Building NAS Server

[BababooeyHTJ]

I've been thinking of building an Atom based NAS Server for a while now. I have a 1tb Spinpoint that I can use for the HDD and I think that it would be perfect. Here is a quick parts list. Any comments or sugestions would be greatly appreciated, Thanks. I've never built or even used one of these but it would be cool.

Atom 330 board (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121359)
Ram (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231119)
Case (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163149&Tpk=sg05)

The option to add a second drive in a Mini-itx case would be nice but no deal breaker. I'm thinking about using FreeNAS for an OS or a bare bones Gentoo install, not sure yet. Like I said I've never even used an NAS before so suggestions would be cool.

[angelkiller]

Hardware looks fine.

I will first admit that FreeNAS is pretty easy to setup. This article (http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30571/77/) details setting up FreeNAS on an Atom box. However, I've read that it doesn't give the best performance. This article (http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30573/77/) details installing Ubuntu Server on the same Atom box. Ubuntu Server is able to offer more performance than FreeNAS could. But remember they're on a Gigabit network, and if you plan on using the integrated 10/100 network controller, this is a moot point.

And of course there are other options as well. I just named the two that I would use.

[Tau]

IMO i would put it in a bigger case for when you want to add more storage... as honestly 1TB is nothing.

[Geofrancis]

i have just built a atom 330 itx nas with 5Tb
http://i44.tinypic.com/ifwx9j.jpg

its a modified morex 669 case chopped down to fit a 5 bay sata hotswap case. i got the idea from here http://www.mashie.org/casemods/udat3.html

stay away from the samsung drives for a nas they aint the quietest and cant be set at sata 150 so wont work with most sata cards. i didnt find that oout untill i bought 2 of them! get the western digital or seagate.

[angelkiller]

^^ That's a pretty nice setup! 5TB :eek:

Can you tell me more about that? ie Do you have a gigabit Lan card? What software does it run? How do you access/use it? Performance?

Thanks. I'm really curious.

[Geofrancis]

it has onboard gigabit ethernet and a pci raid card on a pci riser turned 90 degrees over the motherboard for the sata raid . it runs windows xp media center and all it has plugged into it is a monitor, remote and sound. i control it over the network with tight vnc a remote desktop program. the only problem is you cant use partitions over 2 tb with 32bit windows so its getting converted over to server 2003 x64 once i get the raid setup

[alucasa]

Here is mine.

Currently, at 3.5TB space, expandable to 4TB by replacing two non-1TB drives with 1TB drives.

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt4/alucasa/IMG_1679.jpg

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt4/alucasa/img1640d.jpg

[Geofrancis]

thats the case i would have liked but its very expensive here at £200 compared to the morex 669 + hdd cage £50

[alucasa]

200 in Europe ?! Are you serious ?

[Geofrancis]

yup http://linitx.com/viewproduct.php?prodid=11999

[alucasa]

200 euro (or 194 to be exact) is over 300 CAD, and that doesn't include shipping. VAT is killing the deal, I see.

[Geofrancis]

no i mean uk pounds UK£ 194 = 343.187861 Canadian dollars + shipping

how much did u pay for it?

[alucasa]

http://ncix.com/products/?sku=33078&vpn=ES34069-BK-120&manufacture=CHENBRO

244 CAD, plus tax (7%), plus ground shipping. My total was about 270CAD all included.