I want to setup a NAS (mainly for storing games and videos), that I’d also like to use to watch said videos on a WiFi TV and to install games on a separate PC connected via ethernet. This is the part list I came up with (plus whatever GPU I can get for as cheap as possible, I can probably get a GT 730 GTX750 for free). I also don’t need it to be on 24/7, if that’s OK. I can place it in the same room as my main PC and hook it up to the same monitor to turn it on and start it up.
What’s wrong with it?
| Type | Item | Price |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 3 3100 3.6 GHz Quad-Core Processor | $50.00 |
| Motherboard | ASRock A520M-ITX/ac Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard | $99.40 |
| Memory | Kingston Server Premier 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 CL19 Memory | $36.00 |
| Memory | Kingston Server Premier 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR4-2666 CL19 Memory | $36.00 |
| Storage | Samsung 860 Evo 250 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive | Purchased For $0.00 |
| Storage | Seagate IronWolf NAS 4 TB 3.5" 5400 RPM Internal Hard Drive | $118.00 |
| Storage | Seagate IronWolf NAS 4 TB 3.5" 5400 RPM Internal Hard Drive | $118.00 |
| Video Card | Gigabyte GV-N750OC-1GI GeForce GTX 750 1 GB Video Card | Purchased For $0.00 |
| Case | Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case | $117.70 |
| Power Supply | be quiet! Pure Power 11 CM 400 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply | $58.10 |
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts | ||
| Total | $633.20 |
PCPP says that R3 3100 isn’t compatible with the RAM I picked (although I can’t find why); it also says MoBo doesn’t support ECC RAM, but on the producer’s website it says it does (https://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/A520M-ITXac/index.asp#Specification) , so I think PCPP is wrong.
I tried building around LGA 1150/1151 but motherboard prices are way higher (although CPU prices are lower).
I don’t think I can make it much cheaper than this, since I’m buying everything, but if you can point me in a cheaper direction, feel free to do so!
Thanks in advance
Personally, I’ve had terrible luck with Seagate drives, and the subsequent warranty process. I sent a 12TB Ironwolf back for bad sectors in July and I still don’t have my replacement. They shipped me one once, but UPS sent it back because it didn’t have clearance to cross the border into Canada. I spent hours on the chat getting bounced around, I could find no phone number to call. The experience has been awful. I’ve had other bad experiences with Seagate in the past but the price on the Ironwolfs was so good, but now I really wish I had just got some WD reds or something. I got 3 left in my QNAP and i am praying another doesn’t fail before I get this replacement or my array is toast.
Are you missing a boot drive?
I’d go for more drives but I’m a data slut
Oh, that’s right. Nice catch! I can probably repurpose a 256GB SSD I have, can’t I? Should be enough for OS + utilities
The plan is to get more down the road, this is a starter setup! 4TB are enough for all my data at the moment, and the second drive is for backup; I will add a third drive for redundancy and that should be enough as a starter
This may be a silly question, but why get a whole extra machine just to make 4tb available on the network? I have an old Linksys router with a USB port that allows you add USB storage to your network, that may be a good place to look if your needs are basic.
Additionally, it looks like you are going for a relatively powerful machine to be able to access a minimal amount of data at a slow speed. Have you considered just getting a couple of external hard drives and just hooking them up to a Raspberry Pi?
I don’t know where you’re located, but this seems to be a similar cost $104 (x2): https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-External-Recovery-Services-STKC4000400/dp/B08HMGXTFJ?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&psc=1&smid=ANMDN8YYOK06R
And a Raspberry Pi with 8gb of ram is $75: https://www.canakit.com/raspberry-pi-4-8gb.html?cid=usd&src=raspberrypi
Going the Raspberry Pi route would cost $288-$333 depending on accessories. This could be a really good route depending on what all you want to do.
Another way to save more would be to just add the drives to an existing desktop, and just setup samba/nfs to run on it. You’d just need to leave the desktop on all the time, or turn it on when you need to access it elsewhere.
Also, for reference, I have a NAS with 40tb of storage that I use as a VPS host. I have several virtual machines running 24/7, including a Plex server. I stream many videos locally, and have many users that access my content regularly. From what I’ve learned over the years of running that machine, I know that as long as you are just directly streaming the files, and not trying to transcode them, you don’t need hardly any processing power. I don’t have a GPU in my server, and don’t see a need to put one in. If your needs are really as simple as your post suggests, the raspberry pi route would be the way to go. It would also allow you to dip your toes into running a NAS, and see where your original build was lacking, and give you a better idea for what you want your next evolution to look like.
Thanks for thd in-depth reply!
whole extra machine add to an existing desktop
It boils down to two things: inexperience (apparently 8GB of RAM might be enough? Just to name one issue wih my build haha) and I’ve already maxed out my main PC’s expansion slots.
I have a compact case, which is already housing two HDDs (a “landing” HDD, where I store and keep all the… Linux ISOs… until they reach a satisfactory ratio of upload, which has a 2y uptime and just recently encountered its first uncorrectable sector error, and a 2TB HDD where I keep my stuff, including the aforementioned… ISOs…, my GOG games and other media. This 2TB is backed up on a 2TB external drive, and it’s already full). Since this 2TB internal is full, I plan on moving some files to a different external HDD so I can stuff more things in it, but that leaves me with no backups for this stuff I want to move; this second external HDD is very small (650GB) so moving that stuff will make it full and I’ll have no chance to add onto that collection.
It’s a pretty unorganized situation and if I could get rid of all internal HDDs I could get rid of the HDD harness and fit a fan instead, also reduce noise.
In addition to this, I have yet to understand whether or not external drives can sustain “high” rates of writes (when I download GOG games, for example, it can easily add up to 100GB in a day) and reads (I usually seed… Linux ISOs… for tens to hundreds of GB a day). Of course these numbers arent’t for everyday, some days I download nothing for example, other days I don’t even turn on the PC.
powerful machine
And I even went for the cheapest parts I could get haha! Only way to make it less powerful is getting an Intel CPU, like the datahoarder wiki suggests, based on LGA 1150/1151, I can get one for like $20, but I can’t find used motherboards for a decent price, all around 130. That’s why I picked an AM4 platform: parts more widely available.
raspberry pi
Checked it out, unfortunately it’s out of stock in all the licensed retailers in my country. It does sound like a nice starting point, though, so I will keep an eye out for it to be restocked, but since it uses external drives I’m back to the previous question: are external drives sturdy enough to sustain the amount of data I write and read daily?
no GPU
Wait, how can you turn it on and configure eveything necessary on it without graphics? Is it all done remotely via a main machine?
Sorry for the wall of text! And thanks again for the help!
There is a red asterisk on the ASRock website regarding ecc ram
Yeah, the only thing they say is “For Ryzen Series APUs (Cezanne and Renoir), ECC is only supported with PRO CPUs.”. That’s why I didn’t pick a Ryzen with integrated GPU (I can’t find PRO models in my country). 2666 speed is supported, so those RAM I picked should work. Thanks!
I think you could do better with your storage drives. Go to pcpartpicker and look at storage then sort by price/GB ascending. The very first entry is a 6tb drive for $57
Yes, those are cheaper but I also want reliability, so I prefer spending a bit more for the actual storage to get something known to be good!
Then use this: https://pcpartpicker.com/product/2ycG3C/seagate-barracuda-compute-8-tb-35-5400rpm-internal-hard-drive-st8000dm004
It’s cheaper, reputable, and double the capacity
edit: forgot to mention that I’m not USA-based, sorry! Wow, US prices are amazing. In my country that one is just a little less expensive, adjusted for capacity (the ones I picked are 4TB and 120, the Barracuda is 8TB and 205)! That’s a bummer haha but thanks for the suggestion! edit: let me check the 4TB though edit2: now that’s better, the 4TB is only 89 compared to 120 needed for the IronWolf
Only thing I see is make sure you get the CMR drives. I got SMR and it really screws you. Check out this.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/15878/western-digital-cleans-up-the-red-smr-nas-hdd-mess
You want something from column 2 or 3 in the image.
The ones I picked are part # WD40EFRX, so CMR according to that image you linked. It’s just that PCPP doesn’t call them WD Red Plus, but they are. In the end I think I’ll go with the IronWolf instead, since they’re not that much more expensive, but more loved by the community! Thanks
