NAS setup - hardware recommendations

[starbuck]

I'm going to build a NAS with some parts I have lying round.

As I've just changed the case my parent's PC is in, I'll be using their old jeantech phong 2 case(overkill I know but it's available).

The only other parts I have at the moment are 3 old hard drives of varying sizes(250gb,320gb and 160gb, mix between sata and ide).

I want to run the hardware as passivley as possible. As I know a NAS setup doesn't need much power, I'd like a motherboard which has integrated VGA and sound(can you get an integrated CPU as well?). and a passive(or very quiet) PSU.

Any suggestions for a suitable motherboard?
How much ram would I need and what is the best OS?

Looking at running NAS mainly for Slimserver but also want to be able to access pictures, videos and music from other pc's on my home network.
As it's going to be a NAS, I'm planning to run it 24/7. Also needs to be as cheap(ish) as possible

Any suggestions?

[Steve B]

No more than 256MB of RAM is required if you're only dealing with a couple of clients, probably even less than that actually.

I run an AMD X2 4200+ in my file server, which is total overkill for the application. It also has 512MB RAM.

I'm using debian etch for the operating system, having tried FreeNAS and not being able to get it to work with my DVD drive.

I use software-based RAID with mdadm which isn't bad. I'll eventually upgrade to a full-blown controller once I get enough drives.

I serve media to OS X clients using NFS shares, and to Windows-based clients using SAMBA. I much prefer NFS.

A nice low-power AM2 and a motherboard with a few SATA ports would be more than ideal for a project like this. You only need the graphics to install the OS, after that, you can login via good old SSH and administrate using the shell, much more fun!

I purchased an Enermax Pro82+ as my power supply, which is pretty efficient, and very quiet.

HTH!

[circuitmonkey]

I built a NAS box a month or so back, and It turned out to be much faster then my byod synology.
I went for an intel E5200 cpu, gigabyte g31 mother board, 4GB DDR2 800Mhz, and two 1TB drives in a software raid 1 array. as for the OS I used Ubuntu server edition.
I went for 4 GB RAM as a lot of the files being transported where 2GB+ and 4GB of RAM was only £35ish.

[aidanjt]

NAS hardware requirements are thus:

Lots of SATA ports.

That's pretty much it. Any modern hardware can run a NAS server.

[circuitmonkey]

well true, but to get the most out of modern hardware you also have to consider more modern network equipment

so Gigabit Lan is a must in my mind for a NAS system

[aidanjt]

well true, but to get the most out of modern hardware you also have to consider more modern network equipment

so Gigabit Lan is a must in my mind for a NAS system

Gigabit NICs come as standard with modern hardware (has done for years).

[circuitmonkey]

you'd be suprised, some of the low end g31's still come with 100Mb/s NICs

[Professor Frink]

I've been looking into making a NAS and after some research I settled with the Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R.
1 x 10/100/1000 (LAN)
8 x SATA 3Gb/s

http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/...ProductID=2921
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/200...ga-ep45-ud3r/1

[Steve B]

I went for 4 GB RAM as a lot of the files being transported where 2GB+ and 4GB of RAM was only £35ish.

Why go for 4GB because of large file sizes?

[aidanjt]

you'd be suprised, some of the low end g31's still come with 100Mb/s NICs

Yes, but they aren't standard models.

[aidanjt]

Why go for 4GB because of large file sizes?

The only reasonable explaination for doing so is because it's silly cheap. Or you're shifting through 100GB databases.