Question Building a new NAS, some advice appreciated.

[Noki0100]

Hi All,

I have a need to build a new NAS, my ReadyNAS Duo is getting old now and the pair of disks (Barracuda ST2000DL003 2TB) are at 38k and 41k hours of use currently. Borrowed time me thinks. I get the occasional drop in connection which feels more like the aging NAS than the disks so a full replacement and migration seems best for me, there are some bad sectors on 1 disk but recent scans show good health. I feel like going with FreeNAS to have full control and save some cash. It's primary use is a repo for videos mostly, backups of my systems and it see's low volume of writes compared with the average use case I think, most of time it's accessed by 1 machine but can sometimes be used by as many as 4 or 5 clients (so quite low volume).

I have some components that would work well, and with a few purchases I could be up and running quickly.

What I have:

• MSI A55M-P33 Motherboard
• Intel X25-M 80GB SSD (OS Drive)
• AMD A6-3670K Quad core 2.7Ghz CPU
• Crucial CT2KIT51264BA1339 4GB x2 RAM

What else I will need:

• Slim Antec Case (with TFX style PSU)
• BeQuiet BN228 300W PSU
• Seagate Ironwolf ST4000VN008 4TB Drives (2 or 3 or maybe 4 of them)

Now here are my questions;

1. Currently my 2 disks are in parity, but I've heard this is risky as with only a single backup drive it can be hard to recover data. Should I go for 3 or 4 disks?
2. If I opted for 2 for now (to spread the cost) is it easy to add the other(s) later on with FreeNAS?
3. 4TB total I feel is enough for the lifespan (and my min upgrade size) but if I add disks later can I do 4TB+ 4TB and double volume or would they need to be parity disks if added after the fact?
4. Is 300W the right size for this config? I feel it might be overkill slightly. I may (if possible) under-clock the CPU if that makes much difference. I used this as guide.
5. Prices seem good right now (~£258 for the 2 disk config, +£89 per additional disk), is it a good time to buy this kind of hardware?
6. Any pitfalls or anything I should look into before committing?

Any and all comments welcome!

 

[Noki0100]

I think I'm going to go with it, two drives should be enough for now and I'll add another (or two later). I can't think of anything I'm missing with the build, price seems reasonable.