Home Nas needed, server2008 or off the shelf

[ryansod]

I'm in need of a storage device at home as my media library is growing and I want a seamless way to share it on my LAN. I have been looking at a few different options of off the shelf devices Qnap, Thecus and Synology mostly, but after finding this site (great site BTW) I'm toying with the idea of building a box myself. I'm a network admin by day in an all windows environment so my knowledge of win sever is vast and I have access to copies of win server so the software isn't an issue. Knowing full well the server 08 is big-time over kill for a home NAS box is there anything that I would be worried about with going with server 08. I'm also toying with the idea of FreeNAS but from what I have read it can be a little on the slow side, but I'm sure that its case to case. Also all the device that this server will service are window boxes Vista & 7, the device will be mostly used to stream media on the LAN, music and HD videos, WAN access is not necessary.

potential server guts:
MoBo - SUPERMICRO MBD-C2SBA+II-O - $135
CPU - 1.8 intel Duo - $39
RAM - 4GB DDR2 800 - $90
Case - Still up in the air about it - $80 budget
HD - 5 X SAMSUNG EcoGreen F2 HD154UI 1.5TB - $550

puts me out the door at around $900

Potential off the shelf NAS
Thecus N5200BR Pro - $640
HD - 5 X SAMSUNG EcoGreen F2 HD154UI 1.5TB - $550

puts me out the door at around $1200

So building a server is cheaper but is it worth it??? thoughts ideas personal experiences?

 

[thiggins]

If you're comfortable with Server 08 and can get it for free, then go for it.

The main thing that off the shelf NASes provide is a friendly user interface over their Linux guts. I haven't seen anything in the open source distros that compares for ease of use, especially for the non-techie.

 

[00Roush]

Building your own will most likely offer higher performance along with the ability to install and test whatever OS you want. While Server 08 is overkill, as you mentioned, it supports SMB2.0 and honestly I feel it has the ability to offer the highest performance. Also I have found in my testing at home that I generally see higher file transfer performance between two Windows based computers than between a Windows based computer and a Linux based computer. This is part of the reason I use Windows XP Pro as the OS on my server.

No reason why you couldn't give FreeNAS a go... I have tested it many times and have had good performance on my hardware. Key is you have to change or remove the default SAMBA buffer sizes to see good performance. (at least in my experience) Most recent tests had FreeNAS about 0 to 10 MB/sec slower than Win XP Pro on my current server. For reference I usually see transfer speeds of 80-100 MB/sec for large files with my current setup. The nice thing is it takes me less than 10 minutes (probably less than 5 actually) to get the OS up and start sharing files over the network.

I did want to ask about your motherboard choice. It does look to be a good board but I think you could pick up a board based on the latest chipset (ICH10R) for the same price or better. Also might have a few more options like eSATA or dual NICs. A few minuses though are most of them do not have onboard video and also do not have an Intel based NIC.

Not really sure what you are looking for in a case but here are some possible cases I saw on Newegg that had room for at least 5 3.5 drives...
CHIEFTEC Mesh CH-02B-BM-OP
CHIEFTEC AEGIS CH-05B-B-OP
CHIEFTEC SMART SH-01B-B-B-OP
CHIEFTEC BRAVO BX-01B-B-B-OP
Thermaltake Tsunami VA3000BNA
Antec VSK-2000
Antec Three Hundred
ENERMAX VOSTOK ECA3120B

Generally I was looking for cases that had room for your drives but did not attach the drives directly to the case to cut down on vibration. So if you are not worried about this you could potentially find some cheaper cases that have room for 5 or 6 drives.

Hope that helps.

00Roush

 

[ryansod]

Thanks for the reply guys.

As for my MoBo choice, I'm a bit of a supermicro fan boy every server or high-end workstation (as long as its not for gaming) I build I try to go with supermicro. I'm always impressed with their quality control and support, its some of the best around. But that being said I'm looking for a board that has video built in and a intel NIC. There are a few others out there but for a few $$ more I can going with a MoBo that will ease my mind. That and it has built in USB plugs right on the board so I can install freeNAS and other OS's on a thumb drive and not have to worry about it sticking out the back.

As for the FreeNAS when I build it I will testing FreeNAS and ubuntu server for speed but mostly for fun and to see how they run. I'm sure I will be posting my results after the build is complete, probably first of next year.

 

[Lnin0]

What about Windows Home Server?
________
Montana medical marijuana

 

[00Roush]

What about Windows Home Server?

While I think WHS can offer good performance the way it deals with disks is sort of a pain. At least in my opinion. The OS manages all of the disks that are added to the storage pool. No option to use RAID and you do not get to pick which disk to store files on. Also performance can suffer if any of your disks are slower than others. From what I recall though it was fairly easy to use.

00Roush

 

[ryansod]

What about Windows Home Server?

hummmm WHS.....

I agree WHS is a logical progression and as someone that has !not! toyed with WHS I am in the dark, but from what I have read WHS is nothing more than a software raid system with a simple "xcopy" script with a easy to use interface.

But that being said I may just test WHS to see the performance dif.

Lnin0- maybe I'm wrong with my outside view of WHS please convince me other wise.

 

[thiggins]

WHS is a bit more sophisticated than you describe. And 00Roush, if I remember correctly, you can set drives as either main storage or backup.

WHS performance is actually pretty good because it doesn't have RAID overhead. The only issue is that performance really degrades when it is executing its "background" file duplication maintenance.