Question Advice on proposed NAS parts?

[rasdane]

Looking for advice, please:

I have a medium-sized Plex library, and am getting sick of juggling HDDs on the Windows PC that runs the server. Given that Black Friday is coming up, I thought I’d look into building a NAS, and move everything over there. (I’ve built a few PCs in the past, so am not a total beginner – but this would be my first NAS build.)

Poking around, I really liked LTT’s Jonsbo N1 build on YouTube – but since that’s almost 1.5 years old, I thought I would ask folk’s opinion on my proposed part list.

A few points:

• I would only use this for Plex media files – i.e., won’t be gaming or even store other files on it.
• I like a small form factor.
• I want it to be as quiet as possible.

With the above in mind, I was thinking about the below parts list:

• Case: The Jonsbo N1
• Motherboard: Gigabyte Auros B550 ITX
• CPU: Ryzen 5 5600G
• Cooler: BeQuiet Pure Rock LP (I know there are cheaper options, but I’m a fanboy of this company)
• RAM: 32 GBs of DDR4 3600
• SATA III SI-ADA40149 IOCrest 2 Port – to add 2 more SATA ports in addition to the 4 on the Mobo.
• SSD for OS: Kingston A400 240 GB
• NVME for cache: WD SN750 250 GB
• … and some right-angle SATA cables

Without HDDs, it all comes in right around $720, which is in my budget. (Maybe with Black Friday, a few things will come down, who knows.)

For the HDDs, I’m planning on Seagate IronWolfs, as large as I afford ‘em, probably 16TB for now. I would get 3 at this point, but would expand later. For the OS, I was thinking Unraid, since my HDDs may well be of different sizes as I expand.

My question:

Given my "strictly for Plex" needs, is there anything of the above that’s just plain stupid/overkill/waste of money?

I’ve always received great advice here before, so thank you in advance!

 

[USAFRet]

A 4 bay dedicated NAS, such as Synology or QNAP, comes in well under your $720 (sans drives) level.

The QNAP TS-462 is $470

TS-462 | Intel Dual-Core 2.5GbE Multimedia NAS with M.2 PCIe slots and PCIe expandability

A fast and vast private cloud storage with a range of multimedia and file management applications, the TS-462 is ideal for home users to maximize their digital lifestyle. Files, data and multimedia saved on the TS-462 can be accessed from all your connected devices, including phones, computers...

www.qnap.com

 

[Misgar]

You might find this (or similar) articles of interest.
https://9to5toys.com/2021/06/04/unraid-vs-synology-vs-truenas/

I looked at the price of commercial NAS enclosures a while back and decided it was much cheaper (and more challenging) to repurpose old hardware, including HP servers (very loud) and full tower desktop PCs with room for at least 8 hard disks.

There's no doubt a Synology or QNAP NAS would have been a more elegant (smaller, less obtrusive) choice, but I enjoyed experimenting with FreeNAS and TrueNAS Core. As you say though, Unraid would be a better choice with (potential) drives of different capacities.

A Synology or QNAS box should be the most power efficient choice if you intend to leave the NAS switched on 24/7. I'd expect them to be frugal with power and not cost too much to run.

My HP ML350p servers with eight 3.5in hard disks pull only110W from the mains when they've settled down, but I don't leave them running any longer than necessary due to noise.

Electricity here costs the equivalent of US $0.63 per kWhr, so it's something I consider when the bills come rolling in.

 

[rasdane]

Thank you both for the replies. Very much appreciated. The link to the article was super helpful.
Part of the fun is of course to get to build the machine.
I have shaved some cost by switching to a cheaper CPU/Mobo combo from Intel.
Thank you again!