low-power DIY NAS solution

PC Hardware & Gaming PC Builds, Modding & Overclocking
1

Hi,

Some time soon, I expect to stop having a PC at home since there will be two laptops that cover everyone’s needs. I want to replace the PC with a low-power NAS box for data backup. I am looking to build a box with the following features:

  1. Cheap (less than 10k) (edit: forgot to say that)

  2. As small as possible.

  3. Low power

  4. Able to host two SATA HDDs (four is ideal)

  5. Network adapter (wireless not essential)

  6. USB ports to attach removable drives for data transfer

  7. Support Linux (I intend to run a combination of LVM, software RAID, SAMBA and NFS)

  8. No graphics required (edit: forgot to say that too!)

I am newbie to acquiring hardware of this kind … what I found from my preliminary search is that the Zotac Ion seems to be what I need. Are there other options?

Sameer.

2

Get a Marvell Sheeva plug and you are done.

Hook storage to it and an ethernet cable, you are good to go.

3

Ok … the Sheeva seems to be an SoC … but is there an off-the-shelf box I can use?

4

Check the Western Digital World Edition boxes.

5

The Sheeva Plug is indeed nice, but I want to build something which can also host the HDDs … no point in having one really small box with two USB cases sitting next to it, and each one having its own power supply!

Sameer.

6

World Edition II has all the right features … but that’s freaking expensive! I plan to build my own box, and would like it to be as low as possible inside of 10k! Also having it run Linux will give immense flexibility, allowing me to run my own scripts off it instead of just being a dumb box.

Sameer.

7

Where can you get the Marvell Sheeva in India?

8

Buy cheap used stuff, add hard drives, install windows home server.

9

build pc with intel atom, it will be with in 10K,

I would suggest wait for intel pineview it will have low power consummation then current atom platform.

10

Try and pick up the Linksys NAS200. Should be around Rs. 7000 or so. Can anyone confirm on pricing as I need to pick one up myself.

11

The problem with that is that it still uses PC (old) components which are not very high on power saving.

To the OP:

Do you plan to use this NAS box with other devices on your LAN as well or is it with just your PC. The reason I am asking this is if its just with your PC, then wouldn’t something like a Sata enclosure like this meet your requirements: eBay India: CFI 5 Bay E-SATA Cabinet (item 150368942361 end time 27-Sep-2009 13:43:50 IST)

The above item is more of a Sata Backplane than a NAS but if it can be connected to your PC with Sata/E-Sata it solves your problem.

12

I guess what I am looking for is an ultra-small PC, that I will use primarily for storage … here is one from Via, but I don’t know if it is available in India, and at what price:

VIA ARTiGO A2000
VIA ARTiGO A2000 Barebone Storage Server

Another branded possibility is the ASUS barebones offering based on Intel Atom.

Thanks for the help so far! I’ll go check prices for building an Atom box …

13

LOL get a nettop :face_with_tongue:

14

Get Atom single core & a GigE NIC + 1 or 2 Green HDD. Run ubuntu server with webmin and software RAID. Hook that to a GigE router, you will get faster NAS box than you can get for this price range. What more, you can run torrents as well on that box. If you want more computing power get the dual core atom minus the NIC.

15

Promise SmartStor 4300N is what I guess you are looking for. Priced at $370 and around Rs.25K in India (Genesis - Broadcast, Streaming and Storage) it is a bit expensive. I would say go for an Intel Atom based machine.

16

http://www.techenclave.com/guides-and-tutorials/my-network-experiment-145541.html

Soory for the pimping.. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

17

Get an Intel D945GCLF Atom 1.6 GHz mini-ITX board + CPU for ~Rs.3.1k. Add a DDR2 667 DIMM, two 500 GB SATA HDDs and a PSU/Cabinet, and you’re good to go for below Rs.10k. Wall-plug power consumption is about 40-45W, of which the two SATA drives alone will account for about 25-30W.

As an added bonus, the Atom supports EM64T (X86_64) as well as Hyperthreading - it’s about 3x the performance of a P3/800 at 1/5th the CPU power dissipation.

18

thats excellent for a first post , but did you read through that post above?