When you need to have access on the storage immediately irregardless on the time or place, no matter for reading files in it or writing files into it. What are your need for storage currently?

NAS is useful if you and your family members have plenty of devices, such as PC, laptop, tablet, phone and you want all devices to have access on the same storage to read or write. Imagine like having Dropbox / Google Drive on all your devices but with a lot bigger storage and much faster upload / download speed. Some also have productivity apps similar to Words, Excel and PowerPoint so you can do your work too. There's also apps for multimedia content such as music player, photo viewer, video player. NAS also able to create personal storage for each ID so that everyone can have their own private storage.

If you just need a storage space to be available for short time duration, maybe just few hours everyday, you doesn't necessarily need to have NAS then. You can use your PC and share the storage drive into the network. If you need protection to your data such as RAID, windows 10 also able to do RAID for PC. Having your PC turn on for few hours everyday is much more saving on electricity than having NAS running 24/7.

If you just need storage space available all the time but the data is not important and publicly available to anyone connected on the network, if drive failure data loss also not a issue, such as video or music files that you can stream to whichever devices you currently using. You can attach external drive to your router, most newer router have USB port to plug in drive. The router then can be set to make the storage available on the network. This is the cheapest way to have centralized storage.

HDD manufacturers have been using SMR HDD instead of CMR. Toshiba using on their desktop HDD, Seagate on their desktop Barracuda HDD. WD using it on their Red HDD
https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/15/shing...caching-writes/

https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/14/wd-re...etic-recording/

https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/16/toshi...etic-recording/

https://blocksandfiles.com/2020/04/15/seaga...esktop-hdd-smr/

Hi. I'm using the 10 ports to PCIex1 on my windows PC. The drives that are connected to the card are detected and working fine. But I have already expected that the speed is gonna be slow through a PCIex1 slot, which I'm ok with it as that is the only available slot open to me. But in order for the card to be detected by windows, it needs a diff driver than the default one.

Is there any other card that you have considered?

The green wan is for PC.

Red is for NAS. As what I know la.

I already have 4x16tb Ironwolf running. I need another 4set.

Not sure if this is considered a NAS so i thought could post here to get some help on the matter.

I saw this and was wondering if there are any experts that can help build this or know where i can find these items to build it out.

This is as close as i can to describe exactly what i intend to do, https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSNCkEdBj/

Posted this in the rig suggestion g&a is there more details needed.
https://forum.lowyat.net/index.php?showtopi...ost&p=108689527

just came across your post. been running an unraid server for about 17 months now. played with omv (on rpi), synology (xpe on vm), and the unraid trial version free for 30 days, and decided that unraid is the most suitable for me. started with 3 shucked drives from a seagate external HDD case and now running 10 HDDs (1 parity, 8 data, 1 unassigned device) and 2 SSDs (cache, mirrored) with 60TB and growing.

if you just want to use it as a NAS for storage, can start with cheap used dell, lenovo refurbished desktop for 150-300. If you plan to run vm, docker, or multiple of these, then i suggest you get something more recent. i ran it with 4th gen intel i7, Z87-A & 16gb ram.

used dell: https://shopee.com.my/elink1128/14540451850

case that i use, supports 14 HDDs + 2 SSDs (sold out at shopee, check aliexpress or taobao): https://shopee.com.my/econova/11813674190

sata card (start with this when you run out of SATA ports on your motherboard; you will upgrade to LSI card eventually): https://shopee.com.my/acasisofficialshop.os/9665126297

For HDDs, bought mine from amazon jp, 8TB seagate and WD. cost about 50% less than here, but there's no warranty.

useful tutorials on anything unraid: https://www.youtube.com/@SpaceinvaderOne

under 40c. 3 x 140mm fan at the front of the case also 3 X 120mm strapped to the HDD cage to pull hot air away.

may be try to avoid seagates, they always run few degrees hotter. if yours are not seagate and still reaching 45c then really need to improve air flow in the case.



LSI cards sold on taobao and shopee for around 100-150 are not genuine. they tend to run extremely hot, and some users on unraid forum have reported read/write errors. genuine ones can be purchased on eBay for around 500 with shipping https://www.ebay.com/itm/165949664051

currently only using gigabit ethernet, and i mostly write directly to the array, so HDD speed is another bottleneck. pciex4 sata card is serving me just fine at the moment, but i'm running out of HDD space. may consider getting an LSI card when i outgrow this case.

edited:  ntw just noticed you ran yours with PRO1201SFCU on your siggie, may i ask how many watts your system is drawing and how much run time the ups can provide in case power goes out? i'm planning to get one for my nas too. this exact same model with no fans (less noise) and USB so that it can communicate with unraid.

AI recognition by Synology photos is pretty 'meh'
Do more research if that is your main usage for getting the NAS

what OS should I use to have a custom build OS? that can install this photprism

My current spec I plan to use

HP Slimline Desktop PC 270
Core i3-7100T (Build 6 Aprl 2017)
4GB DDR4 Single channel.. (tried install 32GB DDR4 cant boot)
Pre installed Windows 10 Home edition

since truecharts have abandoned truenas, i changed my setup so that truenas is only for storage
instead of truenas running baremetal and other apps/vms goes on top of it, now i have truenas/ubuntu vm running on top of proxmox

ordered some Seagate exos x12 - 12tb exos. about rm 719 each

these are 7200 rpm , 256mb cache hdd rates for 24/7 in NAS/server. write speeds got me about 240 MB/s tested

Are there any better deals than this? Or is this as good as it gets?

I ran smart, long test, and also block burn test, all came out no issue.

I think the 4tb drives go about Rm 400-500 or something? 4tb not enough for me these days. bumped it up to 12tb, at this price is still ok for me.

Just wondered though if anyone found a better deal for roughly this capacity size?
Also these drives come with a 5 year warranty which is nice.

I have a synology at home Malaysia.
My home using unifi 300mbps (Pro Upgrade 500mbps)

May I know is there a way I can let my family download file from it ?
Family is in Singapore.

** Because file is 400gb, looking away to let them download directly instead of using google drive **

One way is to setup Tailscale or Zerotier on your Synology NAS, and they need to install Tailscale or Zerotier client on their devices. Then they can directly connect to your NAS.

Another way is if you got public IP then can setup port forward and use DDNS for OpenVPN or QuickConnect but this is more technical.