I 'm looking for some hardware that I can use as home brew NAS (probably using FreeNAS)

[G+_Aaron Bishop]

I'm looking for some hardware that I can use as home brew NAS (probably using FreeNAS). I'd like it to be low power, have 3-4 3.5" SATA bays (hot swap is unnecessary but ok), and preferably 2 nics. I'm hoping to spend up to around $500 for a 2TB useable space.

[G+_Ben Reese]

For low power, it's hard to beat the purpose-built hardware like Synology or Qnap.

 

The Disk station DS416j is 289 on Amazon - so in your price range. Unfortunately, RAM is usually lacking on these boxes. That's fine for normal NAS applications, but if you want it to do other servery stuff it may get bogged down.

 

Building your own is a lot more fun, of course... I bet Pcpartpicker.com already has a NAS build, but now I'm curious so will take a look.

[G+_Ben Reese]

For a new build, something like this would work: http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Bareese/saved/hsMG3C

 

Such a fun site, btw!

[G+_Eddie Foy]

Ben Reese Cool site!  Been meaning to wander by.

(bummed it limits to 2 video cards)

 

www.logicsupply.com is another nice place for these types of projects.

[G+_Ben Reese]

Yeah, mini itx is good for small builds, but very limiting on accessories.

[G+_Aaron Bishop]

Ben Reese Thanks! I like doing it myself because it is more fun to tinker. The i3 is listed as 47 watts which should be good. My lowest wattage PC right now is a NUC i7 but no storage. Also I like having 2 NICs in case I want to segregate my data to guest network/private network.

[G+_Ben Reese]

Pcpartpicker.com has the power requirements of all the parts listed... I'm not sure how accurate it is to the real world, but it says 112W for the whole setup. There are likely cheaper motherboards too if you don't mind using a PCI card or USB for the second NIC. I'm guessing there are probably LGA 1150 or 1155 motherboard/CPU combos that might be cheaper too.

[G+_Aaron Bishop]

Here's a build using a Pentium J3710 integrated mobo that is about $60 cheaper, double ram, and lower wattage:

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/pvkf9W

[G+_Ben Reese]

I wasn't sure how current-day Pentiums compared to an i3. The NAS probably doesn't need much processing power though.

[G+_Aaron Bishop]

Yeah neither was I. Back in my day when you made a new processor family, the old ones stopped being developed. I found that by looking for boards with a built in processor. The J3710 has 4 cores (not just threads), 2.6 GHz, TDP 6.5 W, and even VT-x (not VT-d).

I'm considering modifying the build to have a micro ATX case with a BRDB drive to replace my NUC Kodi/MythTV box. Currently have it at $565+tax+s/h on Newegg. Only thing is the onboard SATA. 2 of the ports are using a ASMedia ASM1061 chip, and with a BRD it limits me to 3 ports for HDD.