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I wanted a system that met my current needs with room to grow. My rough target was to start with 20 TB of usable storage and extra headroom for up to 30 TB if I add disks later. When I bought my Synology NAS, I initially installed three 4 TB drives and left the fourth slot empty. That gave me a total of 7 TB of usable space with Synology Hybrid Raid. Three years later, I was running out of space, so I added a fourth drive, bringing my total usable space to 10 TB.
FreeNAS will list arcane drive model numbers, so looking for the capacity of the USB key should be the easiest approach. Follow the prompts; FreeNAS will warn you that it will delete everything off of the USB key. Click through that message, and then go get a cup of tea while the progress indicator rolls over to 100 percent complete.
TrueNAS and ZFS 🔗︎
For those looking for a more budget-friendly option, there are a number of NAS solutions that can be built at home. These DIY NAS solutions can be tailored to the specific needs of the user, and can be a great way to save money. Today, really, the only reason I'd really recommend you go out and build your own NAS is for the experience and fun of putting one together.
A Direct Attached Storage via a Thunderbolt connection (10Gb/sec speeds) would be ideal. Or if you can wing it, getting 10 gigabit network cards on your NAS and computer . So, what do you do when your storage bursts at the seams with your ever growing photo, audio and video library? You could do of course several things beside drink and forget. One of them is falling for a dedicated NAS as I did about 1 year ago which works just fine, if you have nothing to do with your cash.
You’ll need some technical know-how
Sticking with entry-level Intel or AMD models should set you up just fine, as you won’t need a lot of processing power to run your NAS system. You’ll also need to purchase a cooling systemto prevent your CPU from overheating. A NAS enclosure is, essentially, the box that your motherboard and drives will sit inside. Finally, I mounted the power supply into the case and did some basic cable management.
While shared folders are convenient and simple to use, they are not always shared with others. Rather than a single computer, a NAS device is the best solution for storing data centrally. A standard 2TB drive costs $100, so a 4-bay NAS device will need to purchase 6 disks for $600 total.
Estimating my storage capacity needs 🔗︎
So this time around it’s time to build something to store my almost decade-old collection of movies, music, and photos. If you are going to buy a new phone or tablet, there is no need to reduce RAM; 8 GB is sufficient for most people. Furthermore, the newer smartphones and tablets come with a larger storage space, allowing you to save photos and videos without worrying about running out of space.
That's still a very valid reason, especially if you want to gain familiarity with the technology and NAS server software. Once everything worked, I had to set up the file sharing system . But more importantly, I had the storage array I needed within the budget I could spend. From this, again according to the particularities of each device and manufacturer, we can configure specific functions such as remote access from devices. A NAS is accessible from computers, but also from smartphones, smart TVs and other devices connected to the internet.
Step 1: Installing FreeNAS
I took the average of three trials over both encrypted volumes and unencrypted volumes. When I got all the components installed, the system powered on, but there was no video display. This is the first system I’ve ever built that doesn’t expose the back face of the PSU outside of the case. Instead, the case has a short NEMA extension cable that routes the internal PSU to the case’s own external power input. ZFS requires you to reflash the HBA’s firmware in a process that sounds tedious and confusing. The ASUS A320I-K has four SATA ports, which is enough for my initial needs.
It was such a tight squeeze between the motherboard’s SATA ports and the PSU that I had to buy special 90-degree slim SATA cables. I had no issues installing the motherboard in the Fractal Design mini-ITX case. Many ZFS builds include a separate, dedicated SSD called the SLOG .
The server also has an extensive permissions system to control access to the shared volumes and folders. Doing this not just gives you more bang for the buck, but also helps create a scalable system that can easily grow along with your requirements. The Noctua NH-U12S Redux is from one of the most renowned brands in the cooling space. Noctua makes some of the best fans around, and its CPU coolers are always a good choice for keeping temperatures down.
An Atom or Pentium processor will be more than enough for file and media storage, while an Intel Core i3 chip will be better for streaming, Plex use, and multi-user optimization. The Fractal Design Node 804 is a small chassis that allows you to install up to a microATX motherboard and eight 3.5-inch HDDs. It's a little on the pricey side compared to other cases, but well worth it if you plan to populate the NAS with plenty of drives. For pre-built enclosures, we took a look at the best NAS for Plex for running Plex Media Server. Still, if you'd rather have a fun project to be tasked with or wish to configure your own system , then it's possible to create your own NAS. There are lots of things to consider with regards to the individual hardware parts of a NAS server.
I had to upgrade manually by downloading the files and loading them on a thumb drive. Although my old Synology managed to outshine TrueNAS on reads, this was not the case for writes. Even on an unencrypted volume, TrueNAS was 77% faster on small files, and the two systems performed similarly on 1 GiB files. For unencrypted volumes, I was surprised to see my rusty, 7-year-old Synology outperform my shiny, new TrueNAS build.
If the BIOS of Ubuntu’s Proliant isn’t found on a nearby hard drive, the operating system will not boot from the fifth hard drive bay. Remapping log directories to a ram disk and loading pre-loaded files may be convenient, but maintaining this jungle of scripts is impossible. I was able to solve the issue using a hack, resulting in a simple and elegant solution. Access to the RAID requires four disks, which is inconvenient, but it is very quiet.
Plenty of storage space
It’s similar in price to off-the-shelf storage servers, but it offers more power and customizability. So, I ended up reading up quite a bit about making this box as efficient as possible and pulling the most storage I could without sacrificing data integrity in case something fails. There are lots of talks about the RAID configurations one should use, so I won’t go into details here. I ended up going with a RAIDZ2 where I have 3 drives for storage and 2 for parity out of my 5 total. For a dedicated video editing environment, a NAS connected via a 1gigabit is usually a no-no and should be avoided if possible due to it’s limited 125MB/sec bandwidth.
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