Budget NAS

For the past 3 years, I’ve been using a single 8 Tb HDD drive and available space is running out. WD 8 TB Elements Desktop External Hard Drive.

1. Disks 🔗

The plan is to keep the HDD above and add 3 more. That would make 4 drives in a RAIDZ1 configuration. Very simple math, one disk redundancy.
Raw available capacity  -  32 TB.
Available for storage  -  24 TB.
One drive used for redundancy.

I need to explain why 8 TB each. Diskprices.com shows it has the best ROI for high-capacity HDDs at the time of building. The reason is that I’m fortunate to have a friend who is lending me 2 of those - WD Red Pro 8TB NAS HDD 😋.

I’m building a budget NAS. Its main task is to store files, with no intensive read and write. So, the 4th disk will be the cheapest available. It’s a Seagate Desktop 8TB, the cheapest on the market at the time of writing.

All 4 HDDs have 256 MB cache and 5400 RPM speed.

2. Motherboard 🔗

I also want to use this NAS as a PC for docker containers and a media server. Chosen motherboard is iKuaiOS produced by BKHD (written on motherboard at the bottom).

Celeron N5105 is very good at energy efficiency. After some thought and a debate with my friend, I concluded it is better to stay with the x86-based system. It is more efficient.

RK3588 vs N5105 vs N6005. The first two are almost the same. But, N5105 wins on other parameters, like extensibility and software support.

3. Other components 🔗

32 GB RAM - 2 x Crucial 16GB DDR4 3200MHz. Alternatively, get 1 of Crucial’s 32GB DDR4 3200MHz and later add another. The motherboard supports up to 64 GB. But I don’t know why someone needs so much memory with this CPU.

High Speed 6Gbps SATA III cables – 6 SATA cables in one.

Getting a 200–300 watt PSU should be enough;

The cheapest NVME will do. It’s an Integral SSD NVME M.2 2280 PCIe Gen3x4. Our software is TrueNAS. You can’t do much with bigger disks. I got second hand ADATA SSD Legend 700 for 20 euros on the aftermarket. The disk will be dedicated solely for the system.

Optional. Get a second NVMe for VMs and other bits – Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1 TB PCIe NVMe M.2.

Choosing a PC case is hard. There are few budget options. If there are, delivery costs about the same as the case! I started my search with the Fractal Design Node 304 or SilverStone SST-SG13B. I ordered it but then found the Cooler Master Elite 130 on an after-market site for 30 euros!

I purchased some of the components on Black Friday Sale and some from Aliexpress.

If I were to buy all the components, it would cost 898 euros.

Stay green buy components on after-market websites!