Bottom line: I'm looking for a cheap NAS... I have a zyxel NAS325 at home, but they have a couple of serious vulnerability's and the vendor is no longer pushing out patches for this machine. Initially I tought about buying a zyxel NAS326, or an other low-end (cheap) NAS from WD or synology... However, none of these NAS'es really caught my fancy... They were either missing features, to limited, to expensive, to old, not enough updates, to much power draw, not enough drive bays (do you know they sell NAS's with one drive
)....So, i tought to myself: why not build my own machine, or (even better) buy a cheap pre-built configuration and add one or two extra 2,5" disks. That way i have full controll over the hardware, and i can easily install centos or bsd and have full controll over the os aswell (including regular patches).
The problem isn't that i cannot build a small pc, but rather that i have no clue where to get the best bang for my bucks... I'm used to looking at server configs at work, but i don't have to pay the bill when i pick a suitable config
Also, at work, it's either POWER hardware or i get a list of approved hardware from SAP and i basically have to fill in the very limited amount of gaps...
So far, i had 2 idears:
buy a raspberry... But then i'd have to buy an rpi, a psu (if i want to use 3,5" disks), a NAS HAT, cables, heat sinks, screws, fans, cables....
The end result is rather pricey, looks very "artisanal", and i end up with a Cortex-A72 (which uses very little power, but isn't all that performant in case i want to use my build for other stuff.... like controll my smart plugs, or record my security camera's)
build a small pc... I had something like this in my mind:
GIGABYTE H410M S2, socket 1200 motherboard , µATX
Intel Celeron G5900, 3,4 GHz socket 1200 processor
cpu cooler
Kingston ValueRAM 4 GB DDR4-2666 Mhz
SilentiumPC Elementum E2 350W 80Plus
a case
1x 1Tb Harddisk, 2,5" (for OS)
2x 3Tb Harddisks, 2,5" (maybe add one more for RAID5)
This way i have a small pc that uses relatively little power due to the celeron (which should be relatively efficient) and the 2,5" disks.... But still, prices do add up after a while (about 400-500€).
My main question: am i missing something here? Should i be looking at something completely different? AMD? pre-made machines? Complete rPi kits? Stick to a certain out-of-the-box NAS i missed completely?