Re: NAS hardware recommendations

[zloster <more@edno.moe>]

On 10.12.2020 16:43, Pierre Neidhardt wrote:
> Hi zloster!
>
>> https://wiki.kobol.io/helios64/intro/
> Neat!  I like it a lot, seems to be ticking all boxes!
> Except that I can't buy it :(
> Still hunting for a retailer...
As far as I know they only sell direct - so the final price will depend 
on where you live.
If Europe/EU I expect the total to come around 350 euro (300 usd + VAT + 
delivery).
>
>> Also for DIY low powered home NAS you could check the mini-ITX
>> motherboards with the embedded CPUs and some computer case like Fractal
>> Design Core 500 (4 3,5" bays + some 2,5" physically separate bays). Of
>> course you will NOT get externally accessible drive bays.
>> In fact I use the following components for a home server (4 years
>> currently):
>> Motherboard:
>> https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-N3150N-D3V-rev-10/sp#sp - 4 SATA
>> 3.0 ports and 2x1Gbps Ethernet
>> Case: Fractal Design Core 500
>> RAM: 2x8GB DDR3L (laptop)
>> Power supply: Corsair VS400 or VS450 ATX (I don't remember)
> This could be an option indeed.
> Any idea how much the above would cost?
> And what's the power consumption?
>
> Cheers!
>
The power consumption is low. Of course tt can't beat the SBCs. The 
embedded CPUs are 6-10W of TDP. Add 1-2W per DDR RAM module and the 
power consumption of the HDDs (around 5W per HDD in active R/W state).

Using the UPS reporting mine gives 65 Watts consumption of the 
homeserver (with 3 drives and very light load), ER-X router and 2,4/5GHz 
wireless router. The ER-X and the wireless router should consume not 
more than 10 Watts combined.

Here is a review with the power consumption report of J5005 motherboard 
(between 9 and 17 Watts with 1 RAM stick and 1 SSD): 
https://www.servethehome.com/intel-pentium-silver-j5005-benchmarks-and-review/3/

Also note the CPU processing power: 
https://www.techpowerup.com/244596/intel-pentium-silver-j5005-catches-up-with-legendary-core-2-quad-q6600

Also good words for these little motherboards here: 
https://openbsdrouterguide.net/


About the cost (*in Europe*):

1) the case if at the expensive end - it should be around 60 Euro 
including VAT. But it has an air filters and includes 140 mm fan. 
Important note - *the 3,5" bays are 3 not 4. *But if you don't use the 
optical disk drive bay (ODD bay) than you can use it for a 3,5" HDD.

2) the power supply - 300-400W should be possible for around 30-50 Euro 
incl. VAT. The premium ones will hit around 50 Euro. One advice - choose 
with the biggest possible fan: gives lower noise.

There is also an option for PicoATX and laptop power adapter - but their 
combined price will be more and you will need additional power 
connectors for the disk drives.

3) the RAM - 16 GB DDR4 2400/2666 MHz SODIMM currently is around 65-100 
Euro per module. I saw reports that the newer embedded processors 
supports up to 2x16 GB modules (total 32 Gigabytes) of memory.

Sources:

https://pawelrychlicki.pl/Home/Details/57/-intel-pentium-silver-j5005-supports-16gb-of-ram-asrock-j5005itx

https://www.speicher.de/arbeitsspeicher-blog/32gb-arbeitsspeicher-asrock-j4105-itx 
(in German)

4) the motherboards - they should be around 100 Euro including VAT for 
the variants with additional 2 SATA channels (total of 4 SATA 3.0 for 4 
HDDs). The price varies and depends on what is available where you live. 
See below for some motherboards. IMHO up to around 130-140 Euro (for the 
more powerful quad core variants) it's acceptable.


So the total cost currently:

60 + 50 + 65 + 100 = 275 EUR for 16 Gigabytes of RAM incl. VAT

60 + 50 + 2x65 + 100 = 340 EUR for 32 Gigabyte of RAM incl. VAT


The cost comes awfully close to the above cute NAS system :)


Motherboards list:

https://www.newegg.com/asrock-j5040-itx-mini-itx/p/N82E16813157967 - 
this MB has 4 SATA but one 1Gbps Ethernet. If the Ethernet is a problem 
there are 2/4 port PCIE NICS with 1xPCIE. 4-port 1Gbps should saturate 
the PCIE 2.0 single lane slot.

In Germany the price is 138,42 Euro: 
https://www.jacob.de/produkte/mb-j5040-itx-intel-90-mxbcd0-a0uayz-artnr-6791344.html?ref=54&wgu=6603_85742_16077005623835_96dbfc34e1&wgexpiry=1615476562&cid=6603_85742_16077005623835_96dbfc34e1


https://www.asrock.com/MB/Intel/J5005-ITX/index.asp#Specification - this 
MB is like the above

https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/J4105-ITX/index.asp#Specification

https://www.gigabyte.com/Motherboard/GA-J3455N-D3H-rev-10/sp#sp - this 
MB is with older CPU. It's with DD3L so the max memory is 2x8GB = 16 GB.