Computers & Electronics

Building your own Synology NAS

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Jr. Member
Sep 20, 2012
126 posts
28 upvotes
Montreal
I currently have an old Atom D510 with 2 gigs of RAM running as my home server with Windows Server 2012 r2. It does the job for backing up my main PC and phones, and for serving multimedia files to my HTPC upstairs (Intel Bay Trail NUC).

I'm considering replacing it because my PCI Sata card stopped working with Server 2012 r2. Can what can XPEnology give me that my current setup can't? Can I run it on a VM? I only have 2TB of data, half of which is crucial (family photos and videos).

The system I'm currently considering building to replace the Atom is:

ASUS H87i ITX motherboard
Intel Pentium G3220
Crucial 8GB 1.35v DDR3 RAM
Deal Expert
Aug 26, 2002
15719 posts
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Toronto, ON
OP, looking forward to some pictures of the internals. Are you saying with the U-NAS case, you have to replace the stock heatsink on your Supermicro A1SAi board or else it doesn't physically fit inside the case? I'm building my own NAS as well but will be loading Win2012R2 Essentials and trying to make it as close to a WHS as possible. I'm considering a ASRock C2550D4I with the Avoton 2550 processor. For a case, I was thinking of the Silverstone DS380, but the U-NAS does look pretty attractive as well. However, I wonder if the C2550D4I would have the same clearance issue in the U-NAS case because it also has a huge heatsink for the CPU.
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May 26, 2002
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rvs007 wrote: OP, looking forward to some pictures of the internals. Are you saying with the U-NAS case, you have to replace the stock heatsink on your Supermicro A1SAi board or else it doesn't physically fit inside the case? I'm building my own NAS as well but will be loading Win2012R2 Essentials and trying to make it as close to a WHS as possible. I'm considering a ASRock C2550D4I with the Avoton 2550 processor. For a case, I was thinking of the Silverstone DS380, but the U-NAS does look pretty attractive as well. However, I wonder if the C2550D4I would have the same clearance issue in the U-NAS case because it also has a huge heatsink for the CPU.
The clearance on the U-NAS case is about 4cm... it's not much. For avoton boards like the Supermicro or Asrock the clearance is fine, but if you try to put a socket 1150 board in then the stock heatsink on those CPU's won't work you'd need to get a low profile cooler like a Noctua NH-L9i, even then I'd worry about long term heat issues in such a setup. This picture will show you how little clearance there is on the U-NAS case:

[IMG]http://s4.postimg.org/z6ddeumst/UNAS_MOTHERBOARD.jpg[/IMG]

The other issue you'll run into with the U-NAS case is with the power supply. The mounting holes for the power supply is 1U style (rack mount server) but you'll never be able to fit a 1U PSU in it cause it's to short (nor would you want to because they are noisy) so you have to use a Flex PSU, which have different mounting holes. You will need to get an adapter off ebay or if you're Ghetto like me make a bracket out of scrap metal:

[IMG]http://s29.postimg.org/a0p84wkfb/UNAS_TOP.jpg[/IMG][IMG]http://s29.postimg.org/tyvwfsqcn/UNAS_PSU.jpg[/IMG]
I use the SeaSonic SS-350M1U 350W PSU, it's silent when running below 50% load (the fan doesn't spin), with my setup I've never heard the fan spin up as the system, 8 port Cisco switch, Linkysys E4200 router, SmartRG vDSL modem and 4TB WD MyCloud is only pulling 60W under load according to my UPS.

You can also see that the power cable was to short to reach the motherboard (about 2 inches short) I had to buy an extension cable which unfortunately was 12 inches long until a shorter one from ebay arrives lol.

It's the little things like these that would make me lean towards the Silverstone DS380 case... you should run into less problems.

-LeeBear
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Jan 18, 2005
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+1 for the unifi suggestion, its beautiful, works perfect with vlans, and base N model can be pricematched with ncix for $64.95!!! :)
Nikon D810, 16-35 F4 VR, 70-200 F2.8E VR, 50 1.8
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Jan 18, 2005
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LeeBear wrote: The clearance on the U-NAS case is about 4cm... it's not much. For avoton boards like the Supermicro or Asrock the clearance is fine, but if you try to put a socket 1150 board in then the stock heatsink on those CPU's won't work you'd need to get a low profile cooler like a Noctua NH-L9i, even then I'd worry about long term heat issues in such a setup. This picture will show you how little clearance there is on the U-NAS case:

[IMG]http://s4.postimg.org/z6ddeumst/UNAS_MOTHERBOARD.jpg[/IMG]

The other issue you'll run into with the U-NAS case is with the power supply. The mounting holes for the power supply is 1U style (rack mount server) but you'll never be able to fit a 1U PSU in it cause it's to short (nor would you want to because they are noisy) so you have to use a Flex PSU, which have different mounting holes. You will need to get an adapter off ebay or if you're Ghetto like me make a bracket out of scrap metal:

[IMG]http://s29.postimg.org/a0p84wkfb/UNAS_TOP.jpg[/IMG][IMG]http://s29.postimg.org/tyvwfsqcn/UNAS_PSU.jpg[/IMG]
I use the SeaSonic SS-350M1U 350W PSU, it's silent when running below 50% load (the fan doesn't spin), with my setup I've never heard the fan spin up as the system, 8 port Cisco switch, Linkysys E4200 router, SmartRG vDSL modem and 4TB WD MyCloud is only pulling 60W under load according to my UPS.

You can also see that the power cable was to short to reach the motherboard (about 2 inches short) I had to buy an extension cable which unfortunately was 12 inches long until a shorter one from ebay arrives lol.

It's the little things like these that would make me lean towards the Silverstone DS380 case... you should run into less problems.

-LeeBear
I like this setup, but the case+atom = very expensive and slow for what it is, plus very limited expansion... would much be better off with my 24 port bohemeth for $400 that supports a regular motherboard (norco!)
Nikon D810, 16-35 F4 VR, 70-200 F2.8E VR, 50 1.8
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Oct 19, 2003
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That's a nice system, certainly much better than my DS1512+ hardware wise however... you have to take into account that using DSM on non-synology hardware IS piracy, and it may or may not always work perfectly. I only paid around $400 for my 1512+ though, I would have built my own in a second if I didn't find the deal on it and my only option was full price.

What was the total cost?
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Oct 19, 2003
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toalan wrote: WTF they have an octal core atom.

I have been meaning to build my own NAS using an AMD AM1 setup, $40 mobo + $40 CPU + $20 2 GB RAM + spare power supply + $30 case.

If I were to run pfsense in a VM ontop of the NAS functionality, would I need atleast 2 NICs? If so, if I put in a crappy 2nd NIC and gave that to pfsense will it have an impact on my network speeds? Is pfsense a total router replacement, if I plugged in a wifi card will pf sense be able to use it and take over all tasks my current wifi router is doing?
Yes to all of your questions. You can't have a firewall without two network interfaces, that's the whole point. Also, I do assume that pfsense can act as an access point. I use ipfire just because I am more familiar with linux than BSD but they are similar and ipfire can easily work as a wireless AP using the linux package hostapd. You may want to look into ipfire as well.

Running pfsense/ipfire on pretty much any, even looow budget, modern hardware should be far superior speed wise than even the most expensive routers.
Member
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Aug 23, 2004
205 posts
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Very interested, would love to get it going on raw hardware. Site is a mess though, I didn't walk away from it confident that I could make it work.

I am looking for an option that would let me build a well performing NAS from my existing hardware
ASUS P7FE w 12GB ECC RAM and 3440 Xeon CPU
6 x 3TB WD REDS
10GBE Broadcom 57710 adapter

FreeNAS is out because I don't have enough RAM for the storage (best practises) and its ZFS performance is terrible with NFS and ESXi (warnings all over their forums) without enabling dangerous options like disabling syncronose mode.

This is a very interesting option!
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May 26, 2002
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BinaryJay wrote: That's a nice system, certainly much better than my DS1512+ hardware wise however... you have to take into account that using DSM on non-synology hardware IS piracy, and it may or may not always work perfectly. I only paid around $400 for my 1512+ though, I would have built my own in a second if I didn't find the deal on it and my only option was full price.

What was the total cost?
Synology releases the source code to DSM as required by GPL licensing as it's essentially running Linux, so it is not piracy to recompile the code for your own use. Like I mentioned in my original post you will lose some Synology provided services by making your own DSM like Quickconnect and in the future possibly Synology Apps like Video Station, etc. The third party apps however should continue to work forever.

I totally agree with you there are drawbacks of not using a real Synology, there are also advantages. If you want something to work right out of the boxes I would say buy a Synology off the shelf... and I would of if it met my needs but unfortunately it didn't. I have a DS1812+ at work so I'm aware of the limitations, and that would of been the model I bought for home use "if" it could transcode 1080P Plex but unfortunately it can't. The models that can are loud rack mounted i3 based that costs $2-3K. However if I could of picked up a 1512+ for $400 I probably would (however I still hate Synology's pricing on the 5 bay expansion units... it costs as much as another DiskStation).

My system price was approx $900 similar to a DS1812+:
$200 USD - U-NAS NSC800 Case (got it during thanksgiving and got the extra cables, PCI-E extender, 2.5" mount free)
$400 - Supermicro A1SAI-2750F
$65 - Seasonic SS-350M1U Power Supply
$200 - 2 x 8GB DDR3 Kingston ECC 1.35v SODIMM

I have specific reasons for the motherboard (low power, fanless, IPMI, multiple NIC's etc) as I wanted a completely headless system that can be remotely administered. The RAM and 8 cores because I'm running multiple VM's (DSM, Windows 8.1, and Pfsense). If I were to build the cheapest low power Synology NAS that could do 1080P transcode I'd probably change my parts to the following:

$90 - J1900 Quad Core Atom + Motherboard (Or AMD Kabini)
$40 - 4GB RAM Non-ECC RAM
Then throw in whatever case/PSU you want.
Mervincm wrote: Very interested, would love to get it going on raw hardware. Site is a mess though, I didn't walk away from it confident that I could make it work.

I am looking for an option that would let me build a well performing NAS from my existing hardware
ASUS P7FE w 12GB ECC RAM and 3440 Xeon CPU
6 x 3TB WD REDS
10GBE Broadcom 57710 adapter

FreeNAS is out because I don't have enough RAM for the storage (best practises) and its ZFS performance is terrible with NFS and ESXi (warnings all over their forums) without enabling dangerous options like disabling syncronose mode.

This is a very interesting option!
I did consider looking into a FreeNAS build as well, while ZFS is good it's only good if you throw alot of hardware at it. I could not justify the requirements (1GB per 1TB plus SSD) just for the file system.
If your hardware is support by VMware then you shouldn't have any problems making your own Synology in a virtual environment. If you want to run it natively you'll have to make sure all your hardware is supported by whatever boot loader you use (gnoboot/nanoboot), or if you're Linux savvy you can add any missing drivers yourself (I'm not so I went VM :)

-LeeBear
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Jan 1, 2007
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Mojojj13 wrote: Does the C2750 support VT-d?
Get something like an Asrock E3C226D2I and Xeon E3-1230 v3 if you want VT-d in an ITX format.
EEE2 wrote: Isn't synology just use the ext 4 file system?
I think most consumer based NAS systems (Synology, Qnap, etc) use the EXT4 file system.

If you want enterprise level file system, consider ZFS. FreeNAS has a large community and support to assist.
Jr. Member
Oct 14, 2009
132 posts
58 upvotes
vancouver
I'm using NAS4free for my home server. I'm not using any special features such as RAID or ZFS. My setup is JBOD and a few other services running on an older system.
The best part is that it has been rock solid. Never had to restart anything.

Setup takes a bit of work, but I haven't had to touch anything since it's been up and running.
My Win, Mac, rPI-XBMC systems all can access the data without any issues.

It's rock solid.
Newbie
May 4, 2009
69 posts
9 upvotes
Hi I was wondering if someone can help me out. I'm interested in building my own nas but was wondering is there away I can just continue to add to it? or do I have to buy all drives up front? I see with the DS 1813 it allows you to buy DX 513 to extend the nas by another 5 drives with its built in synology hybrid raid - but if I go with that option I'm looking at 1200 for the ds 1813 + 570 for a dx 513 w/o any drives.... so I would prefer to build it custom so I can also stream plex right off the NAS.

Thanks
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Oct 19, 2003
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Inf123 wrote: Hi I was wondering if someone can help me out. I'm interested in building my own nas but was wondering is there away I can just continue to add to it? or do I have to buy all drives up front? I see with the DS 1813 it allows you to buy DX 513 to extend the nas by another 5 drives with its built in synology hybrid raid - but if I go with that option I'm looking at 1200 for the ds 1813 + 570 for a dx 513 w/o any drives.... so I would prefer to build it custom so I can also stream plex right off the NAS.

Thanks
I've already posted that Synology is just a linux distribution there is no magic to their arrays it is all mdadm you can easily build and add to and modify an array yourself in the same fashion. But it seems like you're not very technical, or aren't very good at researching answers to your own questions so I'm not sure if this is the route for you.

There is no reason you need a high power CPU to just "stream plex", only if you need to transcode it and the only reason to do that these days is if for some reason you need to watch movies on your phone while you're at the grocery store or whatever (and need access to all hundreds of them at all times at the grocery store, and not just a few that you loaded locally on the device in advance).
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Aug 26, 2002
15719 posts
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Toronto, ON
Inf123 wrote: Hi I was wondering if someone can help me out. I'm interested in building my own nas but was wondering is there away I can just continue to add to it? or do I have to buy all drives up front? I see with the DS 1813 it allows you to buy DX 513 to extend the nas by another 5 drives with its built in synology hybrid raid - but if I go with that option I'm looking at 1200 for the ds 1813 + 570 for a dx 513 w/o any drives.... so I would prefer to build it custom so I can also stream plex right off the NAS.

Thanks
You can definitely add to it as needed. However, keep in mind if you build a compact NAS with a mini-ITX board, you'll likely only get one PCI-E expansion slot. So once you run out of SATA ports on the mobo, you'll need to add an SATA controller to add more SATA/eSATA ports to add more HDDs. If you're going with a compact case, then you'll have to add a controller that has eSATA and add an external drive array.
Newbie
May 4, 2009
69 posts
9 upvotes
BinaryJay wrote: I've already posted that Synology is just a linux distribution there is no magic to their arrays it is all mdadm you can easily build and add to and modify an array yourself in the same fashion. But it seems like you're not very technical, or aren't very good at researching answers to your own questions so I'm not sure if this is the route for you.

There is no reason you need a high power CPU to just "stream plex", only if you need to transcode it and the only reason to do that these days is if for some reason you need to watch movies on your phone while you're at the grocery store or whatever (and need access to all hundreds of them at all times at the grocery store, and not just a few that you loaded locally on the device in advance).
sorry I've been reading up a lot on unraid vs freenas and I kept thinking this was using ZFS and was under the impression that once you set it up you couldn't add to it.
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Inf123 wrote: sorry I've been reading up a lot on unraid vs freenas and I kept thinking this was using ZFS and was under the impression that once you set it up you couldn't add to it.
Of course there are hundreds of ways to accomplish a "NAS", and depending on what you do you may or may not limit yourself in the way you're describing.
Newbie
Jul 30, 2014
1 posts
Toronto, ON
Hi LeeBear
Great post, thanks. I'm trying to use a Supermicro A1SA7-2750F and Synology DSM native mode. Bootloader is gnoboot 10.4. The NAS is visible, but at the time installing DSM, I get a disc access error an 55%. System partition is formatted, DSM is uploaded but installation fails.
How did You succeed ?
cheers ... jr

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