Cheap mass storage

[Inate8]

Hey guys just looking into building some mass storage on the cheap atm.
Current plan is:

Case : NCIX.com - Buy Fractal Design Define XL Titanium E-ATX Mid Tower Silent Computer Case 4X5.25 10X3.5INT No PS - DEFINE-XL-TITANIUM In Canada.
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Proc: NCIX.com - Buy AMD Athlon II X2 235E Dual Core Energy Efficient Processor AM3 2.7GHZ 2MB Cache 45W Retail Box - AD235EHDGQBOX In Canada.
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Mobo: NCIX.com - Buy ASUS M4A785-M mATX AM3/AM2+ 785G DDR2 PCI-E16 PCI-E 2XPCI SATA RAID Video Sound GBLAN Motherboard - M4A785-M In Canada.
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RAM: NCIX.com - Buy G.SKILL F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK PC2-8500 4GB 2X2GB DDR2-1066 CL5-5-5-15 240PIN Dual Channel Memory Kit - F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK In Canada.
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OS Drive: NCIX.com - Buy Kingston SSDNow V Series 30GB 2.5IN SATA Solid State Disk Flash Drive - SNV125-S2/30GB In Canada.
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Storage Drives: NCIX.com - Buy Western Digital WD20EARS Caviar Green 2TB SATA2 3GBPS 64MB Cache 3.5IN Hard Drive OEM - WD20EARS In Canada.
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PSU: NCIX.com - Buy Seasonic X-560 ATX 12V 24PIN 560W Active PFC 80PLUS Gold Modular Power Supply W Sanyo Denki Fan - X-560 Gold In Canada.


Would the cooling for all those drives be sufficient enough in that case you think?
I'll probably be pushing for freeNAS once everything is set-up ready to go, I haven't purchased anything yet. I'd love to go JBOD with some redundancy but it's just not in the cards right now price wise.
Any tips?

This unit will primarily be for main rig back ups of personal files, as well as the storage for HD movies, anime, television and all my music files. Multiple people pulling from it very often most likely.

I haven't priced anything out yet but if you know of any deals, lemme know!

[_dangtx_]

nice psu, kinda overpriced unless silence is the main point of it.

f you populate the empty fan slots youll be fine..wait how many drives will you put in there?

[martin_metal_88]

Since all disk will spend most of their time on idle cooling will be enough. My main concern is why to buy a DDR2 board + DDR2 memory You can buy cheap AM3 DDR3 board + memory for about the same price so try to stay in the more recent hardware.

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And mobo
NCIX.com - Buy ASUS M4A88T-M AM3 880G DDR3 mATX 1X PCIe X16 2X PCIe X1 1X PCI USB3 Video Audio LAN Motherboard - M4A88T-M In Canada.
NCIX.com - Buy Gigabyte GA-880GM-UD2H AMD880G mATX AM3 DDR3 1PCIE CrossFireX Video Sound GBLAN Motherboard - GA-880GM-UD2H In Canada.
NCIX.com - Buy MSI 880GM-E43 mATX AM3 880G DDR3 PCI-E16 1PCI-E1 2PCI SATA USB GBLAN OC Genie Motherboard - 880GM-E43 In Canada.

[Inate8]

Well the PSU was chosen out of respect for reliability and the cleanest voltage I could find at a good price.
I plan on initially filling the case up so 10 drives at first, via an add-on pci-e sata card. More in the future if I need to, but there will probably be flat out larger drives when I need more space.

I'm only using about 7 out of 10Tb of space currently so it should last me at least a year before I'll need to expand.

[Inate8]

Originally Posted by martin_metal_88

Since all disk will spend most of their time on idle cooling will be enough. My main concern is why to buy a DDR2 board + DDR2 memory You can buy cheap AM3 DDR3 board + memory for about the same price so try to stay in the more recent hardware.

Good suggestions, I just went with the cheapest I could find. Wasn't sure the effect on performance, since many end up using something like the dual-core atoms for low power file servers. I just didn't want to gimp myself with the lack of sata ports on the atom boards I could find.

[martin_metal_88]

Just figured out you picked the 235..w.hy no the 245 since it's actually cheaper?

NCIX.com - Buy AMD Athlon II X2 245 Dual Core Processor Socket AM3 2.9GHZ 2MB Cache 65W Retail Box - ADX245OCGQBOX In Canada.

[Inate8]

Actually I picked out the 235E, the lower power consumption is a huge benefit to this system.

[martin_metal_88]

okok,then 235 is the right choice. For mobo and ram, since DDR3 are always in rebate for like 25$ cheaper you can invest it on a better board like the one I linked above. You could also look at the eco series from G.skill since they use less power.

[Inate8]

Different case option: NCIX.com - Buy Norco RPC-4020 20 Bay Hot Swap SATA/SAS 4U Rackmount Server Case *No PSU Included* - RPC-4020 In Canada.

Have been eyeing this case up for sometime. I would put those drive slots to use over time, but it would leave me with a decent sized case and tons of room for expansion, allowing me to get a full ATX board and definitely invest in a hardware raid platform in the future.

[Synth]

No need for an SSD for FreeNAS: you can install the OS on a 2gb compact flash card and use a compact flash to sata adapter to hook it up to your motherboard. I use this one, it works great!

Also, have you considered using an Atom motherboard for your NAS?

Just so you get a good idea about performance, I run FreeNAS off an Atom330 mobo/cpu with 2gb of DDR2 ram. This little combo is powerful enough to handle 4 drives in Raid-Z with power to spare!

The only downside to mini-itx boards are the number of sata ports, but with the PCI-E 1x slot, I recommend using a 2-4 port SATA controller.

Don't go overboard with the hardware, FreeNAS requires little power. Save some of that money to invest in drives!

My .02!