[ITX] My personal NAS killer

  • Introduction


    My NAS experience is based on the last 5 years using 2 different Synology NAS, but it’s been a while I wanted something DIY.


    I optioned OMV two years ago but my Linux knowledge wasn’t there yet, so I bought my 2nd Synology, the DS918+ - the high-end home NAS from Synology.


    Today I’ve finally decommissioned this little guy, which was/is pretty expensive. I’ve paid a hefty 550€ at the time and the price hasn’t changed much since then, so my goal was to replace it with something cheaper.


    This project would have not been possible without my friend Lorenzo who helped me a lot especially with SnapRAID concepts and the build itself.


    Hardware


    The goal I set was fairly easy: better hardware at a lower cost (DS918+ Specs are here). I added some caveats: no server parts (unlike other “NAS killers” out there), low power consumption when idle, recent hardware and reasonable silence.


    To add some context, my server is mainly used for backup, downloads and storing my data. There’s only me using it for the most time, and a couple of friends use it for streaming over Plex.


    These are the parts, with a little justification.



    Total: €385.39 -Prices include shipping


    Add 11€ for a Sandisk Ultra Flair 32GB – PCPartPicker doesn’t allow for such parts.


    All things considered, I made it under 400€ and this is great in my opinion.


    Software


    I’ve configured the system as follows:

    • Sandisk USB drive – OMV boot device
    • NVMe SSD drive – Docker and downloads storage
    • 3x4TB 3.5’’ HDD drives – SnapRAID


    Drives are coming from the previous NAS, and yes I know I have very little storage: I have a long way to become a data hoarder!


    I’ve been testing OMV to become familiar with its concepts for a few months in VMs (only OMV 5), writing in this forum and digging a lot to document everything I could. This work turned out in an 8-page manual that has become my little treasure. For the record, the majority of the most useful things have been written by ryecoaaron, lol.


    It’s been tough, I also reported some bugs during this period of testing, but after some hiccups I finally made it.


    I use SMB for mounting shares to my 2 Windows computers. This one is the only integrated service I use; all the rest are plugins from omv-extras and dockers.


    The system is very silent even though I have a discrete number of fans (3 case fans, CPU fan and PSU fan). It consumes 19W when idling with all disks in spindown (I hope somebody isn’t screaming for this).



    Plugins I use: openmediavault-flashmemory, openmediavault-snapraid, openmediavault-unionfilesystems, openmediavault-backup, openmediavault-diskstats, openmediavault-resetperms, openmediavault-wakealarm, openmediavault-usbbackup.


    Dockers I use: Dashmachine (great replacement for Heimdall), Glances, JDownloader, Krusader, let’s-encrypt/nginx, Plex, Portainer, Syncthing, Tautulli, Transmission VPN, Watchtower.



    I still have to configure NextCloud (the docker compose it’s ready though) which I will use for accessing data from the web and for WebDAV features.


    I can’t consider myself an OMV expert but I think I’ve accomplished a great setup for my needs and rounded a lot of rough edges. I am experienced at Docker, though. Don’t hesitate to ask questions about OMV or Docker configurations!


    I have learnt a lot from this experience. I’ll try to publish the guide/KB I’ve written (it’s not in English and is rough in many aspects). I wanted to thank again the forum in general, there is a lot of knowledge here!


    As a bonus pic, here’s my NAS killer next to his victim, for one last time. I won’t show you the internals: it’s messy.

    OMV BUILD - MY NAS KILLER - OMV 6.x + omvextrasorg (updated automatically every week)

    NAS Specs: Core i3-8300 - ASRock H370M-ITX/ac - 16GB RAM - Sandisk Ultra Flair 32GB (OMV), 256GB NVME SSD (Docker Apps), Several HDDs (Data) w/ SnapRAID - Fractal Design Node 304 - Be quiet! Pure Power 11 350W


    My all-in-one SnapRAID script!

  • I personally fail to see purpose of such build if the goals were to just build something faster and cheaper than 981+. Yes, its faster than j3455 that synology uses, but its barely cheaper than a used ds918+ and after a few years electricity cost will make it more expensive. Something based on j4105 or j5005 (which is still overkill for what you actually use it) could do just as well at much cheaper price point and same power consumption as commercial solution...

  • I like it. The only thing that I do not like is the luck of ECC memory...but then maybe I am old school.

    That's exactly what my friend has told me. You seem to like a lot ECC memory!!!
    To me the issue is the cost and the availability of boards supporting ECC memory.
    I'm not a pro so I'll live without them until I will become a real hoarder :)

    OMV BUILD - MY NAS KILLER - OMV 6.x + omvextrasorg (updated automatically every week)

    NAS Specs: Core i3-8300 - ASRock H370M-ITX/ac - 16GB RAM - Sandisk Ultra Flair 32GB (OMV), 256GB NVME SSD (Docker Apps), Several HDDs (Data) w/ SnapRAID - Fractal Design Node 304 - Be quiet! Pure Power 11 350W


    My all-in-one SnapRAID script!

  • Hi !

    I ordered the same board and nearly the same piece otherwise.

    I have a question on the motherboard, i'm waiting for my order to come, do you manage to get the wifi working ? Really want to use it as an access point for mobile device !

    Does the 2 ethernet port works flawlessly on OMV ?


    For ECC, will go to this path when I will play with bigger server than mine !

  • I am only using one LAN port, but I can see the other one is been recognized, so should work fine.


    I have disabled Wi-Fi from the BIOS to save power since I don't use it at all, but I don't see why it should be incompatible.

    OMV BUILD - MY NAS KILLER - OMV 6.x + omvextrasorg (updated automatically every week)

    NAS Specs: Core i3-8300 - ASRock H370M-ITX/ac - 16GB RAM - Sandisk Ultra Flair 32GB (OMV), 256GB NVME SSD (Docker Apps), Several HDDs (Data) w/ SnapRAID - Fractal Design Node 304 - Be quiet! Pure Power 11 350W


    My all-in-one SnapRAID script!

  • I am only using one LAN port, but I can see the other one is been recognized, so should work fine.


    I have disabled Wi-Fi from the BIOS to save power since I don't use it at all, but I don't see why it should be incompatible.

    Thanks for the answer ! Will wait for my order impatiently

  • Hey, great setup! I'm thinking about something very similar: Suggestions on NAS hardware, maybe you could help me a bit with hardware selection.


    I don't know all the dockers you are using, but isn't the CPU kind of an overkill for that purpose? How much computational power do you actually use?


    The mainboard looks nice! As noiro said I'm also thinking a bit about ECC RAM, but then again availability and prices of ECC ready mainboards is annoying.


    What is the reason that you split your boot drive (USB) and the docker & downloads (NVMe SSD)?


    Thanks!

  • but isn't the CPU kind of an overkill for that purpose?

    I wanted a decent CPU for a fast system.

    Moreover I use Plex transcoding (sometimes) and Handbrake to encode movies. These tasks are heavy on resources and also use Intel's GPU.

    What is the reason that you split your boot drive (USB) and the docker & downloads (NVMe SSD)?

    Just because when you install OMV it needs to format the whole drive.

    I wanted something clean and separate apps from OS, but you could use a SSD and make two partitions after install.

    OMV BUILD - MY NAS KILLER - OMV 6.x + omvextrasorg (updated automatically every week)

    NAS Specs: Core i3-8300 - ASRock H370M-ITX/ac - 16GB RAM - Sandisk Ultra Flair 32GB (OMV), 256GB NVME SSD (Docker Apps), Several HDDs (Data) w/ SnapRAID - Fractal Design Node 304 - Be quiet! Pure Power 11 350W


    My all-in-one SnapRAID script!

  • Very nice!


    I just started putting drives in a new DS920+ a week or two ago... I'd had a 2-bay Netgear ReadyNAS years ago, and my own tower 'server' before that (probably 10-15 yrs ago). Been tinkering with RPi's since...


    I've seen a bunch of other 'NAS Killer' builds over at places like serverbuilds.net... just kind of 'discovered' OMV a few months ago, and wasn't really ready (in my mind) to go back down the rabbit hole of building my own storage server. I don't want or need a big tower (or rack) with umpteen drives, that sounds like a jet engine spooling up.


    Something like this, though... almost gets me interested in going the DIY route again. Bravo!

  • Hi @ all,


    i'm new here so please don't hit :*

    @auanasgheps : like you, I originally had a self-built server (together with my brother at the time) with a raid hard drive array years ago...
    Since then I've been using a Synology DS (2-bay) for a few years now.

    Originally, I had to upgrade to a Synology 4-bay NAS as well.
    But then I struggled with the relatively high costs and looked around to see if it wouldn't make sense to start a DIY project again.
    That's when I (of course) came across openmediavault 8)
    The hardware is almost already there (therefore the investment is limited).
    Now I actually planned to install openmediavault directly on an SSD Raid-1.
    But now I've come across your article here and am considering doing it just like you (i.e. with Docker, etc.) ...
    Unfortunately, I have no experience with Docker at all ;(

    Are there your instructions that you mentioned in the first post here somewhere so that I can hold onto :?:

    That would be extremely cool because otherwise I would certainly have some difficulties getting the project up and running!


    kind regards

    the picknicker

  • There are a lot of videos on youtube that can teach you how to use Docker on OMV, simply search "omv docker".

    OMV BUILD - MY NAS KILLER - OMV 6.x + omvextrasorg (updated automatically every week)

    NAS Specs: Core i3-8300 - ASRock H370M-ITX/ac - 16GB RAM - Sandisk Ultra Flair 32GB (OMV), 256GB NVME SSD (Docker Apps), Several HDDs (Data) w/ SnapRAID - Fractal Design Node 304 - Be quiet! Pure Power 11 350W


    My all-in-one SnapRAID script!

  • Ok, thanks for the hint!

    But somehow I get along better with a "to do list" that I can go through step by step and tick off ;)

    I recommend getting general knowledge about Docker, like: its basics, Docker Compose, Portainer.

    You need to understand how docker works with volumes, networks, permissions and so on.

    From there is just a matter to build the right container based on your needs.

    OMV BUILD - MY NAS KILLER - OMV 6.x + omvextrasorg (updated automatically every week)

    NAS Specs: Core i3-8300 - ASRock H370M-ITX/ac - 16GB RAM - Sandisk Ultra Flair 32GB (OMV), 256GB NVME SSD (Docker Apps), Several HDDs (Data) w/ SnapRAID - Fractal Design Node 304 - Be quiet! Pure Power 11 350W


    My all-in-one SnapRAID script!

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    macom has some list-like how-to’s in the guides section based on dockers; specifically docker-compose. Here’s an easy one for Plex.

    System Backup Typo alert: Under the Linux section the command should be sudo umount /dev/sda1 NOT sudo unmount /dev/sda1

    Backup Data Disk to Backup Disk on Same Machine: In a Scheduled Job:rsync -av --delete /srv/dev-disk-by-uuid-f8814ed9-9a5c-4e1c-8830-426968c20ea3/ /srv/dev-disk-by-uuid-e67439d5-00a3-4942-bd5f-b84ab86aa850/ Don't forget trailing slashes, and BE CAREFUL. (HT: Getting Started with OMV5)

    Equipment - Thinkserver TS140, NanoPi M4 (v.1), Odroid XU4 (Using DietPi): PiHole

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    The OS only requires about 8GB, and OMV is purposely set up to run data and OS on separate drives. It can be done but is not advised. A small external flash drive of 16 or 32 GB makes system backups easy and inexpensive.

  • How to do this USB backup in easy way?

    Power down.

    Clone.

    Boot up

  • I was planning to install Debian on an SSD, but now I see that it wouldn't be bad to install it on a smaller (32GB) USB flash drive, and use the SSD for data. I have two USB 3.2 ports on the back of the motherboard, and I have USB 3.1 USB memory, so I'm wondering if that's ok and can I expect speeds like on an SSD?

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