[SOLVED] Newbie NAS building help

[clemsontigerblah]

Considering building my own NAS for my household. NAS would plug into a router in bridge mode attached to my Google Wifi Mesh network (I know, not ideal for transfer speeds but house not wired for networking)
Intended uses:
-Running backups of computers in household (currently 3 PCs, but when my kids get old will need to add at least 2 more probably) Using Backblaze cloud but have terrible internet so getting data back would take forever
-Archive of family pictures, videos etc
-Archive of wife's professional photography sessions (raw images are very bulky and fill up HD fast)
-Maybe use as a media/PLEX server in future?
-Total storage needs for now is <10TB but expect it to grow as my wife's business grows

I have retired PC I was thinking of using as a NAS.
Specs
ASUS M5A97 R2.0 AM3+
AMD FX-6300 Black Edition
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo
G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB DDR3
Seasonic S12II 520
2 case choices Thermaltake Chaser A41 or COOLER MASTER Centurion 5

My experience:
Built several PCs before and am fairly proficient (was a computer engineer in college but now a surgeon so basically most of that knowledge went bye bye)
I have never used RAID before and networking experience is minimal (ex. never run a server before)
I don't have a ton of time to tinker and figure things out (surgeon + 2 toddlers)

Questions:
1.) HD choices, WD red vs Seagate Ironwolf vs other?
2) Is FreeNAS the way to go? Would it be too intimidating for a relative newbie like myself (again, don't have a ton of time to tinker)?
3.) Was thinking of doing RAID 6 or RAIDZ2, but am wondering how much more difficult this would make things for me? I've heard to stick with software RAID controller rather than hardware (which I don't have anyway), thoughts?
4.) Any hardware changes you would make other than a new PSU (is gold/platinum necessary?) If I wanted to use the 5.25 bays of the cases to hotswap drives,I assume I would needs some kind of a RAID controller right? Or, is this overkill for my needs?
5.) Is it even worth me doing this ? (i.e should I just get a Synology DS418 or other prebuilt, use their native OS, and call it a day? )


Thanks for your input.

 

[kanewolf]

Considering building my own NAS for my household. NAS would plug into a router in bridge mode attached to my Google Wifi Mesh network (I know, not ideal for transfer speeds but house not wired for networking)
Intended uses:
-Running backups of computers in household (currently 3 PCs, but when my kids get old will need to add at least 2 more probably) Using Backblaze cloud but have terrible internet so getting data back would take forever
-Archive of family pictures, videos etc
-Archive of wife's professional photography sessions (raw images are very bulky and fill up HD fast)
-Maybe use as a media/PLEX server in future?
-Total storage needs for now is <10TB but expect it to grow as my wife's business grows

I have retired PC I was thinking of using as a NAS.
Specs
ASUS M5A97 R2.0 AM3+
AMD FX-6300 Black Edition
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo
G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB DDR3
Seasonic S12II 520
2 case choices Thermaltake Chaser A41 or COOLER MASTER Centurion 5

My experience:
Built several PCs before and am fairly proficient (was a computer engineer in college but now a surgeon so basically most of that knowledge went bye bye)
I have never used RAID before and networking experience is minimal (ex. never run a server before)
I don't have a ton of time to tinker and figure things out (surgeon + 2 toddlers)

Questions:
1.) HD choices, WD red vs Seagate Ironwolf vs other?
2) Is FreeNAS the way to go? Would it be too intimidating for a relative newbie like myself (again, don't have a ton of time to tinker)?
3.) Was thinking of doing RAID 6 or RAIDZ2, but am wondering how much more difficult this would make things for me? I've heard to stick with software RAID controller rather than hardware (which I don't have anyway), thoughts?
4.) Any hardware changes you would make other than a new PSU (is gold/platinum necessary?) If I wanted to use the 5.25 bays of the cases to hotswap drives,I assume I would needs some kind of a RAID controller right? Or, is this overkill for my needs?
5.) Is it even worth me doing this ? (i.e should I just get a Synology DS418 or other prebuilt, use their native OS, and call it a day? )


Thanks for your input.

Buy a commercial NAS and have it physically near your primary router so that it is ethernet connected to the network.
Commercial NAS are plug and play and way more energy efficient.