So the general layout for my custom made NAS tower is the following
2 tb - movies
2 tb - tv shows
2 tb - music
2 tb - back of 1 tb drive and ssd on 1 computer
2 tb - back up of 1 tb and ssd on other computer
4 tb - back up of both drives backing up the computers.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/XwHRYJ
That is the link to view the parts also I want it as cheap and low cost and quiet as possible, it will be running 24/7 for streaming for my laptop, 2 desktops, & Xbox 360, so plantium rating on the psu is recommended. No raid is going to be set up either...other the that hit me with you best this my first time building one so be nice.
I'm curious as to why you plan to put a water cooling system in it? It's a server and you don't plan to do any OCing right?
I do have a suggestion for you to check out to replace the CPU, motherboard, and cooler with this. Tek Syndicate did a review of it here. I will most likely be getting that for myself at a later date.
I will watch the video tonight at home, I thought it might need it to keep it cool while running 24/7 plus I do not like air coolers as they (in my opinion) put to much stess on the motherboard. I'm not entirely sure if I want amd quad core or a Intel in there...when it is hooked up to a monitor it needs to display on a 27" monitor.
I feel like a lot of the parts you are getting for the NAS are overkill, but at the same time they're awesome. So when I look at the build I think to myself, you could save a lot of money and get similar real world performance, BUT IT LOOKS SO PRETTY. If I were building a NAS I would want to use the ASRock C2750D4I and build everything else around that. This board's cpu cooling would be silent and it has 12 SATA ports. HOW COULD YOU GO WRONG.
motherboard link= http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157475
^---was writing it before Nomaran edited his post and took 30 seconds to write it so its staying..... but great minds think alike. :)
Of course, this is a great board. I would honestly get it if I had the money currently. I was going to post it at first but I wanted to find TS video review for him. We need a better search option then going to Google all the time!
Well you guys are the experts, like I said this is my first build and thank you for responding so fast, do you think that a dual core is powerful enough to run this server?
A dual core should do fine. I use an i3 for my game server and it does just fine. All you're planning to do is stream media and host it on that machine.
Yea movies, tv shows, music, and backups for 2 computers. No games tho those will be stored locally. I'm probably going to have to make it wireless tho which is why I need it silent.
So if I drop the water cooler and get the board you guys suggested it should be pretty much silent, now do you recommend 5,900 or 7,200 rpm hard drives?
So what are you running on it, FreeNas, Unraid or something custom?
Windows 7 with shared hard drives unless someone explains something better.
If you are running it 24/7 Don't use windows 7 it isn't designed for that.
Linux Based: http://lime-technology.com/
BSD based: http://www.freenas.org/ great for running headless
Both are specifically built for what you want to do.
For media Plex is an amazing piece of software for streaming media: https://plex.tv/ it runs on both of those OS and Windows (and pretty much anything else you can think of)
You could go the windows server route if you want but don't use Windows 7 as a server.
Edit: You should run them in RAID for redundancy 5 or 10 will also give some speed boost as well
So if I used free has (which I've been researching a litttle bit) and use plex ontop of that operating system then I would be good to go? And I assume by headless you mean without a monitor which I would be doing. Does freenas support WiFi or does it have to be Ethernet?
I switched my hard drives to 5900 rpm 4 tb drives as well. They have to be this speed since at least one person will be sleeping in the same room all the time while its running. My fiance and I work opposite shifts. Also I went with the fractal design define r4 with no windows. Any other suggestions on making it quieter?
The Mobo you are using has an Intel NIC (I217-V) so you should be fine.
Intel says it will work with BSD: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=17509
For wifi if you use Intel or Realtech for it you also should be fine. Look it up to be sure.
Yes headless is with out a monitor, you can log onto the nas and control it over http, so after the install you won't even need a keyboard/mouse.
Plex will render the media for whatever device you are sending it to. (i.e. phones, set top boxes, etc) and if you have good upload speeds you can stream it over the internet when away from home. Think Netflix/Spotify. You can use the Owncloud plugin to have it act like your own dropbox too.
You could possibly do a passive cooling build using an Xeon E3
I have no idea what an Xeon is...I do know its an Intel...but what's the difference between the i series and the Xeon series.
Xeon is a server cpu the E3 is similar to the i3 but normally have better temps and stability. only go that way if it is cheaper/same price per clock
What if I wanted a completely silent NAS tower for under 1,500?