NAS Build

[Nagaru]

I was thinking of building a NAS with a mini ITX motherboard and use software raid 5 with 4 hard drives. I am hoping to make a custom enclosure, I was hoping that someone had somesuggestions, and maybe a rough estimate of the proccessing power needed. Thanks for any help.

 

[Nagaru]

No one has any ideas?

 

[nathan]

well, if you go down the via mini-itx route, i think the quickest cpu is 1.3ghz, IMO that should run it just fine!

 

[FarFarAway]

Ye shouldn't require much oomph for a NAS...just enough to get the drives transferring data

 

[JN]

Yeah, your best bet would be to buy a decent SATA card. That way onboard sata/raid won't gobble up CPU cycles and you can use a really low-end cpu.

 

[Enigmachine]

Are there that many mini-ITX cards with 4 sata2 connectors anyway?

 

[Ham]

surely you could get like a S370 P3 and mATX mobo off ebay for less than a micro?

 

[Nagaru]

My only reason for thinking that I might need more power is that I think I am going to be running a software raid5 array and so I thought that it might require a lot of cpu time.

 

[nathan]

you can get a 4 port sata raid card for £25 now, i'd prob go for a hardware firewall. Will mean you dont have to spend as much on cpu etc. You can get a 500mhz via motherboard/cpu for £60 too! have a look at the recommended specs on the freenas website.