My NAS just started as a file share, now its running Plex, MariaDB and a couple of other things.

Not much point with FreeNas. The size of the OS is tiny and you can't do anything with the unused space. You could setup the SSD for cache but for the boot drive a 4gb USB thumb stick is plenty.

Tinology · 18 Sep 2016 at 16:16

I've heard of Xpenology but not really looked into it, thanks for the comments guys

TechMinerUK · 18 Sep 2016 at 16:18

jigger said:
Not much point with FreeNas. The size of the OS is tiny and you can't do anything with the unused space. You could setup the SSD for cache but for the boot drive a 4gb USB thumb stick is plenty.

Or if you don't want the USB outside you could use a SATA DOM as they're pretty cheap and can be hidden in the PC

peterwalkley · 18 Sep 2016 at 16:45

jigger said:
Not much point with FreeNas. The size of the OS is tiny and you can't do anything with the unused space. You could setup the SSD for cache but for the boot drive a 4gb USB thumb stick is plenty.

Ooops .... you're right. I'd completely forgotten I partitioned my SSD to not waste so much of it.