Very low power NAS server

[dbh]

Hi guys,

Yep it's yet another NAS server thread. First one for me though. Have been reading a little about it but am wondering what's the lowest power to performance setup I should be looking for? My main purpose is essentially just archive a shibby load of photos I have on my various machines and to serve as a personal dropbox for when I'm out and about (keeping it on 24/7 so I can upload my photos to it).

I've looked at some E350 fusion mobos which look good and some have been recommending a i3 2100 as that idles very low. Other than that I'm at a loss as to what PSU, case etc would be good. I'm looking to spend around £200 or so max with a 1TB hdd. Low power etc the better. Not sure I want to go with a Qnap Turbo NAS. They look good but at the same time I like the idea of having a bit of extra grunt available for future proofing.

Any advice is very much welcomed! Thanks in advance

Nick

[Vimeous]

If you're after a stand-alone NAS and more worried about future throughput and less about capacity I'd consider anything running an Atom rather than the Marvell CPU's. Typically a Netgear ReadyNAS Ultra 2 (£222 on Scan) will be a good starting point.
The only advisory there would be the Netgear's USB3 socket only hits full throughput with FAT32 drives for when you're backing it up.

Sadly Atom's will blow your budget a little at the moment.

Netgear Specs: Ultra 2
Power Consumption: 35W with 2x2TB when being accessed.

[jim]

Why not the HP Microserver that loads of us bought a little while back?

Around £130, space for 4 hard drives, 5 if you're prepared for an unofficial BIOS flash. Low power Athlon dual core.

[dbh]

Why not the HP Microserver that loads of us bought a little while back?

Around £130, space for 4 hard drives, 5 if you're prepared for an unofficial BIOS flash. Low power Athlon dual core.

I did think about that HP microserver space is a bit of a premium for me at the moment is the unit quite small though? I don't think I'll be running more than a 2TB drive at the moment though. Ideally am looking to keep power consumption low. Will have a looksee at the links you posted. Thanks.

These and the culv i3's are tickling my fancy. My budget is £200 but if I can fit a mini i3 machine like that for under £300 with case psu and ram I think I'll up my budget.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/search/re...031&sort=price

[abaxas]

You are going to need a non x86 machine.

Moder linkstations use about 10w, older ones 13. My micro server uses 20+ with one hard disk in.

All depends what you want to use the device for. Linkstation + debian will give you the lowest power but that depends on 'geek factor'.

[peterb]

Running an ITX based server here, using a 1.2GHz Via processor and a couple of 2.5" drives in RAID1. All run from a 90W PICO psu - total power consumption about 40Watts. OS is Fedora (just upgraded to Core15)

[dbh]

Well I've bought an Eye-Fi card for my camera. After having a previous memory card f*** up on me (7dayshop 32GB one which I saw on offer here) I returned it and got a refund (still annoyed I lost 200 of my holiday pics) anyways lesson learnt.

Then got thinking if I got this Eye-Fi card I must be able to have my pictures all safely backed up to my own type of dropbox not just the Eye-fi one online. Low and behold there's a standalone Eye-Fi server that someones made to work with Linux that listens for HTTP requests on a certain port. With that said I'll be able to have a backup of all my pictures when I take them when I'm out and about all remotely. That's the idea I'm toying with at the moment.

[watercooled]

Depends how much performance you need (and how much you are willing to get your hands dirty), you can take the server down to single-digit consumption with something like an ARM system: http://www.newit.co.uk/shop/categories.php

[peterb]

Looks good (although SD only) Personally I use a good branded memory card (Lexar or similar) and download to a laptop and then to the server and then backed up before deleting the card contents. Of course, not much use if the card fails before they can be uploaded - which is why I use a branded one.

[dbh]

Agree about the branded one now! The nice thing about the Eye-fi is that it has an endless memory mode which you can setup to delete files once they're uploaded safely to the server. I've got my trusty 16GB Sandisk Extreme card for larger capacity but for timelapse photography this will be fantastic as I'll be able to review the photos as they're being taken on my pc and won't have to interupt / move my camera at all. Anyhoo back to looking at ultra low power pc components

[dbh]

Anyone know of a decent matx/mitx desktop htpc case that has at least two hot swappable 3.5" drives bays? I did come across the Hive Logix case but can't find that anywhere to buy an alternative thats under £80 would be good!

[watercooled]

Chernbro do some, but they're not cheap: http://www.chenbro.eu/corporatesite/...cat.php?pos=33

There is another company that does something similar but I can't remember what they're called.

[MadduckUK]

Chernbro do some, but they're not cheap: http://www.chenbro.eu/corporatesite/...cat.php?pos=33

There is another company that does something similar but I can't remember what they're called.

CFI?

http://linitx.com/product/12789 4 hotswap

http://linitx.com/product/13013 2 hotswap

my home server is currently using a 2 hotswap one. it is fine.

[watercooled]

Yeah that's the one.

[dbh]

Nice thanks guys. I did come across these ones. I'm kind of deciding between putting it in the AV cabinet under the telly or to the side of it. I'll probably have to go with the cube one if I put it to the side but the alternatives I've come across are these:

http://hivelogix.com/cases/case-mITX

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/silve...-psu-%28atx%29

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/silve...std-atx-psu%29

Are there defo no hot swap hdd htpc/atx layout cases around? Maybe might have to resign to going for a cube format case then if that's the case

[Vimeous]

You could always convert a 2x 5.25" bay matx case to a 3x 3.5" hot-swap (Example).
It's expensive but gives you a broader case choice.