After recent disk failure (luckily it seems I didn't lost anything and didn't even need to resort to fetch files from backups), I have started to think that it might be a good idea to have a separate networked file server, where I store copy of my precious digital photo archive. I would also employ the new machine as a printer server, but that shouldn't require really any significant additional to hardware specs.

I have looked at ready-made NAS solutions, but I have started to lean towards building my own setup. My current favourite idea is to build this server into Fractal Design Node 304 mini-ITX case. And regardless of any other components, I'm certain that the main storage will be four WD Red 3 TB disks set up as a RAID and I think I'll add small SSD as an OS disk (I'm planning to run GNU/Linux on this). That means I need an ITX motherboard with 5 (or more SATA) ports and I think ASUS P8H77-I suits my needs fine since it has the latest Intel chipset and 6 SATA ports. Memory is another part, which I have no problem selecting since I have two sticks of 4 GB Kingston Valueram 1333 MHz DDR3 left over from previous build. Sure, 8 GB might be bit of overkill for the intended use, but I have no other use for that memory. Then comes the slightly harder choices: first, the CPU is still fairly easy, I think a low-power, cheap Celeron would be sufficient for this use. But what kind of CPU cooler I should pick? Would the boxed cooler be quiet enough? Or if I get something fancier, would a large heatsink without fan be sufficient? And finally the toughest thing to choose: power supply. I really haven't yet found one, that would properly satisfy my ideals for this setup: a physically small, fairly low power, efficient, with modular cabling and of course quiet operation. In 400+ W class, there would be even these fanless options, but how well the fanless option would work in this small case? Not to mention that perhaps I would prefer something with slightly less expensive...

Any thoughts?

Your use case is unlikely to stress even a Celeron, so the stock fan would most likely not ramp up much. I'd try it out and if it ends up being too noisy you can always replace it. It looks like the Node 304 can take a reasonably large cooler as long as it doesn't get in the way of the drives.

You could also look an AMD E-350 board like the Asus E35M1-I. It has 6 sata and is fanless. Just be aware that it is MUCH slower than even a Celeron. It's more than enough for file and print sharing, but if you might want to do more later it might not be fast enough.

For the power supply the Seasonic G360 seems ideal.

The Arctic Cooling Alpine 11 fits your needs perfectly! It's small, cheap, and though it's unable to cool a powerful CPU quietly, it can cool a low-power CPU at light loads extremely quietly. At 500 rpm, and being a 92 mm fan, the fan is practically inaudible. The GT version of the Alpine 11 (the low-end version) even has an 80 mm fan. Perhaps this fan is even more quiet.

Personally, I would not worry about using a fanless PSU. If your system consumes 50 W, and the efficiency rate of the PSU is 85 %, the PSU will dissipate approximately 10 W as heat. I strongly believe that a quality PSU such as a Seasonic X unit can cope with this amount of heat.

There's a low-power version of Zacate called Ontario. Asus has a fairly cheap board based on it which should be good for a NAS.
Other fanless Asus boards are pretty expensive considering the cooler you get. Asus isn't very good at this but I guess their Ontario board should be OK since the lower heat output should in principle be lower.


Power supply availability can be an issue in some locales but there are fanned PSUs which will operate witout spinning their fan for your power draw. They're pretty expensive already but the fully fanless 400+W models are ridiculously overpriced.

I don't think you necessarily have a use for a noiseless PSU anyway. Your drives are going to make some noise. Can't you put your NAS somewhere where the noise won't bother you? That's kind of the point.
For that matter, I don't think you have a use for an Asus board if you go 1155. I'd either money on an efficient brand to save power or pick a cheaper one.

ASUS C60M1-I might be indeed fairly viable alternative, although I would have liked to have HDMI output...
I'm not really ruling out any PSU options. Compact size and modular cabling are the two features, which I am mostly interested in since the small case doesn't have too much extra space. And somehow I am reluctant to invest in any high wattage (say more than 550W) unit when the power demands are clearly much less.
All the other 1155 ITX boards I have looked at seem to offer less SATA ports than that ASUS model and if I would select such board I would need to add a RAID card and I'm not that interested in that option, although most likely then I could utilize hardware-based RAID rather than software-based.

The rating doesn't really matter. What matters is efficency at your power usage... and price of course. In principle, you should get a better efficency and a better price for a lower-wattage PSU but it's not always true, especially if your locale limits the viable choices.


4 SATA ports would be fine actually and there are boards with 4 ports which are around 40% less here.
I forgot to tell you this (and I skipped some words in my reply above) but a SSD would be a waste. You're using Linux so you don't have to do things the expensive/complicated way. You can simply run your system from a small RAID1 partition on the same drives as your data. There are other options of course but there's not much downside in doing that for a NAS since your system drive is rarely going to be accessed even with the default settings. A SSD would get you slightly faster boot times but how often are you going to (re)boot a NAS really? Either it's going to be on 24/7 or you're going to have it on standby (s2ram) for fast WoL.