NAS on a budget

Pi4 but also budget for power USB hubs as the Pi4 can only push no more than 2 USB spinny drives. SSD safer but power USB hub even safer.

I just find Pi4 pretty easy to set up, following instructions online, if your NAS needs are not that demand, you could have the Pi4 do other things too.

as much as I love the pi why not get a refurb old office computer and just put freenas on it.

Synology DS120j $138.94 + SATA HDD
https://www.amazon.ca/Synology-DS120j-D ... SLVT5&th=1

But note: For the OP

Cons:
- Supported audio/video formats are limited - and the server isn't powerful enough to convert them on the fly.
- Direct remote access is tricky (at least on Windows, Linux seems to connect easily).

JAC wrote: ↑ Synology DS120j $138.94 + SATA HDD
https://www.amazon.ca/Synology-DS120j-D ... SLVT5&th=1

sffpcgtx wrote: ↑ But note: For the OP

Cons:
- Supported audio/video formats are limited - and the server isn't powerful enough to convert them on the fly.
- Direct remote access is tricky (at least on Windows, Linux seems to connect easily).

Why do people even bother converting video? That hasn’t been necessary for like 5 years now for most usage, considering that these days even low end devices can do 4K HEVC decode natively with low power usage. And 1080p h.264 is a piece of cake even for older devices.

Converting video degrades the image quality too.

If you only have one drive, the Odroid HC2 is an alternative to the Pi over USB. I have one of these myself.

https://corpshadow.biz/odroid/odroidhc2

I also don't understand the obsession with plex and transcoding. All my devices convert whatever format the source is on the fly fine.

Xpenology

The AsRock J4105, J5005, etc are Intel-based tiny boards that come for roughly $150 and include the CPU. Just add RAM, Storage & Power for a fully featured NAS. Xpenology runs great on those.

They even have QuickSync for hardware accelerated encoding

I'm running a 10Mbit right now too ... on a Pi Zero. It is slow, but I only move current files to it and delete them once I'm done with it.

Pi4 will work at pretty decent speeds, but it's not really a cheap way to go once you add up all the accessories - case, power adapter, microSD, USB3 to SATA ...

I'd get an old optiplex/lenovo 3rd/4th gen i5 with 4Gb and load it with Openmediavault, or use Samba Server, can also run docker/portainers ...

JAC wrote: ↑ Synology DS120j $138.94 + SATA HDD
https://www.amazon.ca/Synology-DS120j-D ... SLVT5&th=1

Too slow and too low RAM ... this is a pi zero spec and the pi zero is selling for $5 USD

for that price, Pi 4 makes more sense

frugal69 wrote: ↑ Too slow and too low RAM ... this is a pi zero spec and the pi zero is selling for $5 USD

for that price, Pi 4 makes more sense

At the price of a Pi4, you get an x86 board from AsRock. Much more powerful than the Pi. Here is J4125 for $128 - https://www.newegg.ca/asrock-j4125-itx- ... 6813162003

rilles wrote: ↑ If you only have one drive, the Odroid HC2 is an alternative to the Pi over USB. I have one of these myself.

I like ODRIOD too because it's natively SATA.
A pi/external is cheaper but the mess of cables and USB is pretty ew.

I have heard about SATA hats for the Pi, but I'm not sure if they actually materialized.
But once you're doing this, this isn't really cheap any more. To be honest I think it'd be cheaper to just buy an old computer with 4 SATA slots especially if size isn't a concern.

To be honest... if size isn't a concern, I think an old PC would be MILES ahead of a small board computer.
It'll obviously consume more power which means higher ongoing costs though.

death_hawk wrote: ↑ I like ODRIOD too because it's natively SATA.
A pi/external is cheaper but the mess of cables and USB is pretty ew.

I have heard about SATA hats for the Pi, but I'm not sure if they actually materialized.
But once you're doing this, this isn't really cheap any more. To be honest I think it'd be cheaper to just buy an old computer with 4 SATA slots especially if size isn't a concern.

To be honest... if size isn't a concern, I think an old PC would be MILES ahead of a small board computer.
It'll obviously consume more power which means higher ongoing costs though.

I bought the odroid as a backup drive I could tuck into a hidden corner. Its cheaper then getting a pi and all the parts to make it work, not to mention at the time only the pi3 was out and was brutally slow over USB. I also wanted encryption and I began to hate OMV so I did eventually get an old pc with AES in the CPU. I also used the case space to shove a bunch of old 1TB drives I had laying around and got unraid on it (with parity disabled).

It now does what I want (but didn't know originally) which is sleep until woken and back up my main NAS on a bunch of old disks and one 14TB beast.

kramer1 wrote: ↑ At the price of a Pi4, you get an x86 board from AsRock. Much more powerful than the Pi. Here is J4125 for $128 - https://www.newegg.ca/asrock-j4125-itx- ... 6813162003

Yes, but you have to add 4GB RAM, case, ps ... I'd rather go the used i3/i5 route from DELL or Lenovo.

bauer systems & Dellrefurbished often have deals for $150 - or you can check craigslist/kijiji ...

frugal69 wrote: ↑ Yes, but you have to add 4GB RAM, case, ps ... I'd rather go the used i3/i5 route from DELL or Lenovo.

bauer systems & Dellrefurbished often have deals for $150 - or you can check craigslist/kijiji ...

Yeah but they are used systems. Who knows how long they'll last. Plus xpenology works great on the Asrock boards

frugal69 wrote: ↑ Too slow and too low RAM ... this is a pi zero spec and the pi zero is selling for $5 USD

for that price, Pi 4 makes more sense

Just fine for backups and streaming MKVs. Also fits in your media enclosure, unlike those who suggest using a PC.

rilles wrote: ↑ If you only have one drive, the Odroid HC2 is an alternative to the Pi over USB. I have one of these myself.

https://corpshadow.biz/odroid/odroidhc2

I also don't understand the obsession with plex and transcoding. All my devices convert whatever format the source is on the fly fine.

Thanks! I've never seen this before.
I do have an old PC I can use but the power usage over time will exceed the $80 cost of this type of device.
Yeah I'll probably just use 1 drive and mainly use the drive for SMB and internal FTP.

kramer1 wrote: ↑ The AsRock J4105, J5005, etc are Intel-based tiny boards that come for roughly $150 and include the CPU. Just add RAM, Storage & Power for a fully featured NAS. Xpenology runs great on those.

They even have QuickSync for hardware accelerated encoding

Are these still available? First couple links on Google give me Newegg and Amazon and they're both out of stock.
And while it may be $150, RAM is gonna add a few bucks, a case is gonna add a few bucks, a PSU is gonna add a few bucks.
Now you're at $300.

You can buy a used office machine for half. Hell you could buy two used office machines for the same money and run them redundantly.

death_hawk wrote: ↑ Are these still available? First couple links on Google give me Newegg and Amazon and they're both out of stock.
And while it may be $150, RAM is gonna add a few bucks, a case is gonna add a few bucks, a PSU is gonna add a few bucks.
Now you're at $300.

You can buy a used office machine for half. Hell you could buy two used office machines for the same money and run them redundantly.

Well, yeah but they are used machines. Who knows how long they'll last. Most of them won't support HEVC-10Bit HW Accelerated transcoding and the Asrock boards are excellent for Xpenology. The J5005 was still available on Newegg recently so idk