Greetings!
I’m looking at making a new NAS to replace my Synology (since they are doing the bonehead maneuver to require their drives).
I think I’ve found my case ( RackChoice 2U Server case 6Gbps hot swap 8 x3.5 Bays M-ATX) and I’m trying to decide what directions to go. I really want 10GBe to handle large files (lots of photo & video work) - likely going to go with a Intel X540 based board. I’m trying to decide Intel vs AMD. I will also need a SAS card for this case. So, I’m looking for an mATX board (hopefully lower power) with at least an x8 for the SAS card and another x4 or x8 for the NIC.
I’ve found Gigabyte GIGABYTE B550M AORUS Elite (which runs the second x16 in x4 mode). It’s cheap and can take cheaper CPU/APU’s.
A similar option from team blue ASRock B660M Pro RS (with same x16 limitations).
Any other motherboards you would recommend? Which CPUs would you encourage? I really appreciate any insight. It would be nice to find ECC but at this price point, I’m not holding my breath.
Thanks!
Doing a little checking, I might also look at a Supermicro MBD-X11SSM-F-O Micro ATX - It’s server grade and has the right number of slots in the config I need.
I am running this board in my old system which I built in January 2016 and it runs solid (Purchased for $210 USD). You cannot go wrong using this board and an Intel CPU. I’m using the Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1230 v5 @ 3.40GHz and it runs great and cost me $248 USD). It is a bit older so power consumption is slightly higher than a current generation CPU, but it is pretty minor for how I use my TrueNAS machine.
Do your research on the CPUs. You can likely find a really nice one out there.
The RAM I used is: Samsung DDR4-2133 16GB/2Gx72 ECC CL15 Samsung Chip Server Memory D416GE21S (two sticks cost me $230 USD)
Hopefully you can find a nice used system for a fair price. I’m just waiting on my hard drives to fail before I place this system up for sale, and I already have a replacement system in operation. Not sure I would say this is a LIVE video processing powerhouse. I’m not even sure 10Gbps is good enough for live video editing. There are others who have created systems to do this kind of work so you may want to search for systems built that do support live video editing and then ask the people what they like//dislike/would do differently.
If you are needing fast data transfers for video content, ensure you design your pool layout correctly. And you will need lots of RAM. The RAM makes all the difference in the world.
I’m not a Synology expert, had one and it wasn’t terribly fast. If you are upgrading from a Synology, what model is it, how fast is it, and if this device is fast enough to do what you want, unless it is a real speed demon, I’d think the Supermicro board and a 10Gbps add-on card would be fine.
And of course, before buying anything, figure out exactly what you want to buy and if it will meet your needs. It can be costly to buy the wrong stuff and have to buy more later on.
My Synology runs an AMD Ryzen R1600 (2C/4T) 2.6 GHz (boost 3.1). I did upgrade the original 8GB ECC to 16GB ECC and have an nvme drive for caching.
I don’t run LIVE video processing off of the NAS, more like long-term storage and footage repository. I tend to bring files over to my main machine for actual processing.
Thanks!
EDIT: I spent a little time after work looking and came across a ASRock B650M Pro RS WiFi which says it supports ECC. Newegg has a combo with a AMD Ryzen 5 9600X and 500GB nvme (Patriot) that I could use as a boot device for $250 (MB is an additional $150). That processor is 65W and it seems to have most things I am looking for. I know it’s not server grade - but would that do what I need?
