Requesting feedback for my first NAS media server

TrueNAS General
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Hi guys! Happy to be here, seems like a friendly community. I’m looking for some feedback about my planned NAS build. Given my proposed use cases, will the parts I plan to purchase work well enough?

Purpose

  • Shared storage and file backups.
  • Media server (videos and music).
  • Running some small apps, like for viewing stored photos.
  • Home network with 2 – 4 simultaneous users.
  • Remote file access via VPN.

Typical use case

  • 2 simultaneous users.
  • One watching a HD movie on an Nvidia Shield TV Pro.
  • Another playing music on a smart phone.
  • While transferring files from the PC for archiving.

Worst case stress test

  • 4 simultaneous users.
  • One watching a 4K movie on an Nvidia Shield TV Pro.
  • Another watching a 4K movie on the PC from the NAS.
  • The other two watching 4K movies on smart phones (requires transcoding).
  • While transferring files from the PC for archiving.

Build

Part Model Price
Case Jonsbo N2 (mITX) $150.00
Motherboard Gigabyte C246N-WU2 (ECC, 8xSATA, used) $626.00
CPU Intel I3-9300 (ECC, quicksync, used) $68.00
CPU Cooler Noctua NH-L9x65 $69.00
RAM Crucial CT16G4WFD8266 (2x16GB, ECC) $134.00
SSD Silicon Power P34A60 (128GB, 2280 M.2) $21.00
HDD’s WD Red Plus (5x8TB, 5640RPM) $1,470.00
PSU Thermaltake Toughpower SFX (450W, 80+ Gold, Modular) $139.00
MiniSAS HD Oikwan SFF-8643 to 4xSATA breakout $21.00
Total (AUD) $2,698.00
Total (USD) $1,770.00

My plan is to run TrueNAS off the SSD and setup a RAIDZ1 storage pool of 32TB + 8TB parity. There seems to be a consensus that RAIDZ1 is discouraged for moderate to large RAID volumes, and I’m aware of this. For my build I chose to prioritize storage capacity and price over redundancy. I plan on regularly backing up important files onto external storage drives, so I don’t foresee this being a massive issue at the moment (it’s a personal home NAS anyway).

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. If you’d like to suggest alternative parts just note that, since I’m in Australia, my hardware choices may be more limited compared to the rest of the world. Thanks!

1 Like
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I think, the MoBo is way overkill for this purpose…
I would buy something much cheaper.
Plus a HBA.
And an additional HDD.
1x 32GB DDR4 ECC RAM instead ot the 2x16GB, so you can upgrade it later, if you want (the MoBo has only 2 RAM slots)
(maybe not really WD red Pros. For me WD blues are perfect since like 2019. I use them 5 drive RAIDZ2 config)
Also, a much higher power PSU. (I bought a Corsair RM1000e for similar price last year)

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Thanks Gyula_Masa. For ECC, it was either this Gigabyte motherboard or more expensive Supermicro ones. This one also supports 8 SATA (my case is limited to 5 HDD and 1 SDD) without a HBA which simplifies things.

Based on PSU Calculator tools I found that the total base TDP would be ~190W and minimum recommended PSU should be 300W, so I left some headroom and looked for PSU’s in the 400-500W range. You still reckon I should get something beefier?

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if i can give my 2 cents, if you are planning to use apps, don’t let them run on rust disks.
Use the m2 slot instead with a larger disk (256-512) and let a small sata SSD care about boot :smiley: Is stripe, so a local replication into the rusk disk pool is a must IMHO.
Or better, a passive riser into the pci-ex slot with 2 more NVME disks in mirror for that, the motherboard seems support bifurcation 2x8 but check that before!

1 Like
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If you eant ECC, you should check other generations of Intel CPUs or even AMD. Those are supporting ECC too.
Also, you can check out Aliexpress for X99 motherboards. They are dirt cheap, they take LGA2011 CPUs (Broadwell Xeon from 2015-16) which are also dirt cheap. It supports ECC and usually 128 or 256GB DDR4 ECC.

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@oxyde: I have space for an additional SATA SSD so I’ll definitely look into your suggestion.

Thanks for the advice guys.Good to know I’m on the right track.