March 6, 201610 yr So here's the deal..... I'm badly in need of a new NAS as my 4 year old Windows Server machine is getting to retirement age. To make life really easy I'm very tempted by the QNAP 853A/Pro or Synology 1815+. The QNAP is slightly ahead as I'll need to run at least 1 VM but with the Synology I won't have to dump my three remaining 2TB drives. So here's the goal. Can I build a better unRAID machine, including license, for less than the cost of an 8 bay OTC NAS? Looking on Amazon UK the 8 bay NAS are around £630. Requirements: [*]I need to run at least 1 VM (Windows 7 maybe for ease of use). I usually have a dedicated VM/machine for downloading as I can easily run a VPN [*]Motherboard must have at least 8 SATAs [*]Case needs to hold at least 8 3.5" HDD's (I'm looking at the Silverstone GD08) [*]Practically silent so may need to factor in quiet fans [*]As low power as possible CPU wise, is an i3 powerful enough for what I want? How much RAM? Guessing 16GB is loads...... To save money I could possibly scavenge parts from my current server: Asus P8H67 R3.0, i5 2405S (65W TDP), 16GB DDR3. Problem here is finding an old motherboard to take the i5. Also think I have a Dell PERC H200. With the current hardware and unRAID 6, is it possible to run VM's? The CPU is VT-x capable. Really I only need to RDP or Teamviewer onto the VM.
March 7, 201610 yr "Can I build a better unRAID machine, including license, for less than the cost of an 8 bay OTC NAS?" In short: Absolutely. In fact, you could probably build two. Before you do though, I'd suggest trying your current hardware first. With that ASUS mobo, i5, and RAM, you could download the free version of unRaid, throw a couple drives in it, and play around with virtualization. I don't think you'd have too much trouble as long as what you run on the VM isn't too cpu intensive. The benefit of this route, is it's completely free, and you'll get a better idea of where you might be lacking. If you end up happy with the setup, it'd simply be purchasing the unRaid license to add more drives. The mobo has plenty of pci-e slots for more SATA ports if/when you need them as well, so only having 6 SATA on the mobo isn't a big deal.
March 7, 201610 yr With a Asus P8H67 R3.0, i5 2405S (65W TDP), 16GB DDR3 and a Dell PERC H200 you already have an unRAID server that most likely meets your requirements! Just invest in the case and cooling you want. You certainly could go further, especially if you want to do vt-d. If all you need is vt-x and RDP then there's no reason not to give it a try with what you have. If it doesn't work out - then starting working on upgrades. In the meantime you'll already have the case, cooling, RAM and SATA controller. And by the way - Synology doesn't even make a NAS with a Core i5 and the ones that QNAP makes are very expensive. With your spare parts you can easily beat either one. If you wind up spending more money you can feel confident that you're building a better NAS that it's possible to buy. The only people who are truly happy with commercial NAS's are people hate to tinker and only need basic NAS capabilities.
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