Hi everyone, glad to be here. 

 

Looking at building an unraid NAS for home use to achieve the following. I'm already running everything below on Windows 10 using SMB shares but I would like to upgrade my PC and use my existing hardware, if possible, to build a NAS.  In some cases I'am unsure if my requirements can be met but I would love for the community to provide some insight. I have my requirements are below. 

 

1. Plex media server. I have paid for plex pass

2. Access and share my personal files over my home  network. Specifiaclly Windows documents via office 2021, pictures, music. Access my music via Sonos

3. Automatically backup these files 

4. Backup 18TB plex media files and create a backup. 

5. Cloud Access. Be able to access my personal files from my phone or laptop if I'm away.

6. Cloud access. Sync files on my android phone to my cloud and have them backup automatically. 

7. It would like to setup a Windows VM to continue using Office 2021

8. I have a 1TB Samsung SSD  drive that I can repurpose,  will that be efficient?

 

 

I have the following hardware which I can repurpose. Not sure if this hardware is useful for the applications I mentioned above or if I need to buy new hardware all together. Of course If i can use what I already have it would be preferred. 

 

CPU

AMD ATHLON 2 X4 640

Intel i5 4690K LGA1150

 

Motherboard

GIGABYTE 870A-USB3 

Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 5

 

RAM

G.Skill Ripjaws F3-12800CL7D-4GBXM DDR3 1600MHz CL7 4GB (2GBx2)

2x8 - 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 Pro Series 

 

SSD

OCZ AGILITY 3 60GB

Samsung 860 EVO 1TB

 

PSU

OCZ MODXSTREAM PRO 500W

Corsair TX 650W 

 

GPU

Evga Superclocked Geforce GTX 1050Ti

 

HDD - Total 12TB. 

2 x 4TB Western Digital 4TB WD Blue PC Hard Drive HDD - 5400 RPM, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64 MB Cache, 3.5" - WD40EZRZ

1 x 4TB Seagate BarraCuda 4TB Internal Hard Drive HDD 3.5 Inch Sata 6 Gb/s 5400 RPM 256MB Cache

 

Thanks in advance for the tips and advice.

Edited December 29, 20232 yr by Mahakala
more info

14 hours ago, Mahakala said:

I would like to upgrade my PC and use my existing hardware, if possible, to build a NAS.

Welcome!

 

File serving doesn't require much of computing power and could be easily run on the outdated hardware.

The GPU should be OK for some transcoding if required but you have to check on details of what it's capable of.

The 4th generation Intel iGPU is basically useless for that task.

 

Your Intel parts bin looks like a good starting platform for Unraid.

It's actually a real good opportunity to get going with what you already have (assuming everything is still in good order), learn your ways around and then upgrade with a much better understanding of your needs for new hardware.

Not sure if you'll be able to run a VM on your old hardware (I don't run VMs and have little knowledge on the topic).

 

Also be aware of your motherboard limitation: the SATA 4 and 5 connectors (2 out of 6) will become disabled when you plug-in your SSD.

Will you be using a parity drive? Then make sure it's a CMR one (not SMR).

And for the PSU, it's probably better to go with your Corsair for now and then upgrade to a newer one when the time comes to change the rest of your hardware.

Edited December 29, 20232 yr by Lolight

Following on from the last post, your WD Drives *are* CMR - as per here :)

 

I'm also interested as to what backup/automation setup you use for tasks #3, 4, 5, 6.

Edited December 29, 20232 yr by Kev600

2 hours ago, Lolight said:

Welcome!

 

File serving doesn't require much of computing power and could be easily run on the outdated hardware.

The GPU should be OK for some transcoding if required but you have to check on details of what it's capable of.

The 4th generation Intel iGPU is basically useless for that task.

 

Your Intel parts bin looks like a good starting platform for Unraid.

It's actually a real good opportunity to get going with what you already have (assuming everything is still in good order), learn your ways around and then upgrade with a much better understanding of your needs for new hardware.

Not sure if you'll be able to run a VM on your old hardware (I don't run VMs and have little knowledge on the topic).

 

Also be aware of your motherboard limitation: the SATA 4 and 5 connectors (2 out of 6) will become disabled when you plug-in your SSD.

Will you be using a parity drive? Then make sure it's a CMR one (not SMR).

And for the PSU, it's probably better to go with your Corsair for now and then upgrade to a newer one when the time comes to change the rest of your hardware.

Thanks for the response. 

At this time I only plan on adding a parity drive If i can find a good deal. Can I add one at a later date? 

I do plan on picking up an additional drive between 12-18tb and using that for my Plex media and using the 4tb drives for my personal files. 1 4tb drive for my files and 1 used as a backup. 

 

Is the loss of 2 SATA connectors a feature of Unraid? I have had 6 drives including an SSD in previous setups with multiple 2tb drives and an SSD

 

  

 

2 hours ago, Mahakala said:

At this time I only plan on adding a parity drive If i can find a good deal. Can I add one at a later date? 

Yes, a parity drive can be added later:

https://docs.unraid.net/unraid-os/manual/storage-management/

2 hours ago, Mahakala said:

Is the loss of 2 SATA connectors a feature of Unraid? I have had 6 drives including an SSD in previous setups with multiple 2tb drives and an SSD

No, it's a limitation of that specific motherboard.

2 SATA ports gets disabled when you populate the M.2 slot with a M.2 SSD (nVME or SATA).

 

But it won't apply to your case if you have a 2.5" SSD.

Sorry for misleading. My assumption was that you have a M.2 SSD.