Tiny Router/NAS Box with Atom D2700/D2550

[optimist]

Tiny Router/NAS Box with Atom or Core i3/i5??

Hi everyone,

I have been combing over SNB forums and the greater internet for a while for information on building a small and efficient router + NAS combo box. The idea came while I was searching for a NAS with decent network write performance. I had settled on Synology's DS213+ or QNAP's TS-212 connected to a D-Link DIR-825 wireless router. The router works great with an attached 2TB WD drive, but at 12.5MB/s backups were just a little slow

It occurred to me that building a small, low-power Atom box would achieve the same if not better backup performance. There are a plethora of threads and posts already on DIY NAS with Atom, but I would also like the box to serve as a router (with external wireless AP). This is where not a lot of information exists. Would an Atom mini PC have the "umph" to provide gigabit routing capabilities as well and file serving at say 50 MB/s or greater? If not I can jump to the next processing level (with added $$ and power consumption). I would like the whole setup to be as small as possible, preferably in the 1U to 2U height range. In addition, power consumption would be maybe 40W at load and 10-25W idle.

This project is strictly for fun! Picking up a NAS for $150 or so would be easy enough, but building a small and power efficient multi-purpose appliance like this is way more interesting to me

Some of the routes I was considering for this build:

Atom D2700, 5x GigE NICs, low power:
http://mitxpc.com/proddetail.asp?prod=EKJNF9D5LM350&cat=209

Atom D2550, Dual GigE, super cheap!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856205007

Atom D525, Dual GigE NICs (expandable to 5):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856107095

AMD A50, Dual GigE NICs:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856107107

If the above would not be able to handle routing and file serving, the next step up I think would be something like this:

Intel thin mini-itx (Ivy-Bridge):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121622

I could put something like a 35W Ivy bridge in make a tiny expandable box. With the extra power running multiple VMs on ESXi would be a cinch as well (if going that route was necessary).

What is the least $$ and power to I would need for a router/NAS appliance?

 

[optimist]

D'oh! Looks like I missed an excellent article earlier this year on SNB about building a low power atom server. The author (Scott) was able to achieve 96 MB/s network writes with the Atom D525 in addition to having the server run other duties. With a 13W TDP the atom surely fits the bill for low power consumption. In the end, I still decided to go with Intel's thin mini itx platform.

Reasoning: With some impressive modding the author of this article managed to build a low power/high efficiency computer (aka Fluffy2) based on the Intel DQ77KB. At idle, the entire system consumes a modest 5.9W. While I don't plan on going as extreme on the modding end I think 15W idle for a multipurpose router/NAS/server is achievable and easy on the electric bill. Beats having a 90W idle Z77 system on all day! Ivy/Sandy Bridge CPUs also support tons of server features that the Atom doesn't. After some research I chose a Core-i5 2390T (Sandy Bridge) for it's low 35W TDP and full feature set. Although Ivy CPUs are available with the same features they are not only hard to find but more expensive and generally run hotter than SB. In a slim 1U case that obviously would not bode well. I've compiled list of parts that I think would be a nice upgrade to Scott's original low power Atom Server (but more expensive, yikes!):

Motherboard: Intel DQ77KB - $139.99 - Newegg
CPU: Intel Core-i5 2390T - $105 - found a good deal on eBay
Boot disk: OCZ 30 GB mSATA SSD - (pulled from another PC) Reg $49.99 - Newegg
Memory: Patriot 8GB DDR-1600 - $36.99 - Newegg

Case: Haven't decided on one yet. The Habey EMC-600S is nice but G-Atlantic's GA6201 would be perfect IMO if I could find one anywhere. Seen here with the DQ77KB installed. This case from Inteset is also pretty awesome but expensive. There's also a slew of regular mITX cases available like the M350, but a nice low profile one would be better I think.

Storage: I am going to re-purpose a couple of 2.5" 500GB drives. Intended used is mostly for photos, music, and videos. 2 1TB drives in the future would allow for multiple Time Machine backups, etc.

So, that's more or less what I plan to build. I've already ordered the cpu, motherboard, and ram, just waiting on a good and inexpensive case to be available. Total cost with a decent $50 case would be around $330, which is pretty good I think for a small and fairly powerful/efficient all-purpose server. If anyone is interested I will update when everything is built

 

[wfarid]

are you still building a nas/router combo? Do you plan on using pfsense?

 

[optimist]

So I decided not to go with routing in this build. VMWare ESXi 5.1 with PFSense + FreeNAS work well, but so does Windows 8 Pro with the same add-ons as Synology NAS's. The DIR-825 router (Rev B1) I have running at 600 mbps runs at 5.3W with all firewall features enabled, so running PFSense isn't really necessary for my needs. Network (NTFS) transfers range from 70 MB/s - 105 MB/s, which is plenty good for network back-ups. I also have SickBeard-Alpha-ThePirateBay installed along with uTorrent and Plex Media Server for serving films and TV shows to Android, XBOX 360, PS3. Idle power is ~ 12.7-13.5W. Occasionally that spikes up to ~48.5W (full load, stress testing, transcoding video to XBOX 360). Overall this system achieves probably 3-4x performance of an Atom machine at the same power consumption. With additional power tweaks I hope to further optimize that.

Hardware:

Intel DQ77KB
Intel Core-i5 2390T
Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235
Patriot Signature 8GB
Habey EMC-600-BL (Akasa Cypher when it's available)
OCZ Nocti Series NOC-MSATA-30G mSATA

 

[TooSteep]

...
Hardware:

Intel DQ77KB
Intel Core-i5 2390T
Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235
Patriot Signature 8GB
Habey EMC-600-BL (Akasa Cypher when it's available)
OCZ Nocti Series NOC-MSATA-30G mSATA

Hopefully you are still reading this - how were you able to get the Advanced-N 6235 card working? I just installed one on a DQ77KB in a Euler Akasa case, and it won't find any wireless networks or BT devices. Did you hook up an antennae to it?

The Intel forums are full of people running into problems ith it: http://communities.intel.com/thread/31090?start=0&tstart=0

The Intel guys post and say that it is not meant for desktop systems. How did you get your working?

Thanks.

 

[optimist]

Hopefully you are still reading this - how were you able to get the Advanced-N 6235 card working? I just installed one on a DQ77KB in a Euler Akasa case, and it won't find any wireless networks or BT devices. Did you hook up an antennae to it?

The Intel forums are full of people running into problems ith it: http://communities.intel.com/thread/31090?start=0&tstart=0

The Intel guys post and say that it is not meant for desktop systems. How did you get your working?

Thanks.

That canned answer from Intel, wow . I "refreshed" Win 8 earlier this week due to a fudged Intel installer (the 6235 bluetooth driver!). Took a hatchet to the registry and broke a few things, so I'm glad that option was available Before that I did notice that the wireless adapter would not stay connected between restarts. I've used this adapter with the Maximus V Gene in my PC and it worked fine. Router is line of sight, too. Because I'm using both DQ77KB gigabit ports I didn't pay too much attention to it though.

What OS are you running? I'm pretty sure it's the drivers, man. Intel still has some growing pains with Win 8. Also related: the GigE ports will occasionally drop to 10Mbps and stay there until adapters are dis/re-enabled.

Oh and yes, running u.fl to SMA to external antennae.