was thinking about buying a netgear ready nas

[parisv]

I was thinking about buying a netgear ready nas but looking at their prices they are so expensive!

So I'm thinking about building my own.

Basically I'd like it to have a really low power consumption and for it to be able to run plex media server (i understand plex can run on the readynas now cos of a linux release). Some good read write speeds would be handy also as I have a lot of 1080p content.

I have basic linux knowledge been trying out ubuntu for a year now. I like the looks of freeness and unraid. Although I've read the with unread it's simple to add more disks so that might be handy.

I have 2x 2tb wd green hard drives which I can use.

Can anyone point me to a build previously done or start me off with a processor motherboard and case? (maybe something that can fit 4 hod's)

I'd like it to be the kind of size the netgears if poss.

 

[stevech]

Did you consider the other NAS vendor products?
Synology and QNAP are popular.

 

[parisv]

Yeah I've been looking. I need something with a dual core processor and all those ones get expensive!

Thought might be nice to build my own also but there are so many different combinations of parts I don't know where to start!

 

[stevech]

Given your situation - you could simply put up a green Linux or Windows box and use file shares. On Win 7, you could use Windows Media Center to serve DLNA content. And XBMC.

depends on if you want to fiddle, fix, maintain, improve, or just plug and go.

 

[GregN]

Thought might be nice to build my own also but there are so many different combinations of parts I don't know where to start!

Take a look at the build for PFSense, MB w/Atom D525 cpu. The case won't work for you, but the rest will.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/secu...1406-build-your-own-ids-firewall-with-pfsense

Unless data reliability is a significant issue, I'd not bother with the NAS part. Put together a Windows box that does shares. The rig in the PFSense build will handle 6x SATA (3.0Gbps), in
RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 (Windows Only).

Isn't the free version of UnRaid limited to 2TB?

 

[parisv]

think I've found a motherboard/cpu/gpu

http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_CPU_on_Board/E35M1I_DELUXE/

 

[bnborg]

I highly recommend the AMD E-350 based motherboards. I put Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 on one of mine. Even with Active Directory, DFS and Hyper-V enabled and 3 virtual server machines running it didn't bog down.

 

[chiadog]

I highly recommend the AMD E-350 based motherboards. I put Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 on one of mine. Even with Active Directory, DFS and Hyper-V enabled and 3 virtual server machines running it didn't bog down.

The thing about E350 is that if you spend trivially more (like ~2-30 bucks), you can build a I3 powered one and all the speed that goes with it. (I3 540 with an el cheapo ECS H55 mini ITX board).

 

[s0rce]

If you are going to spend more for an i3 might as well go with sandybridge.

I looked around and the asrock e-350 (what I have) is about $110. The 1156 setup is about $110 for the i3 540 and $55 for the MB. The 1155 setup is about $100 for the i3 2100 and $65 for the MB.

Still more than $20 more than the e-350.

The AMD X2 can be done pretty cheaply and does out perform the e-350, depending on the board you can also get ECC ram support but that costs more.

The X2 245 is about $45 and a cheap asrock mobo is about $50. This is probably a better buy than the e-350 for the same price.