PC or NAS as file server?

s452

s452

s452

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Which is the better option here
a NAS or a very cheap PC to act as a file server?

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Gigabyte H61M-USB3 Intel H61 (Socket 1155) Motherboard £49.99
Intel Celeron G440 1.60GHz Socket LGA1155 Processor - Retail £29.99
OcUK Value 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C9 1333MHz Low-Voltage Dual Channel Kit £29.99
OCUK EZCool NA-705 Case - Black (500w PSU) £21.98
Total : £131.95

HDDs I already have some, but will be buying more when the price drops. i'm looking at 2TB + drives
Budget is as little as possible for as many SATA ports as possible
 
HP Proliant Microserver, with cashback comes to around £100. They're very, very popular right now.
 
Some routers now allow you to attach an external USB drive and add NAS functionality. Might be worth a look, especially if your router is old or basic, that's two upgrades for the price of one. I haven't really looked into it at great detail you'd have to do some research but it looks very promising.

Myself I built a Home threatre PC (HTPC) and connected it to the LCD TV in my lounge. It has a tv card to record TV making it essentially a Sky plus box. All the movies, music etc are available on my network. You could add bluray etc later or a GPU for light gaming, I did have quite a few spares knocking around though which helped keep costs down.

My friend recently setup a NAS, I don't have anything against them. Certainly a handy bit of kit.
 
Also bear in mind that a lot of people like to have torrents, sickbeard and sabnzb+ running on their NAS so power consumption/heat may be important to you if it's running 24/7

This is why the HTPC in my sig is also my NAS.
 
jamesfreddie said:
Then you are going to have to get a nas as ANY PC is going to use more than about 25W.
Click to expand...

Rubbish. htpc in sig draws 21.5W from the wall. 26W running 1080p videos. 33W full torture test

AMD Fusion can do a little better at idle 18-19W

7 year old centrino laptop consumes just 14W idle but is useless as server.

Low power consumption means paying special attention to the power supply that you use. Typically a DC-DC boards offers much higher efficiency than standard PC PSUs
 
Subliminal Aura said:
Rubbish. htpc in sig draws 21.5W from the wall. 26W running 1080p videos. 33W full torture test

AMD Fusion can do a little better at idle 18-19W

7 year old centrino laptop consumes just 14W idle but is useless as server.

Low power consumption means paying special attention to the power supply that you use. Typically a DC-DC boards offers much higher efficiency than standard PC PSUs
Click to expand...

OK but once you add a couple of 3.5" HDDs, and you are using a normal PSU.
 
The HP Proliant Microserver physically looks brilliant, however there is simply - according to the specs i read of the HP ProLiant Turion II N40L MicroServer on a competitor - not enough HDD space on it.
 
I did put a power meter on my one and got around 40w ~ (can't be 100% sure but need to double check), this was with the system idle and with 4 Samsung 2tb drives (5200 rpm).
 
s452 said:
The HP Proliant Microserver physically looks brilliant, however there is simply - according to the specs i read of the HP ProLiant Turion II N40L MicroServer on a competitor - not enough HDD space on it.
Click to expand...

You can fit 4x2TB disks in easily :confused:
 
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