[foroman]

Hello,
I'm thinking of building my first NAS+HTPC combo. I will use it basically for centralized storage (video, photos, music, automated backups of two notebooks etc.) and streaming videos directly to TV through HDMI. Here is what I've picked so far, any feedback, ideas, improvments... just anything is highly appreciated. Thank you!

Motherboard & Chipset: GIGABYTE GA-C1037UN Intel Dual-core Celeron 1037U (1.8 GHz) Mini ITX
$86.49 / http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
Power Supply: SeaSonic SS-300TFX Bronze 300W
$39.99 / http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
Memory: ADATA XPG V1.0 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
$36.99 / http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
HDD for OS: SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE120BW 2.5" 120GB SATA III TLC (SSD)
$79.99 / http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
HDD: Seagate NAS HDD ST3000VN000 3TB 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s Internal Hard Drive
$119.99 / http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
Case: COOLER MASTER Elite 361 RC-361-KKN1 Black Computer Case
$39.99 / http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

OS: No idea so far, probably will try to set up Ubuntu first... and there's always Win 8.1 if Ubuntu will fail...

[two515ty]

+1 for 1037u. I use one for my NAS (running FreeNAS). However, I might recommend that you get either the ECS or Biostats models since they have a PCI Express 1x slot, rather than the plain PCI slot in the Gigabyte model.

Also, any reason in particular that you chose that case? You listed a Mini-ITX motherboard, but your case doesn't support mini-ITX motherboards.

I'd also recommend the Corsair CX430 instead of that Seasonic PSU. That Seasonic PSU looks to be pretty long, and the corsair PSU will supply a little more power for about the same price.

Overall though, I do have to question how you want to set this computer up. You're going to use it as a NAS, but you're only sharing one drive? Or are you getting multiple 3 TB drives? If so, do you plan to set up some kind of drive failure tolerance such as RAID5 or RAID6? What is your primary usage scenario like?


You say you want to use this computer as a NAS and a HTPC. On the NAS side, how many devices do you plan to share media to?

[.:B:.]

I'd recommend sticking with a 300W PSU or similar. The Seasonic 360W G-series is an excellent pick, for example. The Corsair is quality as well but the less power your system consumes (and comparatively speaking it will use less with a more powerful PSU), the less efficient your PSU is. The 80+ labels only apply from a certain load, and on a 430W system you won't get there (heck even a 300 or 360W PSU will not go there without a lot of disks or peripherals, with modern systems idling).

If you want a good file system, look at ZFS (does RAID as well if you need it but also data checksumming, so data corruption is caught). Btrfs should have similar features, and lots of people use it as their daily driver. I have moved my desktop's root partition to btrfs, but my server's data is still on ZFS and it will remain like that for a while, still.

RAID in itself is no guarantee for data integrity. It will not catch data corruption (that's up to the file system). It's not a backup either, so there's really no reason for RAID. If you need backups, you should make them, so that when a drive goes belly up you still have your data.

[foroman]

Well, good points actually, how about those changes:

BIOSTAR NM70I-1037U Intel Celeron 1037U Dual-Core 1.8GHz Intel NM70 Mini ITX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6813138393

COOLER MASTER N Series NSE-200-KKN1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6811119274

SeaSonic SS-300ET Bronze 300W ATX12V V2.3 80 PLUS BRONZE
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6817151086

As for other questions:
"You're going to use it as a NAS, but you're only sharing one drive?" - no, I've got 2TB WD green in my old Popcorn A200 and 1TB in old WD Book, both of those I'm planning to utilize in this combo... hopefully there's nothing wrong with that... although the moment I will transfer all the data onto 3TB Seagate and put old drives into this nas+htpc combo it's already too late to google ZFS I guess... well, have to take a better look at what RAID and ZFS are...

"What is your primary usage scenario like?" - just put my data there, setup some automatic backups of two notebooks and forget about NAS thing, as for HTPC - just audio and video playback... audio playback with optical audio cable directly into AVR, and video playback directly into plasma through HDMI...

"how many devices do you plan to share media to?" - two notebooks, couple androids, AVR and TV...

OR maybe forget about 1037U and go with i3 Haswell?
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/H4KwkL

[two515ty]

Unless there is a specific need for the increased CPU power, I can't see any reason to jump from the 1037U to the i3. It will cost more money overall, but without much added benefit. I use my 1037U to run Samba, Plex, Transmission and FTP, and it all works just fine. I'll admit that I don't have many concurrent connections to it, but it should stream content to multiple devices with no problem.

Those parts you listed look fine.

You can share those multiple different-sized drives, but you may not be able to set up any kind of drive failure tolerance. If a drive dies, whatever is stored on it will likely be completely lost. Many people use ZFS and other software RAID options with multiple drives of the same size to ensure that they don't lose any data if one or two drives fail. It's all about how important your data is and how much money you want to put into setting up your server.

[CaptainPsycho]

If you want a good file system, look at ZFS (does RAID as well if you need it but also data checksumming, so data corruption is caught). Btrfs should have similar features, and lots of people use it as their daily driver. I have moved my desktop's root partition to btrfs, but my server's data is still on ZFS and it will remain like that for a while, still.

ZFS is IMHO not good for home media storage. With just one disk there are nearly zero benefits, And for home usage you likely don'tu use the snapshop feature.
Second thing is that you just can extend your current disk array with multiples of it. 3 disks can only be extended with another 3 or complete replacement of the current 3 disks.

Is BTRFS stable enough right now?

For home usage and maximum flexibility I'd still recommend mdadm + lvm + ext4.

[Dougie Fresh]

Something to consider when it comes to RAID: on a limited budget, it's better to look into how to backup your media vs. keeping your server downtime at a minimum. RAID gives you the latter and some data integrity but it's not a substitute for backup. RAID for instance will not protect you against accidental deletion or let you go back to a previous version of some file. These are things most home users care about most.

Of course, it's what's important to you but most home users can live with some server downtime but they can't live with losing their media.

I have a three-prong strategy to protecting my data. I have a local backup of everything on my server and a cloud backup of the things that cannot be replaced. So, my movies are protected against things like accidental deletion and hardware failure. My family pictures/videos/documents have that protection plus a copy offsite to protect against disaster/fire/theft.

My home server is a C1037U with two drivepools: 6TB + 4TB and 2 x 4TB + 3TB. The first pool is my on-line data. The second pool is the backup pool. I use CrashPlan for offsite backup. My home server has a hotswap bay so I might take a snapshot of my movies onto some older HDDs and store them at my parents' house so at least I have an offsite backup of those as well. Why not irreplaceable like home videos and pictures, it would be very hard to get them all back.

[CaptainPsycho]

I have a three-prong strategy to protecting my data. I have a local backup of everything on my server and a cloud backup of the things that cannot be replaced. So, my movies are protected against things like accidental deletion and hardware failure.

Hardware failure should be covered with raid.

For media collections i think a full backup is too much to protect against accidentially deleted items.
If you want this eventually go the zfs or btrfs route and use snapshots.

[.:B:.]

If you want a good file system, look at ZFS (does RAID as well if you need it but also data checksumming, so data corruption is caught). Btrfs should have similar features, and lots of people use it as their daily driver. I have moved my desktop's root partition to btrfs, but my server's data is still on ZFS and it will remain like that for a while, still.

ZFS is IMHO not good for home media storage. With just one disk there are nearly zero benefits, And for home usage you likely don'tu use the snapshop feature.
Second thing is that you just can extend your current disk array with multiples of it. 3 disks can only be extended with another 3 or complete replacement of the current 3 disks.

I do have a mirror setup, but even without that, because of its data integrity features, ZFS would be an interesting choice. At least you'd get to see how quickly your content degrades on-disk, instead of getting silent bitrot and the likes that are now normal. I had my music collection (personal rips) on a Samsung HD204UI, only when I moved it to ZFS I started noticing how many files corrupted - and how quickly. After a few months, it was in the hundreds. Luckily due to error correction etc. it takes a bit to be audible, but I don't know how much more files already got corrupted before I moved to ZFS. Heck, I might have still been on ext4 and that crappy disk and wondering why once in a blue moon my FLAC files failed to play back.

Is BTRFS stable enough right now?

If you ask the devs it's an academic question... I am running it on my desktop as my root partition OS now, not entrusting it with my data yet (no personal experience for that). But it should be the Linux answer to ZFS - ZFS of course being more mature (having a head start of multiple years on BTRFS I believe).

For home usage and maximum flexibility I'd still recommend mdadm + lvm + ext4.

That's three layers, three potential sources for problems - ZFS can do all three. Plus data integrity

[foroman]

Unless there is a specific need for the increased CPU power, I can't see any reason to jump from the 1037U to the i3. It will cost more money overall, but without much added benefit. I use my 1037U to run Samba, Plex, Transmission and FTP, and it all works just fine. I'll admit that I don't have many concurrent connections to it, but it should stream content to multiple devices with no problem.

Good to know, I'm not a fan of overspending (4130T setup is around 80$ more), just wasn't sure 1037U will be capable of streaming 1080p... but if you say your setup is running smoothly, than probably there is no reason for me to change it to Haswell and pay more for "just to be sure" state of mind...

Something to consider when it comes to RAID: on a limited budget, it's better to look into how to backup your media vs. keeping your server downtime at a minimum.

Yes, another good point, actually NAS part of my future NAS+HTPC combo is just for centralized storage at home, automatic backups of notebooks and for more convenient and "easy to use" media library. It's just much easier to have it all in one place. Not 100% secure, but what is?

And in the future I think I will "RAID" those media (Raid 1 should be enough, no?) or at least some of it (I guess it's possible to set up RAID for some drives only and let others just sit there as they are... or put them in Raid0).

As for actual backup of important data such as some old documents, family photos, work etc. - those irreplaceable data will be backed up to Amazon Glacier (I don't need to change them nor have daily access, that's why Glacier)... the only issue with that is how to make it automatic and incremental, probably with some client and a bit of tinkering, but that's OT here.

And as for media library, if some data will be lost before I will put them in RAID... Well, it's not the end of the world. Yes, pain in the a**, but still... that's not a photo of cake from your kid's birthday party...

Finally regarding ZFS and other "stuff" - I took a look into it, and not convinced it has any use for me... I want it as easy and simple as possible... Automatic incremental backups to NAS, centralized storage for media files, automatic backup of important files to Glacier and video playback directly into TV... I know building HTPC+NAS combo isn't best way of "keeping it simple", but that's because I'd like to get my hands dirty with hardware "stuff"... it's been long since I messed with my Intel 486... or was it pentum, not sure now... So basically I'm building it mostly for fun... Take it away, and I'd had some synology box combined with WD HD TV Live already...

[two515ty]

Unless there is a specific need for the increased CPU power, I can't see any reason to jump from the 1037U to the i3. It will cost more money overall, but without much added benefit. I use my 1037U to run Samba, Plex, Transmission and FTP, and it all works just fine. I'll admit that I don't have many concurrent connections to it, but it should stream content to multiple devices with no problem.

Good to know, I'm not a fan of overspending (4130T setup is around 80$ more), just wasn't sure 1037U will be capable of streaming 1080p... but if you say your setup is running smoothly, than probably there is no reason for me to change it to Haswell and pay more for "just to be sure" state of mind...

How do you plan on streaming your media? If you're playing the files directly and/or with XBMC, then CPU speed is hardly an issue. I used to stream 1080p media from a PogoPlug (running an ARMv5 processor used for mobile devices), which is not nearly as strong as a 1037U or an i3. The only time you need to worry about CPU power when it comes to streaming is if you're using Plex or some other kind of software that transcodes instead of playing the files directly.

[tential]

Any reason for the 1037u over cheaper, more powerful, less power consumption J1800 or J1900?
Edit: Nvm, read the thread and now understand OP's knowledge level.

Your SSD is overkill for a file server OP. It will only be relevant if you are actually using the system for other activities, but if it's a strict file server it's extreme overkill.

You can run a budget SSD and be perfectly fine (with a lot less space as well). It's a file server, you're not supposed to be using this computer so get the minimum specs you need and focus on spending the money and the part of the file server that actually matters (files/HDDs).

Edit: Also, your powersupply of 300 Watts is extreme overkill. You at MOST need 150 watts of power. You'll be better served by a PicoPSU+Laptop Power Brick for this build. It's silent.

If you want a silent build that is cheaper than what you just put up, go with a J1900 processor (It's the newer celeron of the one you just picked up that also happens to be cheaper as well), and a Pico PSU+Power Brick (which should come out maybe 5 dollars-10 dollars more expensive than your 300W power supply) and you have a completely silent file server. (Depends on whether you want to run case fans or not on your case).

[CaptainPsycho]

[quote='CaptainPsycho' pid='1744273' dateline='1404121956']

Is BTRFS stable enough right now?

If you ask the devs it's an academic question... I am running it on my desktop as my root partition OS now, not entrusting it with my data yet (no personal experience for that). But it should be the Linux answer to ZFS - ZFS of course being more mature (having a head start of multiple years on BTRFS I believe).

OK, my question was more aiming on the availability of all tools. Reshaping / rebuilding an array is more common in home usage than in professional business, where you often have the chanche to copy all data once in a while to a fresh setup machine.

At home you are upgrading one or two disks an rearanging the arrays simply cause you f.e. don't want to swap all disks for newer bigger ones.

[foroman]

How do you plan on streaming your media? If you're playing the files directly and/or with XBMC, then CPU speed is hardly an issue.

Direct playback from NASTY through HDMI to TV (NAS w' Theater... tired of writing "NAS+HTPC combo"... not to mention NASTY sounds way better or maybe NEMS - networked mediaplayer with additional storage... nah, NASTY is better...)

Any reason for the 1037u over cheaper, more powerful, less power consumption J1800 or J1900?
Edit: Nvm, read the thread and now understand OP's knowledge level.

Yup, that's it, my level of knowledge is the main issue here as I've never heard of J1800... It started as NAS build and 1037U was mentioned in this article (http://blog.brianmoses.net/2014/06/diy-n...-2014.html )... but later I realised that it has to be NASTY (see above, patent pending ). All-in-one box is my main target here, otherwise it's easier and cheaper just to by some basic two disc Synology + WD TV Live and forget about it. But where's fun in that?

Your SSD is overkill for a file server OP. It will only be relevant if you are actually using the system for other activities, but if it's a strict file server it's extreme overkill.

You think? It's silent, less power... but you're probably right that there is no need in Samsung EVO... some budget 120GB Kingston, Crucial or similar should do it...

It's a file server, you're not supposed to be using this computer so get the minimum specs you need and focus on spending the money and the part of the file server that actually matters (files/HDDs).

No, it's NASTY... and as laziness goes it's only matter of time to use it for occasional browsing, mails etc... one day after watching a movie I will be too lazy to get up for notebook or tablet and will launch firefox just to check something... and that's it, that's all it needs, I'll get up only to put kids in bed... unless this box will be capable of doing it as well... not sure which connector to use though...

Edit: Also, your powersupply of 300 Watts is extreme overkill. You at MOST need 150 watts of power. You'll be better served by a PicoPSU+Laptop Power Brick for this build. It's silent.
If you want a silent build that is cheaper than what you just put up, go with a J1900 processor (It's the newer celeron of the one you just picked up that also happens to be cheaper as well), and a Pico PSU+Power Brick (which should come out maybe 5 dollars-10 dollars more expensive than your 300W power supply) and you have a completely silent file server. (Depends on whether you want to run case fans or not on your case).

Great advice, thank you, will take a better look at this type of PSU and processor. Thank you!

[.:B:.]

You could get a laptop HD instead of an SSD, cheaper, and power consumption won't differ much (contrary to popular belief SSDs can still use some power, compared with 2,5" HDs).

Crucial is a good brand but I wouldn't get Kingston. If you buy stuff, buy decent stuff, not the cheap crap that might die on you.