A relatively cheap, silent NAS for home usage
Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 6:09 pm
Hello,
I want to build a semi-poor man's NAS. I thought of several things and right now I'm thinking along the lines of:
Gigabyte GA-H55N-USB3 or similar
Cheapest used i3 I can find
Cheapest used 2x2 GB RAM I can find
Semi-decent case (I'd like to have space for at least two 3,5 disks there)
The reason for the i3 and not a C2D is that I need USB 3.0 and there are no older boards with USB 3.0 as far as I know. It's still affordable though.
I'm considering AMD too and so far I found Asus E45M1-M to be what I need. It totals about the same as the abovementioned setup, except it's brand new and has lower wattage, but it's not as powerful as the i3 (may be irrelevant).
I also feel quite drawn to the idea of thin mini-ITXes with their external 12/19V PSU, however I have space for a standard mini-ITX, thin ones are more expensive and I'm not quite sure if a standard internal PSU for these is noisy.
So, to sum it up I need:
Linux compatibility
USB 3.0
At least 2 SATA ports
1 GigE
Enough horsepower to saturate or nearly saturate said GigE via Samba
Onboard VGA preferable but not necessary
All as quiet as possible without compromising the abovementioned requirements
Optionally, a mSATA slot, but I can live without that
Any comments or suggestions? Case suggestions would be nice too. :)
I want to build a semi-poor man's NAS. I thought of several things and right now I'm thinking along the lines of:
Gigabyte GA-H55N-USB3 or similar
Cheapest used i3 I can find
Cheapest used 2x2 GB RAM I can find
Semi-decent case (I'd like to have space for at least two 3,5 disks there)
The reason for the i3 and not a C2D is that I need USB 3.0 and there are no older boards with USB 3.0 as far as I know. It's still affordable though.
I'm considering AMD too and so far I found Asus E45M1-M to be what I need. It totals about the same as the abovementioned setup, except it's brand new and has lower wattage, but it's not as powerful as the i3 (may be irrelevant).
I also feel quite drawn to the idea of thin mini-ITXes with their external 12/19V PSU, however I have space for a standard mini-ITX, thin ones are more expensive and I'm not quite sure if a standard internal PSU for these is noisy.
So, to sum it up I need:
Linux compatibility
USB 3.0
At least 2 SATA ports
1 GigE
Enough horsepower to saturate or nearly saturate said GigE via Samba
Onboard VGA preferable but not necessary
All as quiet as possible without compromising the abovementioned requirements
Optionally, a mSATA slot, but I can live without that
Any comments or suggestions? Case suggestions would be nice too. :)