Need advice NAS acquisition advice for jasper-zanjani: enthusiast, 800 USD

[jasper-zanjani]

Usage type: enthusiast

Preferred form factor RS (RackStation)

Number of bays: 4-bays

Do you have any existing drives that you plan on using? Yes

Prefered RAID array setup for this NAS: RAID 1

This NAS will be used for: backup, multimedia, downloads (torrents, USENET, WebDAV, FTP, etc.)

Max budget for this setup: 800 USD

Number of users that will utilize this NAS: 1

Any preferred network connectivity? /

Where will this NAS be used: LAN only

Any special network requirements: /

Special cloud provider connectivity: /

Additional information:
Hey guys, I've been wanting a NAS for a looong time. But the amount of options can be pretty confusing, and I haven't really found good resources to sort through them. I've even read through Brian Moses's DIY NAS guides.

What I'm really looking for is an economical but robust solution that I'll be able build on into the future. That's why I plan to use existing 1 TB drives while I learn more about how to use a NAS in general. Performance is really not an issue, and if possible I'd like to use secondhand equipment unless there's a specific reason not to.

I would greatly appreciate the sage advice of those who know better.

 

[Rusty]

4bay RS model narrows it down significantly to only a few models. As all models have gotten upgrade during the second part of 2020 or early 2021, so did RS820+. Unfortunately, that model will not fit into that budget as a brand new model, and not sure anyone will sell it at half the retail price considering it's a brand new model.

Now either an earlier model from 2018 or some DS model. Most RS models are over 1000$ of the bat even though some other brands do sell rack models even with built-in 10G around your price.

Perhaps a DYI model would be a better fit for that budget, and then run Xpenology system on it, if you are interested in DSM as your choice of NAS OS.

So the main question here is, is the rack form factor the one and only option?

 

[jasper-zanjani]

Thank you very much for your response.

You're right, the RS is more expensive. But I feel that it is more future-proofed than the diskstations. It'll give me an excuse to also get a rack-mounted UPS, and start building up my home lab. I just don't want to be in the position of having bought cheap and needing to buy twice.

 

[Rusty]

Thank you very much for your response.

You're right, the RS is more expensive. But I feel that it is more future-proofed than the diskstations. It'll give me an excuse to also get a rack-mounted UPS, and start building up my home lab. I just don't want to be in the position of having bought cheap and needing to buy twice.

Well RS model will offer more than some DS models will not for sure, but just from the financial perspective, getting a new RS model under 1k$ will probably not be an option.

 

[WST16]

From what I’m reading (no personal experience), the rack mounted models are noisier (in case that matters to you).

 

[jasper-zanjani]

Update: I ended up buying a used Dell PowerEdge R720XD. It took a while to set up the way I wanted because I also had to buy a 12U rack on caster wheels, OEM rails for mounting, and 20 hard drive caddies. Luckily I was able to save money on actual disks because I had plenty of spinning rust disks lying around.

Item​	Cost (USD)​	Total (USD)​
Dell PowerEdge R720XD	403.95​	434.25​
Hard drive caddies (lot of 20)	84.80​	91.16​
Sliding rail kit	84.00​	90.30​
StarTech 12U open frame server rack	207.99​	223.59​
Total		839.30​

After flashing the RAID controller I installed TrueNAS Scale and set up a ZFS array. I'm still playing around with the array itself, but I'm very pleased with the solution. I have an upgradable, future-proof setup that can not only serve as a NAS but potentially a host for VMs and containerized services. And it ended up pretty much in my $800 budget I started out with!