Photos: building a NAS server

Summary: If commercial NAS servers fail to measure up to your requirements, why not build your own? That's what we did, and here's how it turned out.

By Manek Dubash | August 23, 2011 -- 10:23 GMT (03:23 PDT)

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This is the starting point for the build of a new server that's designed to run FreeNAS, an open-source network attached storage OS, built on top of FreeBSD.

We specified a rack-mounted case (since we planned to install it into a rack in due course), a quad-core 3.2GHz Intel Xeon E3-1230 (Sandy Bridge) processor plus a suitable server motherboard, 8GB of RAM in a pair of 4GB DIMMs from Crucial Technology UK, and four 3TB Seagate Barracuda XT SATA disks. The case is Antec's 4U22EPS650 4U server box, which includes the power supply.

Photos: Manek Dubash

Topics: Storage, Reviews

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2 comments

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Nice article, it would be interesting to see how it performs... We've built up a few Freenas boxes and had mixed results e.g. the configuration disappears or the box crashes and loses data. This is on varying platforms, usb boot or full install. Also you list 4 drives in the article but price up 3 at the end..? Cheer, j3zza

redweb

24 August, 2011 09:06

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The price for the drives (£527.76) is actually for 4 units (£131.94 each); the table has been amended.

Charles McLellan

31 August, 2011 14:12

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