Spec me a NAS setup!

katie279

katie279

katie279

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Ok, bit unusual, looking to make a custom NAS.

Currently my most powerful NAS is a Synology 918+ with a DX517 expansion bay which gives me space for a max of nine drives.

It's blurb describes the specs as:

- Encrypted sequential throughput at over 225 MB/s reading and 221 MB/s writing
- Quad-core Intel J3455 processor with AES-NI hardware encryption engine
- 4GB DDR3L-1866 memory, expandable up to 8GB
Dedicated M.2 NVMe SSD slots for system cache support

I was looking at this as an upgrade:

Synology DS1823xs+ 8-Bay NAS Enclosure w/ 2 x M.2 NVMe Slots (8GB RAM)

www.broadbandbuyer.com www.broadbandbuyer.com

But partly annoyed by Synology's increasingly anti-consumer behaviour (eg their attempt to only allow you to use their own hard disks and nothing else) and partly as I wonder about the cost premium, I'm looking at what I could get for my money by doing it myself....!

So anyone able to give me a killer spec that would wipe the floor with the DS1823xs+?

Guess goals are:
- Low watts running/idle
- quiet
- super space on motherboard for loads of drives (primarily 3.5" drives, but naturally some SATA space could be handy)
- as much TBs of space as poss
- decent processor - have a AMD 1700x spare now thanks to a recent upgrade - no idea how this stacks next to the processor in the DS1823xs+
- super fast LAN connections

Cost not a huge concern, but be keen to see how much I can undercut the DS1823xs+???
 
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Here's where I'm up to so far!

No idea what I'm doing, so feel free to change/ridicule! Feels like I could get a huge upgrade over the standard Synology for less money?! Intent to use the AMD 1700x I've got spare unless anyone thinks worth just upgrading for more power/lower watts etc

This case would give me 18 3.5" drives and 5 ssds, which feels pretty decent?

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £758.90 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

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Gigabyte B550 AORUS Elite V2 (AMD AM4) B550 ATX Motherboard
MB-593-GI
£105 (incl. VAT)
£90 (incl. VAT)
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ASUS XG-C100C V2 10GBase-T PCIe Network Adapter
NW-12C-AS
£95 (incl. VAT)
Find out more
WD Green SN350 1TB SSD M.2 2280 Solid State Drive (WDS100T3G0C)
HD-599-WD
£60 (incl. VAT)
£50 (incl. VAT)
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SpellowHouse said:
I think you would struggle to beat the power consumption of the Synology. Also, modern PC cases generally don't have that many drive bays. Maybe it's time to try a QNAP?
Click to expand...
Interesting - my synology sits around 140-150w I'd say when idle.

The above listed one has 16 drive bays it says? Am I missing something?

Not a bad point re QNAP - might have a nosey, just risks moving from one place to another I guess!
 
Donnie Fisher said:
With a1700x I think you would need a gpu as there is no built in gpu in the chip.

But let’s dial it back a bit.

What do you need it to do, and how much space do you need it to have?
Click to expand...
Yes - sorry, I have a few GPUs also lying around, figured I really don't need anything powerful - but might be worth nosing at CPU with GPU embedded as imagine much more power efficient?

Main use is file storage - so fast as possible transfer from workstation PCs (2 of them in the same room as the NAS). House is wired with UDM Pro and 6 x U6 Pros, so decent network speeds etc.
Files are used for photos, films, general files.

Other uses I run home CMS' for organising content and lots of smart devices, so handy to run things off this (eg docker instances with influxdb/grafana for example).

Space - currently use about 14tb, but prefer plenty of space! So would prefer to just push the boat out and aim for 50tb or something and lots of redundancy so I don't need to worry about it in 12 months time etc.
 
katie279 said:
Interesting - my synology sits around 140-150w I'd say when idle.

The above listed one has 16 drive bays it says? Am I missing something?

Not a bad point re QNAP - might have a nosey, just risks moving from one place to another I guess!
Click to expand...

Really? That much power? I'm surprised.

If you can get the additional brackets, then it does indeed seem to be suitable!
 
Bit outside the scope of the original question but have you looked into installing different software onto the 918+... you might be able to run truenas/unraid on it, I know it's possible on some nas's.

Terranas do some 6/9/12 bay nas's at 'reasonable' prices which at present (haven't seen anything to say otherwise) can run unraid/truenas instead of the original OS... compact, relatively powerful and lightweight.

I'd still be looking at truenas/unraid as the software for your custom build too, although if you want media transcoding Intel is the better option unless you also want a dedicated gpu.
Personally I'd be looking at a JBOD add in card for the storage capacity rather than just going for (edit: really should finish the sentence lol) a motherboard with a lot of connectors.
 
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Zefan said:
Are you 100 sure this figure is right? This is about 10x what the specs state for idle.
Click to expand...
Not certain, but it's connected to an energy tracker, so this is tracking everything - know each disk you add increases the usage by about 5-10W even in idle, plus the second extension bay must have some usage also, so suspect it adds up....!
 
lsg1r said:
Bit outside the scope of the original question but have you looked into installing different software onto the 918+... you might be able to run truenas/unraid on it, I know it's possible on some nas's.
Click to expand...

Interesting thought, might Google it!
lsg1r said:
Terranas do some 6/9/12 bay nas's at 'reasonable' prices which at present (haven't seen anything to say otherwise) can run unraid/truenas instead of the original OS... compact, relatively powerful and lightweight.
Click to expand...
Yes, not really seen them, will have a look!
lsg1r said:
I'd still be looking at truenas/unraid as the software for your custom build too, although if you want media transcoding Intel is the better option unless you also want a dedicated gpu.
Personally I'd be looking at a JBOD add in card for the storage capacity rather than just going for
Click to expand...
Oh interesting point, don't do media transcoding much, but prefer to have it handy if I needed. Might nose at Intel options and compare to spare GPUs.

What's a JBOD card?!
 
katie279 said:
What's a JBOD card?!
Click to expand...
Basically a pcie card with a load of sata connectors or mini sas connectors.
Essentially something like the below link but without the raid. I've got a (not on ocuk but easily found) Startech 8 port (8P6G-PCIE-SATA-CARD) in a windows based rig here, seems ok for what I need it for., haven't tested but it 'should' work in unraid/truenas.

www.overclockers.co.uk

Startech 4 Port PCI Express 2.0 SATA III 6Gbps RAID Controller Card with HyperDuo SSD Tiering

Order Startech 4 Port PCI Express 2.0 SATA III 6Gbps RAID Controller Card with HyperDuo SSD Tiering now online and benefit from fast delivery.
www.overclockers.co.uk www.overclockers.co.uk

Hardware raid is basically being replaced with JBOD and software raid option these days.
 
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katie279 said:
Interesting thought, might Google it!

Yes, not really seen them, will have a look!

Oh interesting point, don't do media transcoding much, but prefer to have it handy if I needed. Might nose at Intel options and compare to spare GPUs.

What's a JBOD card?!
Click to expand...
JBOD = Just a Bunch Of Drives - one of the options for your pooling/partitioning/filesystem setup.

How many drives are in your current NAS? I'd assume that's why the consumption is high, ergo you can't really engineer that usage out.

I agree that discrete hardware will use more energy than embedded products like dedicated NAS boxes. Note though that you don't need graphics once you've set the thing up - access remotely surely.
 
Ah interesting! JBOD is the word of the day then!

Ok another question then - how do rackmount/server style setups work Vs consumer NAS setups? I'd imagine they're fairly optimised?

To your point @LuckyBenski it's interesting that my Synology setup isn't parking the drives not being used, although I guess that's one of the downsides of RAID-style approaches as it spreads usage across lots of disks for redundancy/speed...

I'm not going to lose sleep over a few 100 extra watts though if it got me extra speed - I'm just conscious the Synology latest would be £1800 odd, hence curious to see what I could build for the same or less!
 
katie279 said:
Ok another question then - how do rackmount/server style setups work Vs consumer NAS setups? I'd imagine they're fairly optimised?
Click to expand...
At the price range you're considering they're basically the same as a consumer nas just a different case/layout. They're also likely going to be noisier due to the fans etc.
You'll likely end up needing a 'server rack' to hold a rackmount style case too if you don't have one.

In realistic terms, you can easily beat the specs of the synology for £1800 imo, the issue will be getting a case. Also something to consider with the higher tier Synology is the limited options on the hard drives, the anti-consumer side is VERY slow at checking non synology drives and they of course have all the warnings on non certified drives thatI'm sure you're aware of.
 
Yes, useful thoughts and agree this slightly cynical edge that has crept into Synology is what's making me ponder DIY options!

Good to hear I'm not completely barking mad... only slightly perhaps... ;)

So trying to get a sense of how the various specs stand up vs Synology's 1823xs+ so has anyone got a sense of how these compare power/speed wise?

AMD Ryzen V1780B vs AMD 1700+

8GB DDR ECC vs 32GB DDR4
www.overclockers.co.uk

Kingston Fury Renegade 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C17 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KF436C16RB1K2/32)

Order Kingston Fury Renegade 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C17 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KF436C16RB1K2/32) now online and benefit from fast delivery.
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(some people seem to swear by ECC RAM for NAS'?)

One of my big goals is to get file transfers between the two workstation PCs as fast as possible - so loving the idea of 10/25GBps vs what I currently have.

Am thinking:
- Lots of HDDs in an array to speed up read/write access to maximum possible
- Cat 7 between NAS and PCs
- Decent CPU, RAM and MB to deal with the transfers...

This sound like it'll work or any other bottlenecks?
 
katie279 said:
8GB DDR ECC vs 32GB DDR4
www.overclockers.co.uk

Kingston Fury Renegade 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C17 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KF436C16RB1K2/32)

Order Kingston Fury Renegade 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C17 3600MHz Dual Channel Kit (KF436C16RB1K2/32) now online and benefit from fast delivery.
www.overclockers.co.uk www.overclockers.co.uk
(some people seem to swear by ECC RAM for NAS'?)

One of my big goals is to get file transfers between the two workstation PCs as fast as possible - so loving the idea of 10/25GBps vs what I currently have.

Am thinking:
- Lots of HDDs in an array to speed up read/write access to maximum possible
- Cat 7 between NAS and PCs
- Decent CPU, RAM and MB to deal with the transfers...

This sound like it'll work or any other bottlenecks?
Click to expand...
Honestly, unless you go some massive striped raid you'll never realistically max out a 10/25GBps connection with hard drives... and then you need a drive(s) on the workstation that can receive the data at that speed too. You're basically going to be bottlenecked by whatever is the fastest drive in your workstations so work around that for network speeds, imo of course.... you might also want to look into the cost of switches etc if you need them, even 2.5GBe is expensive for what it is.

As for the ram... you could go ddr5 which has a sort of ecc as part of the standard, you'll obviously need newer cpu than the AMD options.

Is that AMD 1700+ 1st gen rzyen or s939/AM2 old school cpu, if it's the later it will be really slow imo. The embedded v1780b isn't exactly a speed demon either, it's arguably better (outside of transcoding) than the atom options that are put into nas's at similar price points though.
 
katie279 said:
One of my big goals is to get file transfers between the two workstation PCs as fast as possible - so loving the idea of 10/25GBps vs what I currently have.

Am thinking:
- Lots of HDDs in an array to speed up read/write access to maximum possible
- Cat 7 between NAS and PCs
- Decent CPU, RAM and MB to deal with the transfers...

This sound like it'll work or any other bottlenecks?
Click to expand...

You'll never get close with mechanical/spinny drives. A spinny drive will cap out around 80-120 MB/s dependant on a number of factors. Those are also likely burst speeds, so won't sustain that level for long (typically emptying cache). So you'd be looking at 15+ drives all running at max throughput to even get close to saturating a 10Gbps link.
 
I recently built myself a NAS with 5x 20 TB HDDs in RAIDZ2 (so 60 TB available), assorted SSDs, 10 Gb ethernet, Ryzen 5600G, 64 GB ECC, MSI ITX motherboard, SFX PSU, in a N1 chassis. I run TrueNAS. I intend running a VM or two on the box.
 
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