A $40 (used) tower with 8 drive bays + option to add either three more or six 2.5-inch SSDs. Total cost with the rest being new parts and before drives) with 32 gb of DDR5 ram and i3 chip: $450 and waaaaaay more energy efficient and quieter than an old enterprise server - and more compact. You're going to eat cost there, but I suspect you wanted the challenge more than anything. I'm also a photographer and videographer so I feel the pain and have that itch to build stuff. I can give a build list if interested. 10/10 for building your own ethernet cables...
I use a Dell PowerEdge 420 with a couple Intel Xeon E5-2470v2 processors and (atm) 96GB of ram. Also using proxmox to manage VMs and about 30TB of storage. I wanted to also let you know that you can replace the CD disk drive with a 2.5in bay for your SSD.
truenas, is a better choice in your usecase due to error correction and scrub, and you can expand zfs now :) you could do this with a normal computer, just buy a fractal define XL and extra drivebays and you can add up to 22-27 hdds, with some pcie > sata adapters and/or hba cards...
New drives aren't really necessary if you use either raid6 or run multiple parity drives (so you can lose more than 2 disks at a time) AND you run a preclear on the drives to test the drives initially to make sure they are working reliably as you get started and make sure that you have SMART enabled and monitored. I personally prefer zfs raidz2 (which works like raid 6) but does checksumming on files when they are read and written and regularly scheduled checking against these checksums to make sure that there is no bit rot. If a file being checked fails the checksum test, it's transparently rebuilt from parity. I'm using truenas scale which is similarly featured in terms of running apps and virtual machines.
I went with TrueNas Scale. I bought a PC case, with 8 bays, a used Motherboard/CPU (I5 7500) and an HBA adapter with 8 SATA cables. Total cost excluding drives was only AUD$400 (CAD$360 / USD$265). Great value and it works very well. I have all 8 bays filled with Seagate 18TB Exos drives in RaidZ2 (Kinda like Raid 6 but smarter/better).
TrueNAS has benefit over UnRaid of ZFS which has error correction and scrubs feature that can be set to run at certain intervals to verify your data With other filesystems raid can tell you your data is corrupted on one of your drives but it can't tell you which drive has the error but with ZFS scrub it will find and correct any bit rot on your array
@@lilkiduno Ah ok hadn't heard about that however I doubt that the main draw of UnRaid a not raid with parity drive would be useable on any ZFS array If you are going to play with TrueNAS go for Scale. It's still free but is based on Linux rather than FreeBSD that is used for Core
yeah, duh I knew I wanted scale not core. I was multitasking and had a brain fart. While I agree, zfs for Unraid isn’t probably what most people, including myself are going to use it for. However, it’s there.
I'm pretty sure you will soon want to try the Plex Media server on your NAS 😅. I got a I5-10500T for very cheap so I decided to build a NAS around it, keeping in mind I might want to upgrade to an Intel 11th Gen processor in future.
whatever u saved in hardware u will pay it 3 folds in energy costs , ddr2 systems is way too old , even a i3 6100 system which u can get for about same price would be way faster and also not be so inefficient that the energy bill would be the main cost , seriously ddr2 system, no ofense , highly highly not recommend anyone to do this
I could have easily received free server hardware from where I work when it's decommissioned; but I refrain because I'd have to deal with the NOISE, the extra power and in the summer time, I'd have to do something with the heat.. Personally, I think you are taking a bigger chance with old server hardware and then depending upon it than you would have by buying used hard drives off from E-Bay. Ask yourself what will you do when your NAS goes down because the motherboard got fried, or some other major component bit the dust ? Will you be able to work effectively without a NAS for a week or two ? Personally, I'd buy a newer system, build a decent NAS out of it, use it as a primary, and then taken this older system and turn it into a backup server... The best way to back up a NAS is often a second NAS. My primary NAS is about 7 years old and the price was right when I got it slightly used. it's a brand name NAS, with 16 bays, of which 12 are 4 TB drives, in a RAID6 configuration. I also had a second drive fail in the NAS before I even noticed that the first drive had failed ( it sent me an email, but I get hundreds of emails every day ).. The best way to back up something that large, is another NAS. (The NAS is surprisingly not physically that large ).
I grabbed a dell t5500 off ebay for $60 it came with an ssd and then 2 8tb hard drives yes used off ebay for $60 each and did a mirror it's still a little old being lga 1366 but ram is dirt cheap and I don't pay for power and with it being a tower it's nearly silent especially with the pair of 80mm fans I added for $25 and some soldering
i’m running a DS 920+ which is a 4 bay Synology NAS. it’s set up for raid 5 with 18TB drives, so 54TB (50TiB) available. I would like to move to a 6 bay or 8 bay but I haven’t yet decided whether to buy or build. Your video was helpful, thanks.
🇨🇦/🇺🇸... THANKS this should be very helpful. I don't need THAT much storage as I'm nearing retirement age but BECAUSE I'm nearing retirement age, money is tight and I simply don't want to be reliant on very large expenditures for OneDrive and such.
Running truenas with 4tb wd red pro (4x). Hw; 4-bay mini itx nas with a pentium-g3240 I found for $100, then swapped in an i3-4160t cpu I got on ebay for $4. Eventually would like to scale up the storage and switch to a n100 mb for power efficiency.
@@DelaneyMedia So far it works, that's all I can hope for...going in blind, setting up the ZFS pool and enabling SMB share was fairly straight forward, configuring truechart apps to "see" each other was a bit of a learning curve. Watched a few tutorial vids, and now I'm 63.257% confident I know what I'm doing. xD
You should look into LTO tapes. LTO-8 can store 30 TB on a single tape at a cost of around $0.002/gb and they are designed for archival storage as well. The main barrier is the upfront cost of the tape drive which can be steep but worth it if you're doing this professionally.
Unraid is no longer a one-time fee unless you pay $249 for a lifetime license. They had to change their license structure recently so it is no longer as cheap to get in if you wanted it for life, but they do have yearly subscriptions that aren't as expensive.
@@DelaneyMedia i recently got a sodola 2.5 switch - it has 2 10g also - using cat8 cable and realtek equvos (sic) nics - everything runs perfect - the cat8 will let you run 10g and 25g when you eventually upgrade but yeah going to 2.5 is smart with as much storage as you have - make sure to enable jumbo frames - 9000 mtu give a big boost (35%) and then you get the full 2.5 - do a followup
@@DelaneyMedia Given that even a single one of those hard drives can do well over gigabit speeds, the SSD wear isn't getting you much other than burning out an SSD. 2.5g may be able to show a difference, though Undraid is pretty slow compared to true RAID like you would have had from ZFS in TrueNAS. May as well use the SSD potentially for something useful.
Nah I got two Mellanox Connect-4 cards and a 25gb DAC cable for $90 on eBay. That speed will probably outlive his server. 2.5gb and 10gb just don't make sense if you're hardwiring 2 or 3 systems together.
Hey how's the CPU holding up with Unraid? I'm building a NAS right now, wanted to use an old E6400 (similar tu yours) but I'm concerned it might be too slow, especially with True NAS or UnRaid...?
All storage loses its index after a while. Leaving them on the shelf will degrade your storage. HDD last more than a year, while USB drives will die within 6 months. A SATA SSD may last 9 months before the data is corrupted. Install your hardware and run or search it. View docs and photos, play music or video every few months to save your data.
How much you pay for your energy? Looks like you massively understated the energy consumption cost or you get your energy from a nearby nuclear plant. The "old server" approach is not super applicable since you NEED a basement, the noise is too loud. I prefer to go for used desktop hardware. Low energy consumption, low heat and low noise.
Yeah, you can absolutely do all the same things I did here but use desktop hardware instead. As for the energy, I live in Ontario where there are 2 nuclear plants that provide most of the energy in this area. I understand this could be a bigger problem depending on where you live, and definitely something I should’ve covered in this video. But at least where I live, I’ve barely noticed a change in my electric bill.
I had a similar setup like yours a few years ago and my energy bill went up a lot.so much I had to switch to a desktop setup which uses less energy .still great video
A very important thing that hasn't been mentioned is the fact that enterprise server components consume a lot of energy. What you save by buying this type of equipment second-hand, you quickly lose in electricity bills.
If someone buys a Synology box for $700, you would say they bought a $700 NAS. Someone doing this can spend as little or as much as they want on the storage, so I’m not factoring that in. The NAS itself is $140.
Waaaayyyy to expensive if I was going in to NAS out of server with 60TB+ I would go to used SAS drives which are way cheaper then SATA drives and more effective
Repurposed PC (i7-8700k, 64GB memory, (5) 12TB Hard Drives) Using TrueNAS, RAIDZ1 Primary purpose is as a Networked file server...Not of the extra stuff TrueNAS can do. 😂
Yeah, this video is not for the average Joe working a 9/5 trying to care for your new family. This is for the person that can drop $2,000 to $5,000 or more without feeling it. That's ok, because some of us have it and some of us don't.
If you want as much storage as me or more, for sure. The nice thing about RAID is the scalability. You could buy 2 4TB drives for $300 and get all the same functionality.
What a ridiculous comment. An average Joe working a 9-5 probably doesn’t need a 60TB NAS in their house either. There are so many other options for almost any budget. This guy says up front he needs it for his photography work and judging by your comments I don’t think you watch videos before making comments.
What’s your current storage solution?
A $40 (used) tower with 8 drive bays + option to add either three more or six 2.5-inch SSDs. Total cost with the rest being new parts and before drives) with 32 gb of DDR5 ram and i3 chip: $450 and waaaaaay more energy efficient and quieter than an old enterprise server - and more compact. You're going to eat cost there, but I suspect you wanted the challenge more than anything. I'm also a photographer and videographer so I feel the pain and have that itch to build stuff. I can give a build list if interested.
10/10 for building your own ethernet cables...
I use a Dell PowerEdge 420 with a couple Intel Xeon E5-2470v2 processors and (atm) 96GB of ram. Also using proxmox to manage VMs and about 30TB of storage. I wanted to also let you know that you can replace the CD disk drive with a 2.5in bay for your SSD.
truenas, is a better choice in your usecase due to error correction and scrub, and you can expand zfs now :)
you could do this with a normal computer, just buy a fractal define XL and extra drivebays and you can add up to 22-27 hdds, with some pcie > sata adapters and/or hba cards...
New drives aren't really necessary if you use either raid6 or run multiple parity drives (so you can lose more than 2 disks at a time) AND you run a preclear on the drives to test the drives initially to make sure they are working reliably as you get started and make sure that you have SMART enabled and monitored. I personally prefer zfs raidz2 (which works like raid 6) but does checksumming on files when they are read and written and regularly scheduled checking against these checksums to make sure that there is no bit rot. If a file being checked fails the checksum test, it's transparently rebuilt from parity. I'm using truenas scale which is similarly featured in terms of running apps and virtual machines.
I went with TrueNas Scale. I bought a PC case, with 8 bays, a used Motherboard/CPU (I5 7500) and an HBA adapter with 8 SATA cables. Total cost excluding drives was only AUD$400 (CAD$360 / USD$265). Great value and it works very well. I have all 8 bays filled with Seagate 18TB Exos drives in RaidZ2 (Kinda like Raid 6 but smarter/better).
TrueNAS has benefit over UnRaid of ZFS which has error correction and scrubs feature that can be set to run at certain intervals to verify your data
With other filesystems raid can tell you your data is corrupted on one of your drives but it can't tell you which drive has the error but with ZFS scrub it will find and correct any bit rot on your array
Unraid now has ZFS support. But I have been thinking about setting up a TrueNAS core, to play with.
@@lilkiduno Ah ok hadn't heard about that however I doubt that the main draw of UnRaid a not raid with parity drive would be useable on any ZFS array
If you are going to play with TrueNAS go for Scale. It's still free but is based on Linux rather than FreeBSD that is used for Core
yeah, duh I knew I wanted scale not core. I was multitasking and had a brain fart.
While I agree, zfs for Unraid isn’t probably what most people, including myself are going to use it for. However, it’s there.
I'm pretty sure you will soon want to try the Plex Media server on your NAS 😅. I got a I5-10500T for very cheap so I decided to build a NAS around it, keeping in mind I might want to upgrade to an Intel 11th Gen processor in future.
I’d be interested to look into that. The fun thing about doing it this way is I can always upgrade and change things
whatever u saved in hardware u will pay it 3 folds in energy costs , ddr2 systems is way too old , even a i3 6100 system which u can get for about same price would be way faster and also not be so inefficient that the energy bill would be the main cost , seriously ddr2 system, no ofense , highly highly not recommend anyone to do this
I could have easily received free server hardware from where I work when it's decommissioned; but I refrain because I'd have to deal with the NOISE, the extra power and in the summer time, I'd have to do something with the heat.. Personally, I think you are taking a bigger chance with old server hardware and then depending upon it than you would have by buying used hard drives off from E-Bay. Ask yourself what will you do when your NAS goes down because the motherboard got fried, or some other major component bit the dust ? Will you be able to work effectively without a NAS for a week or two ? Personally, I'd buy a newer system, build a decent NAS out of it, use it as a primary, and then taken this older system and turn it into a backup server...
The best way to back up a NAS is often a second NAS. My primary NAS is about 7 years old and the price was right when I got it slightly used. it's a brand name NAS, with 16 bays, of which 12 are 4 TB drives, in a RAID6 configuration. I also had a second drive fail in the NAS before I even noticed that the first drive had failed ( it sent me an email, but I get hundreds of emails every day ).. The best way to back up something that large, is another NAS. (The NAS is surprisingly not physically that large ).
I grabbed a dell t5500 off ebay for $60 it came with an ssd and then 2 8tb hard drives yes used off ebay for $60 each and did a mirror it's still a little old being lga 1366 but ram is dirt cheap and I don't pay for power and with it being a tower it's nearly silent especially with the pair of 80mm fans I added for $25 and some soldering
I'm running a HP Proliant Microserver Gen 8 with truenas scale it's running 4 hard drives in raid 5 all good.
i’m running a DS 920+ which is a 4 bay Synology NAS. it’s set up for raid 5 with 18TB drives, so 54TB (50TiB) available. I would like to move to a 6 bay or 8 bay but I haven’t yet decided whether to buy or build. Your video was helpful, thanks.
🇨🇦/🇺🇸... THANKS this should be very helpful. I don't need THAT much storage as I'm nearing retirement age but BECAUSE I'm nearing retirement age, money is tight and I simply don't want to be reliant on very large expenditures for OneDrive and such.
Running truenas with 4tb wd red pro (4x). Hw; 4-bay mini itx nas with a pentium-g3240 I found for $100, then swapped in an i3-4160t cpu I got on ebay for $4. Eventually would like to scale up the storage and switch to a n100 mb for power efficiency.
That’s awesome. How do you like TrueNas?
@@DelaneyMedia So far it works, that's all I can hope for...going in blind, setting up the ZFS pool and enabling SMB share was fairly straight forward, configuring truechart apps to "see" each other was a bit of a learning curve. Watched a few tutorial vids, and now I'm 63.257% confident I know what I'm doing. xD
You should look into LTO tapes. LTO-8 can store 30 TB on a single tape at a cost of around $0.002/gb and they are designed for archival storage as well.
The main barrier is the upfront cost of the tape drive which can be steep but worth it if you're doing this professionally.
I’ve looked into tape drives a bit. Seems like the best option for archiving and longevity. Definitely something I’m considering in the future
@@DelaneyMedia Also insanely expensive and designed for much more storage :(
Unraid is no longer a one-time fee unless you pay $249 for a lifetime license. They had to change their license structure recently so it is no longer as cheap to get in if you wanted it for life, but they do have yearly subscriptions that aren't as expensive.
Yeah, I started filming this video 2 months ago and I got in for their old pricing. It’s unfortunately changed now
upgrade to 2.5g for like 70 bucks - switch and a couple nic and get 230mb/s - worth it before you decide to go to 10g #mtu
I’ll definitely consider that. Much cheaper than 10 gigabit
@@DelaneyMedia i recently got a sodola 2.5 switch - it has 2 10g also - using cat8 cable and realtek equvos (sic) nics - everything runs perfect - the cat8 will let you run 10g and 25g when you eventually upgrade but yeah going to 2.5 is smart with as much storage as you have - make sure to enable jumbo frames - 9000 mtu give a big boost (35%) and then you get the full 2.5 - do a followup
@@DelaneyMedia Given that even a single one of those hard drives can do well over gigabit speeds, the SSD wear isn't getting you much other than burning out an SSD. 2.5g may be able to show a difference, though Undraid is pretty slow compared to true RAID like you would have had from ZFS in TrueNAS. May as well use the SSD potentially for something useful.
Nah I got two Mellanox Connect-4 cards and a 25gb DAC cable for $90 on eBay. That speed will probably outlive his server. 2.5gb and 10gb just don't make sense if you're hardwiring 2 or 3 systems together.
Is that a SuperMicro 2U Server? Which model did you acquire?
Nice one.
Hey how's the CPU holding up with Unraid? I'm building a NAS right now, wanted to use an old E6400 (similar tu yours) but I'm concerned it might be too slow, especially with True NAS or UnRaid...?
I’m a few months in and the only bottleneck is from my gigabit connection. If I upgrade to 2.5gbit in the future the cpu might become a bottleneck
All storage loses its index after a while. Leaving them on the shelf will degrade your storage. HDD last more than a year, while USB drives will die within 6 months. A SATA SSD may last 9 months before the data is corrupted. Install your hardware and run or search it. View docs and photos, play music or video every few months to save your data.
How much you pay for your energy? Looks like you massively understated the energy consumption cost or you get your energy from a nearby nuclear plant.
The "old server" approach is not super applicable since you NEED a basement, the noise is too loud. I prefer to go for used desktop hardware. Low energy consumption, low heat and low noise.
Yeah, you can absolutely do all the same things I did here but use desktop hardware instead. As for the energy, I live in Ontario where there are 2 nuclear plants that provide most of the energy in this area. I understand this could be a bigger problem depending on where you live, and definitely something I should’ve covered in this video. But at least where I live, I’ve barely noticed a change in my electric bill.
I had a similar setup like yours a few years ago and my energy bill went up a lot.so much I had to switch to a desktop setup which uses less energy .still great video
good editing, woud like more talking in one go
Don't forget 2 is 1 and 1 is none. Whatever you create just think you'll need to duplicate it because a NAS isn't a backup solution.
Yep, that’s why I’m using backblaze. Ideally I’d like to have another on-site backup but an online one will do the trick
A very important thing that hasn't been mentioned is the fact that enterprise server components consume a lot of energy. What you save by buying this type of equipment second-hand, you quickly lose in electricity bills.
$140 diy with $475X6 hd thats not $140
Nice video, shame about the clickbait title.
$140 + $1880 + $60 is not a $140 NAS.
If someone buys a Synology box for $700, you would say they bought a $700 NAS. Someone doing this can spend as little or as much as they want on the storage, so I’m not factoring that in. The NAS itself is $140.
Don't forget 2 is 1 and 1 is none. Whatever you create just think you'll need to duplicate it because a NAS isn't a backup solution.
@@BrianThomas You should maybe watch the actual video...
@@ianthewright funny thing about that comment. I wrote it partway through the video. Thanks @ianthewright 🙂
Waaaayyyy to expensive if I was going in to NAS out of server with 60TB+ I would go to used SAS drives which are way cheaper then SATA drives and more effective
I’m always a little wary of used hard drives
Repurposed PC
(i7-8700k, 64GB memory, (5) 12TB Hard Drives)
Using TrueNAS, RAIDZ1
Primary purpose is as a Networked file server...Not of the extra stuff TrueNAS can do.
😂
Yeah, this video is not for the average Joe working a 9/5 trying to care for your new family. This is for the person that can drop $2,000 to $5,000 or more without feeling it. That's ok, because some of us have it and some of us don't.
If you want as much storage as me or more, for sure. The nice thing about RAID is the scalability. You could buy 2 4TB drives for $300 and get all the same functionality.
What a ridiculous comment. An average Joe working a 9-5 probably doesn’t need a 60TB NAS in their house either. There are so many other options for almost any budget. This guy says up front he needs it for his photography work and judging by your comments I don’t think you watch videos before making comments.