Specs needed for NAS?

[VigilanteCS]

Hi guys and gals,

I'm looking to make some sort of NAS server and found some refurb'd HP blade servers for $99 with dual 3.06 GHz Xeons (Circa 2004-2005). If I wanted to build some sort of NAS with it, would that hardware be up for it (say, with maybe 5tb of storage)? I'd mainly use it to store HD movie rips and use my WD TV to play them.

Thanks!

 

[zuffy]

I must be missing something. If I am correct, that Blade will only house 2 SCSI drives, with a maximum capacity of 300GB each. That will only be 600GB in RAID 0. I hope you're not planning to put online 8 or 16 blades online. LOL

 

[VigilanteCS]

I must be missing something. If I am correct, that Blade will only house 2 SCSI drives, with a maximum capacity of 300GB each. That will only be 600GB in RAID 0. I hope you're not planning to put online 8 or 16 blades online. LOL

Yeah I was thinking this myself. No way I'd be able to fit the amount of storage I want inside one.

http://www.pacificgeek.com/product.asp?id=856143

 

[zuffy]

That is NOT a Blade server. It's a DL140, which is a 1U server.

 

[zuffy]

btw, I wouldn't waste money buying that server.

 

[Knavish]

A 1U server will be about as loud as a jet engine. Those Xeon processors might put out the same heat level, as well.

 

[VigilanteCS]

That is NOT a Blade server. It's a DL140, which is a 1U server.

What's the difference?

 

[zuffy]

Blade servers have no standard video port, dvd drive, floppy drive, ps/2 like a typical server would. They are slot loading servers that goes into a Blade enclosure. Normally, the enclosure can house 8-16 Blade servers. Network connections and SAN are connected the enclosure and then share/assign to the individual Blade.

Might be easier to just browser thru the link below to get a better idea.
http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/blades/bladesystem/index.html

 

[Nothinman]

And as for requirements, just about anything semi-recent will do just fine. Your bottleneck will almost certainly be network speeds, not CPU or memory.

 

[ViviTheMage]

No to blade servers, because of reasons zuffy listed.

Before we get into depth on helping, what's your budget? How large of a NAS do you want to build? What's it for?

 

[VigilanteCS]

No to blade servers, because of reasons zuffy listed.

Before we get into depth on helping, what's your budget? How large of a NAS do you want to build? What's it for?

Budget is probably a couple hundred bucks minus the drives. LG has a nice looking one on newegg for like $299. I'd use it for storing movie rips and files.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-001-_-Product

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-009-_-Product would be good too if I put two huge drives in it.

Although I'm not sure if I'd want to get something without any sort of windows/apple interface.

 

[pjkenned]

Get an i3-530 + H55 motherboard ($200 or less), 4GB of ddr3 ($85), and a second Intel PCI or PCIe x1 NIC ($15-40 depending on which one you get). The above, plus a 32GB SSD, and DVD burner are pulling 50w (@ wall) at idle using a 500w power supply (so not in a very efficient range). Put WHS on it for now, and in a few months WHS V2 will be out based on Server 2008 R2.

 

[Yellowbeard]

I have had really good luck with FreeNAS. And, if you have existing hardware, you can do it dirt cheap aside from the drives. Any decent CPU since P4 or 939, 1GB of RAM and a MOBO with enough SATA ports, or a RAID card and you are good to go. The OS is tiny (about 32mb IIRC) and resides on a USB drive. You'll need an optical drive for the initial install but it is not critical that the server have a dedicated optical drive.

 

[Old Hippie]

If your heart's set on a prebuilt check out the units at SmallNetBuilder.