[Rodimus]

Evening all,

I've been a frequent reader around here for what seems like an eternity, and I've been debating a HTPC for years but I've jsut ended up streaming things to my laptop over my network or sticking them on USBs to watch on my WDTV(s I have 2).

I'm in the UK in terms of pricing, which also limits getting my hands on some gear.

I've finally decided (now that I have XBMC running on my M11X to take the plunge and make my own HTPC....right after I deal with the epic mes sof drives that has become my media collection.

As it stands I have a few external HDDs and about 3TB in my main tower streaming over the network. I'm planning to update this all to a media server/NAS and then move each drive over. That way everyone can get to it easier, then I'll get on with building my new HTPC.

Long story short I'd love to pick your brains on this build as a cheap NAS!

I'm planning on running UNRAID $59 USD at the minute so another operating system is not an issue.

Case = Antec 300 £50 ish.

CPU = AMD Semperon 140 2.7 ghz £25 ish

Mobo, here I've hit a few issues. I'm torn basically, I'm thinking 6 SATA to cover for easy expansion (especially as I will have at least 4 drives in there to start with)

All are £39-42
Either: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-m4a7...d-graphics
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/msi-740gm...-raid-uatx
http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-m4a78l...4294963789

Ram = Depending which I get it's approx 1gig for £12 DDR3 £14 DDR2.

PSU = I kept debating a few then stumbled across:

BeQuiet 530W

Now this PSU is undoubtedly overkill, but I'm half planning for the future on this part. I have the 800+W version in my gaming tower and it is deathly quiet and the power consumption is brilliant.

Corsair 430W emory Builder was my other option.

That's everything and it comes to (again roughly) £210. ex shipping. I can get an extra 3% off anything I buy from dabs too, so that'd probably leave me with free shipping essentially for those parts.

Factor in a few WDs which are on sale at the moment and I think I've put together a rather nice NAS for a few evenings part shopping...and months of reading

Thanks in advance for your opinions!

[numb7rs]

If your NAS is just going to be a storage, then either of those motherboards will do fine. You're not looking for performance, so it's mostly personal preference/price. You say you can get money off at dabs, I say go for it.

As for the PSU, I don't know mush about the BeQuiet ones, though they seem to get good reviews from the germans. I've had my Corsair PSU for over two years now, it keeps my ears and my wallet happy! But again, both will be fine, it's your choice.

[dan1son]

I have a small dual core atom based server which has been wonderful the year or so I've had it. I spent about $170 on the case/mb/cpu/ram and the rest on drives. Power consumption is amazing, which is the main reason I went with such a lower power little box.

It replaced an old Athlon 1500 server I had used for 5+ years and the power consumption was about halved, and the processing power probably quadrupled. It's also in a 2-bay low profile case (maybe 6 inches high) which is nice.

Just another option to consider. The Atoms really do make great file servers.

[Rodimus]

The only reasons I've gone for such a large case and UNRAID is for future storage enhancements, I'm (slowly) digitising all my old dvds etc. Time consuming but worth it.

[dan1son]

Yeah you can go that route and run your own RAID... there are also external RAID enclosures. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...-_-Product for example.

Those basically run RAID internally and hookup with USB2 or eSata to your NAS server.

[maxinc]

As much as I love the Atom for a NAS idea, problem is future expansion. The ATOM boards that could fit the bill either cost silly money (to justify the power savings) or they come with limited SATA ports and limited number of PIC-E Slots.

With any of those main boards you listed you can add about 16 drives (with additional pci-e controllers) without sacrificing any performance to bus bottlenecks. This happens to be about the maximum amount of drives you can fit inside the Antec 300 anyways.

Problem with that PSU is that is dual rail so a big chunk of it's power is dedicated to the PCI-E connectors feeding a video card which you don't have and never will in a NAS. A single rail PSU is more desirable considering the expansion for this single reason. The NAS will get noisy as you keep adding drives to it so PSU noise will be the least of your concerns.

[Rodimus]

Ah yeah I've heard that before, that a single rail is the best bet. So in that case the Corsair is the better bet, or something similar with good power consumption levels. I reckon 450W ish is probably the sweet spot I need to aim for anyway. It'll have 5-6 drives to start I think. 4 is the bare mimimum with what I have lying around anyway.

[maxinc]

Use this rule to estimate the power of the PSU required for a NAS (got it from the unRAID forum).

2Amps for each Green Drive, 3Amps for each non Green Drive
5-6Amps for the MB + CPU
10% on top to be on the safe side.

Hard drives suck a lot of power when they spin up and unfortunately they all do when you power up the system. The power consumption goes down after a few seconds but the PSU need to cope with that temporary surge.

So if you plan to go up to 15 Drives for example, 40Amps on the 12V rail should be fine. That is probably in the 500-550W Range.

[Rodimus]

Ah now that is some excellent info. Thank you. I did most of my UNRAID research from other sources rather than their forum so I blatantly missed that one.

I'm torn now, the corsair is very nice for the price (£36 so say $55 US give or take), single rail and 430W so easily good enough until I have alot more drives in there than I currently plan on installing.