Building my own NAS

[starbuck]

going to build my own nas using about 3-4 old hard drives I have.
Only going to be used for music, photos and video to share round the house(prob 1 hard drive per media type).

For OS, I'm thinking about going with one of the opensource ones(as long as they can support slimserver), that I can run from a USB key, therefore freeing up the entire drives for data.

Prob looking at getting a cheap mobo with integrated video/sound(ideally cheap as poss as funds are low at the mo).

Main question I have is how much ram would I need to be able to run it?
I am thinking mainly of when it comes to streaming video round house to other pc's and ps3 etc. I want good quality streaming without the signal breaking up or going blocky.

[PeteSmith]

Will you be using FreeNAS? There is a useful guide here on building a 'SlimNAS' using FreeNAS and SlimServer.

WRT memory, 512mb should be ample for NAS. I'm planning something similar myself, let me know how you get on.

[spoon_]

I've got D945GCLF2 (NIC is 100/1000) mobo in my FreeNAS backup box and it works great, pair it with 1GB of RAM, Sil3114, 5x1.5TB drives = awesome NAS

[kmac]

2MB RAM should be fine. The main thing is update your entire network to Gigabit as it makes a hell of a difference from 10/100 in terms of file transfer speeds.

I have a cheap E5200 CPU which is fine performance wise running FreeNAS. I run it from a pen drive.

[Singh400]

2MB RAM should be fine. The main thing is update your entire network to Gigabit as it makes a hell of a difference from 10/100 in terms of file transfer speeds.

I have a cheap E5200 CPU which is fine performance wise running FreeNAS. I run it from a pen drive.

Highlighted for teh funnies

When I started researching NAS. I found you can just get away with around 512mb and a some crappy celeron proc. But make sure you get a gigabit lan. Makes a HUGE different as kmac says.

Of course, in the end I decided to go all out and go for a Windows Home Server setup

[kmac]

Yes it is funny. Only said two casue that's what I have in mine. Although now days the defacto standard for dual channel RAM systems seems to be 4MB and for triple channel - 6MB. Looking at my FreeNAS diagnostics, I've never seen it use more than 15% of my 2MB so I guess even 512Mb would work. To be safe I'd say the Op should go for 1MB.

[Haiku32]

Yes it is funny. Only said two casue that's what I have in mine. Although now days the defacto standard for dual channel RAM systems seems to be 4MB and for triple channel - 6MB. Looking at my FreeNAS diagnostics, I've never seen it use more than 15% of my 2MB so I guess even 512Mb would work. To be safe I'd say the Op should go for 1MB.

You keep saying MB, you mean GB. That's the funny .

[kmac]

You keep saying MB, you mean GB. That's the funny .

ooops

[chavo]

Following this thread with great interest. i have a PC running in my garage that i am not to sure what to do with at the moment. been looking at NAS / Win2008 server / Debian or other linux OS. but the basics are i would like to have a TB drive for hosting my media to my PC's and PS3

[Zak33]

I've been looking into this for a long while too... I have a small server winging it's way to me, but I shall use Windows Home Server cos it's pretty neat, (and very cheap at ebuyer when in stock. ) having played with it at a mates house for a while.

For the record... the HP Homeserver tech spec for the best model is a dual core pentium, at 2.2gig, 1 gig of ram and a G33 motherboard.

So even if starting with a new motherboard, you'd spend about £30 on a G31, put a second hand Celeron or Pentium dual in it, with 1gig of DDR2 and a small case and PSU and you're done! Gigabit lan and everything.

[Biscuit]

Im contemplating juicing my server/htpc up so i could get rid of the mobo/cpu/ram pretty cheap. Il have a think and get back to you if your still looking by then.

[starbuck]

Im contemplating juicing my server/htpc up so i could get rid of the mobo/cpu/ram pretty cheap. Il have a think and get back to you if your still looking by then.

Sounds interesting. Let me know.

[chavo]

I would be hoping to build a much lower spec, AMD 2200, 512mb i need a gigabit lan before i think about this really, i am gonna look for a trial of the home server software take it for a spin!

[edgars70]

Main question I have is how much ram would I need to be able to run it?

I have an Athlon XP1800+ with 512Mb running freenas and it is great. I can stream movies from it and backups run at a reasonable speed. It has a gigabit nic, but my drives are pretty old which makes a difference when performing large backups.

The bonus is that freenas also has a bittorrent client.

[Biscuit]

Sounds interesting. Let me know.

Ok im thinking i will go through with this within the next month or so. How much would you say is reasonable for the parts (listed in my sig)?