Final Thoughts
Was it as easy as I made it out to be, can everybody really set up their own NAS? Both yes and no. Yes, as in pretty much anyone who can use a computer for everyday tasks can. No, as in my 90-year grandmother probably can’t and neither can my 4-year-old nephew. So technically my original conclusion was wrong, but not entirely.
It really doesn’t take much and I’m sure almost all of our readers could do it. I’ve shown you a simple step by step guide through it in more detail then you would need. Not counting the time it takes to create our file system and format it, it only takes an hour, maybe two, to set it up. This NAS is just as friendly on your wallet as it is to configure and there is no need to dig deep into the pockets. For around €170 you can get the G7 microserver, a hard disk adapter for the OS disk, a SATA cable and power adapter. You will need to add the price of your hard disks to that, but you would need to do the same for any commercial NAS.
We also see good news when we look at the power consumption of the G7. With just 1 watt in standby, 65 watts during boot and 50-50 watt under normal usage, it won’t cost a fortune to have it running. These measurements are including the 5 hard disks used during this test.
Compared to a Pre-Built NAS
If we take a look at what a pre-build 4bay NAS would cost with similar memory and CPU specifications, we see a huge difference and why this method would appeal to many people. There is a reason for the premium price on the brands such as Synology, Qnap and Thecus and they aren’t overpriced as some people say. Yes, they cost more to buy, but you also get a lot of things you don’t from a home-brew like this one.
You won’t have the security of a support staff to help you when something goes wrong, one you can call or write to help you with your trouble. There are forums for the free NAS systems, but that is far from what a professionally trained support staff can do. Pre-build NAS’ also come with all sort of certifications that they have been tested to work with other network products, virtual machine environments and so much more that is important to some. Most home users don’t need any more than the services and features mentioned in this post, but the support is a personal decision and safer option.
You may also find a bigger variety when it comes to plugins and an easier share management in the commercial brands then here, but if you can live with these options, you get a great cheap entry into the world of centralized storage.
Conclusion
So whether you use a commercial branded pre-build NAS like the ones we regularly review here at eTeknix, a total home build like we showed you a little while ago or a half-way pre-done like I’ve just shown you – Having a NAS in your home is one of the greatest things in the digital world. Having a centralized storage for everything just makes it so much easier and you’ll need less space on each individual device. If was up to me, there should be at least one in every home, in one form or another.
This is really something I never heard about and way more better than external HDD, which you need to take with you everywhere.
But… I instantly have a question for this. You mentioned NAS works as a pc, so it should have Mobo, right? And furthermore, is there any possibility to RAID all hard drives? 🙂
While I can’t speak to a hardware raid on this device (I’m not that familiar with it).. I built my own NAS around OMV, and OMV supports various software raid levels on the storage drives no problem.
u can build pc and run omv on it. but i hate this idea, fans are noisy. if you dont mind about case, use arm board (i used banana pi) and get sata multiplier and u have board with 4 sata ports, hdmi/rca video, gbit lan, 2 usb, IR – you can also add GUI, mouse and keyboard and use it as backup comp 🙂
That’s what water cooling is for. Kits these days even come pre-shipped with coolant in them with no assembly required. There’s really not any excuse anymore.
water cooling kits have also fan included, but not this fans are noisest, i mean psu fan, in cheap units you have noisy fan, and if you can afford for better psu, you can afford for really good 4disk qnap/synology/bufallo
Believe me, fans are cheaper than a soho NAS. A good PS will set you back about $70 and a good fan maybe $15. A watercooler cost me less than $50. You are still not in the kind of money you would be in for a QNAP NAS when empty they run around $250 and then you need to populate it with NAS class drives.
Truth is it does have a mobo and there are numerous implementations of a NAS device, either in a DIY solution with the FreeNAS operating system or ready-made boxes from well-known manufacturers..
Also did a piece on the subject: http://low.tech-iq.org/11-problems-you-can-fix-with-a-nas/
I attached, after instalation, two SATA HDD, but i cannot setup Mirroring with these two. The main OS is on a IDE HDD and I want to setup those two HDD as RAID. Why I cannot do this?
Very good lessons.
Enjoyed studying this, very good stuff, thanks.
I’ve been trying to find any information on how to access the shared folder from outside your home network. That to me is the whole point of a NAS, yet I’ve not even found a mention of it besides using a VPN. I see no explanation of how to find the NAS remotely. Anyone know a tutorial that covers this?
You can actually do that quite easy, for any system, not just NAS. It requires 2/3 steps:
– Get a dynamic DNS account (no-ip.org, dyndns, etc) or check if your router already has one of its own
– Set up the DDNS in your router, making it sync.
– Forward the ports for the function you want to share in the router. That could be 80 for HTTP or 21 for FTP. (With UPnP enabled, this will be done automatically for the services you tell to use it on your NAS)
If you want access to it from the file explorer, you can add an FTP connection there too in Windows – that way it’s like a local shared folder, even though it’s remotely.