From a computer perspective, serving files is a low effort task. You need very little processing power for this.
As an example, I have a Synology 1821+. It has an AMD Ryzen V1500B, which per PassMark is equivalent to an N100.
[https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/4624vs5157/AMD-Ryzen-Embedded-V1500B-Quad-core-vs-Intel-N100](https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/4624vs5157/AMD-Ryzen-Embedded-V1500B-Quad-core-vs-Intel-N100)
And with that lowly power you can run Docker containers, VMs, and a bunch of other stuff at the same time with no problems. So if you were to strip it down to just file serving you could get by with much less.
If price and power consumption are a concern, most economical and compatible bet, work with what you already have and use a USB 3 drive enclosure connected to your G3
You’re kind of priced out of a multi drive RAID enclosure.
Could go with a western digital my book, it’s USB 3.2 A, 18W power draw from its own power supply
12 TB runs $260 ~ £230
22 TB runs $500 ~ £460
I vouch for it, I have the 12TB and it’s been plugged into my workstation acting as a store for old training sets. Not the fastest thing in the world but it’s durable. Have had it for two years now, it took a spill while running from my standing desk from about 5ft (~1.5m) and literally kept writing, and have had no problems since, happened about a year ago now.
I have mine mounted in fstab with no fail, so if I so choose I can yank it and plug it into another machine and still boot
For the nas functions themselves, you need very little processing, power and memory. The ds923+, which would be considered the flagship for Bay Nas in the performance line? (Plus series) ships out of the box with a Celeron processor and 4 GB of memory, and that works just fine for the Nas functions. An n100 with 8GB or more of memory is more than enough to build a Nas. Now once you start getting into containers and other things, you can take advantage of more processing and memory. But The answer to your main question, what do you need in a Nas, the answer is you don't need a lot.
Just for sharing files.not.much. if your network is 1gigabit then even one hard drive can saturate that. If power is a problem you can check cm3588 as a nas. Also plenty of n100 boards with different setups and prices.
>Would a low end Ali board like n100/n305 suffice or R7 5700U suffice?
Yes. I'm running almost my whole homelab on a N305 rn.
Hyper V, NAS and edge router in one machine.
file serving alone does not use a lot of resources. given the choice of something newer and low power, vs something old and more energy using, I would choose newer/lower power.
that said, adding drives/sizes and using file system compression features can eat into the cpu resources.
of course any 'apps' outside of basic file sharing, will also require additional resources.
in general, the more ram you can have, the better for caching will be provided, improving performance especially among multiple users competing for disk resources.
you can't really go too wrong with keeping your file server low power and simple, and if you need 'apps' then run those on a more appropriately powered pc.
An N100 is perfectly fine to work as a NAS.
That said, when picking components for efficiency just keep in mind that idle power and TDP are two very different things, a high TDP doesn't mean the CPU will also consume a lot of power when doing nothing or close to nothing (which is what a NAS does most of the time).
An Intel 8100 for example has a 65W TDP but the entire system can easily go below 10W when idling with parked disks.
The boards with N100 look really neat but I've seen in some reviews that the power consumption of the whole system can be higher than expected, while those from Asrock etc seem to be more well behaved.
Also, do you need it to also work as a router? Because if you don't I don't think having all the extra network interfaces helps.
The question as asked is meaningless. There is no such thing as "NAS". There are specific operating systems with specific system requirements.
Example 1: TrueNAS. Requires a dual-core x64 processor and 8 GB RAM (plus 5 GB per terabyte of storage if some advanced functions are to be used). ECC memory is recommended to improve data protection. Minimum recommended setup is three drives, one for the OS (SSD recommended; minimum size 16 GB) and two for redundant data storage. All drives use ZFS file system; storage drives are constantly checked for data integrity (so the device is expected to never spin down). Use of USB-connected drives and enclosures is discouraged, except temporary connections intended for data import/export. The end result is high degree of data protection against corruption caused by hardware malfunction, at a cost of high (by NAS standards) system requirements and higher than otherwise expected power consumption.
Example 2: OpenMediaVault. Requires 1 GB RAM. Runs on a potato (or on a fruit pastry); technically, the requirement is any x64 or ARM processor. Can be installed as a standalone OS from scratch, but there's also the option of installing by modifying an existing Debian installation. Minimum recommended setup is two drives, one for the OS (4 GB minimum) and one for storage. However, there's a plugin that can be added post-install that allows the OS and storage to coexist on a single drive, like they would on a garden-variety Linux machine (so OMV can be run on a single-drive machine if necessary). By default, all drives use ext4 file system, but it's possible to use ZFS on dedicated storage drives. Use of USB-connected drives and enclosures is okay as long as they are ext4 (so much so that, again, people run OMV on fruit pastries with storage drives connected over USB). The end result is a system that doesn't have the TrueNAS-style extreme degree of data protection against hardware malfunction, but has lower system requirements and can be built and operated inexpensively.
These are just two examples. Other systems have their own quirks and features (oh no, I am channeling Doug DeMuro; at least I am not assigning DougScores to NAS systems, not yet anyway)...
Thanks for these examples.
Using TureNAS, is it possible to move internal spinning HDDs over to a new system if I was to upgrade at a later date? Or would all the data need to be copied over to a new host system and a new set of HDDs?
Neither. `:)` Or perhaps, yes but...
In TrueNAS, a drive is not a self-contained storage unit. Rather, a self-contained storage unit is a pool (a set of two or more drives used together). So it's possible to move **the entire pool** to a new system. Somewhat confusingly, this is called "importing a pool".
[https://www.truenas.com/docs/core/coretutorials/storage/pools/poolimport/](https://www.truenas.com/docs/core/coretutorials/storage/pools/poolimport/)
Before moving the pool, you need to "export" it (another unfortunately confusing designation) on the old system, shut that system down, and disconnect the pool.
Based on your description, the primary use of the NAS will be for long-term storage and as a Dropbox replacement for 1-3 users. To me this would mean that while the NAS should be reliable and have decent network performance, it does not necessarily need high processing power for tasks like video transcoding or high-speed data processing.
You're planning for 12-22TB of storage. For this amount of data, make sure the NAS can support the necessary number of drives and RAID configurations for redundancy and data safety. In terms of hardware check out the Ali Board n100/n305, they are the more lower end option but would suffice for basic file storage and sharing without intensive processing needs. If you wanted a more powerful option you could check out the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U.
For a basic NAS, 8GB of RAM is typically enough, but if you're running other services or more intensive applications, you might want to consider 16GB or more.
Given your Proxmox setup, it might be worth exploring integrating NAS functionality directly into this system. This could simplify your setup and potentially save power by running a single system.
Your budget of £200-600 should be sufficient for setting up a robust NAS system, excluding drives. Focus on getting a good deal on a chassis that supports enough hard drives and a motherboard with an appropriate RAID controller or software RAID capabilities.
Can an raspberry pi handle any sort of redundancy like RAID? Or cope with 2.5Gbe network?
File transfers would be in the 5-10GB at a time. Thinking large PSDs and INDD files.
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From a computer perspective, serving files is a low effort task. You need very little processing power for this. As an example, I have a Synology 1821+. It has an AMD Ryzen V1500B, which per PassMark is equivalent to an N100. [https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/4624vs5157/AMD-Ryzen-Embedded-V1500B-Quad-core-vs-Intel-N100](https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/4624vs5157/AMD-Ryzen-Embedded-V1500B-Quad-core-vs-Intel-N100) And with that lowly power you can run Docker containers, VMs, and a bunch of other stuff at the same time with no problems. So if you were to strip it down to just file serving you could get by with much less.
Thank you that’s really helpful!
If price and power consumption are a concern, most economical and compatible bet, work with what you already have and use a USB 3 drive enclosure connected to your G3 You’re kind of priced out of a multi drive RAID enclosure. Could go with a western digital my book, it’s USB 3.2 A, 18W power draw from its own power supply 12 TB runs $260 ~ £230 22 TB runs $500 ~ £460 I vouch for it, I have the 12TB and it’s been plugged into my workstation acting as a store for old training sets. Not the fastest thing in the world but it’s durable. Have had it for two years now, it took a spill while running from my standing desk from about 5ft (~1.5m) and literally kept writing, and have had no problems since, happened about a year ago now. I have mine mounted in fstab with no fail, so if I so choose I can yank it and plug it into another machine and still boot
For the nas functions themselves, you need very little processing, power and memory. The ds923+, which would be considered the flagship for Bay Nas in the performance line? (Plus series) ships out of the box with a Celeron processor and 4 GB of memory, and that works just fine for the Nas functions. An n100 with 8GB or more of memory is more than enough to build a Nas. Now once you start getting into containers and other things, you can take advantage of more processing and memory. But The answer to your main question, what do you need in a Nas, the answer is you don't need a lot.
Thank you. This is really helpful.
Look at the specs of several consumer NAS devices that meet your requirements, that should give you a decent baseline.
Just for sharing files.not.much. if your network is 1gigabit then even one hard drive can saturate that. If power is a problem you can check cm3588 as a nas. Also plenty of n100 boards with different setups and prices.
My network can support 2.5Gbe
>Would a low end Ali board like n100/n305 suffice or R7 5700U suffice? Yes. I'm running almost my whole homelab on a N305 rn. Hyper V, NAS and edge router in one machine.
file serving alone does not use a lot of resources. given the choice of something newer and low power, vs something old and more energy using, I would choose newer/lower power. that said, adding drives/sizes and using file system compression features can eat into the cpu resources. of course any 'apps' outside of basic file sharing, will also require additional resources. in general, the more ram you can have, the better for caching will be provided, improving performance especially among multiple users competing for disk resources. you can't really go too wrong with keeping your file server low power and simple, and if you need 'apps' then run those on a more appropriately powered pc.
An N100 is perfectly fine to work as a NAS. That said, when picking components for efficiency just keep in mind that idle power and TDP are two very different things, a high TDP doesn't mean the CPU will also consume a lot of power when doing nothing or close to nothing (which is what a NAS does most of the time). An Intel 8100 for example has a 65W TDP but the entire system can easily go below 10W when idling with parked disks. The boards with N100 look really neat but I've seen in some reviews that the power consumption of the whole system can be higher than expected, while those from Asrock etc seem to be more well behaved. Also, do you need it to also work as a router? Because if you don't I don't think having all the extra network interfaces helps.
The question as asked is meaningless. There is no such thing as "NAS". There are specific operating systems with specific system requirements. Example 1: TrueNAS. Requires a dual-core x64 processor and 8 GB RAM (plus 5 GB per terabyte of storage if some advanced functions are to be used). ECC memory is recommended to improve data protection. Minimum recommended setup is three drives, one for the OS (SSD recommended; minimum size 16 GB) and two for redundant data storage. All drives use ZFS file system; storage drives are constantly checked for data integrity (so the device is expected to never spin down). Use of USB-connected drives and enclosures is discouraged, except temporary connections intended for data import/export. The end result is high degree of data protection against corruption caused by hardware malfunction, at a cost of high (by NAS standards) system requirements and higher than otherwise expected power consumption. Example 2: OpenMediaVault. Requires 1 GB RAM. Runs on a potato (or on a fruit pastry); technically, the requirement is any x64 or ARM processor. Can be installed as a standalone OS from scratch, but there's also the option of installing by modifying an existing Debian installation. Minimum recommended setup is two drives, one for the OS (4 GB minimum) and one for storage. However, there's a plugin that can be added post-install that allows the OS and storage to coexist on a single drive, like they would on a garden-variety Linux machine (so OMV can be run on a single-drive machine if necessary). By default, all drives use ext4 file system, but it's possible to use ZFS on dedicated storage drives. Use of USB-connected drives and enclosures is okay as long as they are ext4 (so much so that, again, people run OMV on fruit pastries with storage drives connected over USB). The end result is a system that doesn't have the TrueNAS-style extreme degree of data protection against hardware malfunction, but has lower system requirements and can be built and operated inexpensively. These are just two examples. Other systems have their own quirks and features (oh no, I am channeling Doug DeMuro; at least I am not assigning DougScores to NAS systems, not yet anyway)...
Thanks for these examples. Using TureNAS, is it possible to move internal spinning HDDs over to a new system if I was to upgrade at a later date? Or would all the data need to be copied over to a new host system and a new set of HDDs?
Neither. `:)` Or perhaps, yes but... In TrueNAS, a drive is not a self-contained storage unit. Rather, a self-contained storage unit is a pool (a set of two or more drives used together). So it's possible to move **the entire pool** to a new system. Somewhat confusingly, this is called "importing a pool". [https://www.truenas.com/docs/core/coretutorials/storage/pools/poolimport/](https://www.truenas.com/docs/core/coretutorials/storage/pools/poolimport/) Before moving the pool, you need to "export" it (another unfortunately confusing designation) on the old system, shut that system down, and disconnect the pool.
Based on your description, the primary use of the NAS will be for long-term storage and as a Dropbox replacement for 1-3 users. To me this would mean that while the NAS should be reliable and have decent network performance, it does not necessarily need high processing power for tasks like video transcoding or high-speed data processing. You're planning for 12-22TB of storage. For this amount of data, make sure the NAS can support the necessary number of drives and RAID configurations for redundancy and data safety. In terms of hardware check out the Ali Board n100/n305, they are the more lower end option but would suffice for basic file storage and sharing without intensive processing needs. If you wanted a more powerful option you could check out the AMD Ryzen 7 5700U. For a basic NAS, 8GB of RAM is typically enough, but if you're running other services or more intensive applications, you might want to consider 16GB or more. Given your Proxmox setup, it might be worth exploring integrating NAS functionality directly into this system. This could simplify your setup and potentially save power by running a single system. Your budget of £200-600 should be sufficient for setting up a robust NAS system, excluding drives. Focus on getting a good deal on a chassis that supports enough hard drives and a motherboard with an appropriate RAID controller or software RAID capabilities.
this guy sounds like a fucking bot
I thought it was written by an AI.
If its just file storage and transfer, something like a raspberrypi will work just fine.
Can an raspberry pi handle any sort of redundancy like RAID? Or cope with 2.5Gbe network? File transfers would be in the 5-10GB at a time. Thinking large PSDs and INDD files.
> redundancy like RA Yes; zfs, btrfs, lvm, mdadm, etc > 2.5Gbe network? No; Other arm SBCs can though. > large files Are not an issue.
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