My First NAS.

[Eris]

Hey all, I am planning to build my first custom NAS. I know how to build a gaming pc, but not the details of cores, speeds, threads, or video encoding, or anything deep in why to pick x hardware against y hardware.

Location: EU/Netherlands

Purpose:
- Hosting gaming servers, like any game, this will change from time to time on what game it is going to be. From Valheim to Minecraft to Ark Survival. 
- Running a media server like Plex or Jellyfin
- Hosting VMs with Kubernetes clusters, etc for development testing env. 

Current situation:
- Sadly, for now, I can only connect with WiFi, this will change in the future. 
- I do have a lifetime HexOS license.

Hardware:
Case: Jonsbo N3
HDD: probably 3x 8 TB (not sure which I heard stuff about SMR or something that it is bad and will run me into problems later but not sure what I should get then.) I do understand I need at least 3 disks for proper use of HexOS
RAM: 32GB(2x 16) DDR4 with ECC support(also not sure which and how I know this is supported)
CPU: This I am really stuck on, I see a lot of users talk about i5 12600k IGPU. But is is kind of hard to get for me. I was wondering why the 13th/14th gen are not used? All I understand so far I should not get an F or AMD because of the bad video encoding support with PLEX and Jellyfin. I also understand that HexOS only supports x86 systems. I think that means only AMD/INTEL CPU's
Motherboard: I think it needs to be an ITX size for the case?  So far, I need something that can support the CPU ofc, Is it possible to support DDR4 and DDR5 on the same motherboard for future upgrades? I guess something with a lot of SATA connections was not sure if you need 3 or 6 GB. 
Power supply: I am not so sure what I have to look out for with the N3 case. I assumed around 500 watts. I do like to transfer my gaming PC Corsair HX750 V2 PSU to this, but not sure what to check on what fits or not. Because I do need to upgrade my gaming pc one.
Raid controller: Not so sure which to get here in the Netherlands. All I know I need one with IT mode. Any guides would be nice. I also heard there are a lot of fake once's Is this true?

My goal is to have a server that can last for a while and just have fun with and tinker. 

Thanks in advance 😄

If I need to provide any more info, please feel free to ask 😄 

[PsychoWards]

Hey, 

Seeing that you want to host a lot of VMs, may I suggest that you use Proxmox as the OS and Hexos as a VM. Proxmox is brilliant to run VMs while Hexos doesn't support VMs yet, you have to use the truenas gui and don't have the same flexibility as proxmox offers. Therefor, use proxmox ass your OS an Hexos in a VM. Just make sure to pass through the SATA controller to Hexos to give it HW level access and don't connect anything other then the Hexos drives to that controller. You can still just use Hexos as the OS and run your VMs in there, the initial Hexos setup is easier but you are not as flexible in the long run. There is no right or wrong in this one, both have there pros and cons. 🙂 

HDDs: yes, avoid SMR drives as they are causing issues with ZFS. Go for CMR drives, but IIRC most, if not all 8TB drives are CMR anyway. Basically stay away from desktop and WD Red (non plus/pro) drives and go for NAS/Server drives. Check alternate if they still have refurbished server drives, might be a good starting point. And yes at least 3 drives now, to create a RaidZ1 which is expandable in the future. 

CPU: yes only AMD/Intel is supported. Intel iGPU from 12th gen onwards is brilliant for HW transcoding. 13th and 14th gen had problems where they died prematurely, but Intel supposedly fixed this with BIOS updates, but still a lot of people don't trust them, that's why some people don't recommend them. But you can still use them if you like, just make sure to use the latest bios and don't buy the F version as you mentioned.

MoBo: whatever fits in the case and doesn't use a Realtek NIC. Typically ITX boards only have 1 pcie slot, so you can either use a GPU (for ML & LLM) or an Intel NIC or a HBA card. If you can go full ATX you don't have this problem anymore. Also most boards are either DDR4 or DDR5, you have to make your choice now. Almost no consumer CPU/MoBo supports ECC, so you will likely not be able to use your DDR4 EEC memory.

Raid Controller: if you have enough SATA ports you don't necessarily need one.

Network: wifi is a BIG no no! Neither Hexos nor Proxmox support WiFi you absolutely have to use a wired network connection, that's not optional but a hard requirement. 

 

Additionally Hexos doesn't not allow you to use your boot drive for anything else, so go with a small SSD (32GB are enough) if you use Hexos as your OS. If you use Proxmox, you don't have that limitation, there you can even install VMs on your boot drive.