Going to build a Z77 micro itx NAS

share your setup when you are done.

Running the third VM in N36L, so far so good. Quiet, less heat. I might full load with the server and less dependent on my current PC soon.

I got my 4gb x2 non-ECC ram dee.. price different varied alot compared to ECC ram. Kingston Non-ECC (RM56) vs ECC (RM185) price from Digital Mall.

Yeah, ECC RAM always more expensive. Usually it only use for enterprise server. For me, Non-ECC is more than enough.

My plan;

Casing Lian Li PC-Q08
CPU Intel I3 3220
Mobo Intel DH77DF
RAM 4GB x 2
HDD 2TB x 4
mSata Atlas Deluxe 60GB

Yet to decide on PSU & heatsink. Any recommendation on PSU & heatsink?

Agreed... Can save up for additional HDD.. lol

Hi guys...

my boss company wish to setup a nas and he ask me to research for him... purpose of using nas is to store company web system, use as local web server and local office storage... my boss intention is to set user level to access certain folder (something like user permission i guess)...

can any sifu suggest wat kind of nas is suitable for such activities. fyi, my company is using unifibiz and if possible, can i set the nas with unifi fixed IP and access via internet??? thanks in advanced

How big is your company and how many PCs will be connected to the NAS? What kind of files / documents are stored? How much hardisk storage space is required?

For example, the HP Microserver is meant for less than 10 PCs connected for simple work file / print sharing. Gives you 4 or 6TB of hardisk space in RAID 1. Install something like Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system and you can do things like you described. Anything larger and you need to go for something more powerful.

I think jchue73 answer most of your question. But how many fixed IP you have? BIZ package should only give you a fixed IP and it's not advise to place your storage server direct to the Internet.

Synology and qnap is more suitable for your co. requirement. Check out their spec.

my company has approx 15 - 20 pcs running from 3 different offices. definitely will do RAID 1 with around 750G - 1TB harddisk is sufficient enough. unfortunately my boss dun wan install OS coz it tends to easily corrupted... i did some research and D-Link DNS-320 looks promising to me... any idea on this device???

yes just 1 fixed IP... my boss need to have full time access on our web system... that's why we need to put this storage to the Internet... and we actually have a local server and its too old to upgrade any hard disk due to motherboard limitation. so my boss decide to use nas right now.

okay thanks will look around its products... any recommendation model?

btw, any D-Link DNS-320 user here???

Even with the more powerful HP Microserver NAS that recommends maximum 10 PCs connected and you want to use a cheap lowly DNS-320 to connect to 20 PCs and run a web server?

15 to 20 PCs connected at the same time would require something more powerful. Unless you can separate the required functions to different servers, you would require a reasonably powerful server. For business use, you need to run a server OS to be able to customize things and set rules and firewalls etc. Usually NAS boxes without a proper OS would not be able to use at business level because they lack these functions.

Sorry but the DNS-320 does not look promising and would not do the job. Even single home user finds the performance of the DNS-320 lacking.

some questions to help you with your problem which you might want to consider.
1. what is your basis for saying 750-1TB is sufficient? How long is your projection?
2. Have you listed down all the functionalities your company needs and your boss wants?
3. When 15-20 PCs are running, are they carrying out concurrent IOs? What file sizes you are transferring and what kind of latency are you looking at?
4. Do you have a disaster recovery plan in place to justify only RAID 1? What are your archival practices in your company?

I have not used a D-link before, but I did do some research on it before settling on the N40L. My conclusion was that it is too slow for a multi user environment.

What kind of web system you are talking? Maybe you should consider NAT?

Never try the 320 before, but I have a very bad experience with D-Link. Very slow IO.

Synology ds412+ have a max 20user, 32user account, 80download task. Check the others model to compare.

thanks for every advice above... highly appreciated it...

I did some survey at lowyat last weekend... and i found Synology DS212j and QNAP TS-212 which met all my boss requirements... any pros n cons on this both and which would b highly recommended (in term for performance, package, warranty) lowyat shop recommend synology... and i viewed both demo at their home site, it seems qnap offer more functionality compared with synology... but seriously i cant understand every single setting from there...

My office, spore office and my home all using synology. It not difficult to setup. I don't have much knowledge in pc. But able to setup. Warranty is std 1yrs.

I suggest you get the higher spec as the DSxxxj is a junior spec as J indicate. Later get complain if everyone access it become slow. No idea in qnap.

oh great.... well that will depend on my boss budget... looking at J and + model already in RM400 difference with better hardware and more functionality... still depends on my office requirements as well... anyway thanks for your user experience

Thank but hardly anybody selling this.
Anyway I'm looking at Cisco Linksys stuff for better MAC address filtering and cloud function.
Re-working and upgrading the cat5e cables seems daunting.

Hi Guys,

I'm thinking to set up my own NAS using my old computer using FreeNAS.

The problem is that my mother board is the MSI MS-7104. This mobo only has 2 SATA ports. My questions are,

1. can I use SATA 3 HDD (preferably 2TB) on this?
2. Will it get the same data transfer rate (3 Gb/s)?

I also did a research on SAS controller card which can hold up to 8 SATA HDD.

3. Do you guys know any of these cards that runs on PCI slots?
4. Will I get the SATA 3 data transfer rate if the SAS controller PCI slot?

My budget to get new hardware and HDD is below RM1,000.

Your inputs are greatly appreciated.

Thanks