[Guide] NAS Killer 4.0 - fast, quiet, power efficient, and flexible - starting at $125

Personal choice? Do you need the drive slots or the compact size?

If starting this build from scratch, are there any recommendations (or pros and cons) on which drive type to use, SAS vs SATA?

hi all,

first post, I’ve been using my old pc for my server for the past 2-3 years, I’ve a 2600k + Asus Maximus 4 (Z68), unfortunately the processor doesn’t support IOMMU, even though the motherboard has 2 NIC’s for getting PFsense on the system. Anyway, I’ve 32gb ddr3 and don’t want to start from scratch, I was thinking about just getting a mother board and cpu, and looking at the

Supermicro X9SCM-F with the Intel SR0P6 Xeon E3-1270V2 Quad Core, with the rest of my setup from my existing server (includes 2x 1tb ssd’s, 8x10tb drives, 2x 4tb, 2x dvd/blu ray drives + SAS card, and a 550 W PSU.

I shouldn’t have any issues with not having ECC unbuffered memory as such? the board seems to have 2 1gb nic’s so that should be able to work with proxmox+pfsense vm?

Thank you for the very informational thread! I’m happy to spend some more money for a more powerful setup, which could work with ddr3 memory, but this seems to be the best bet?
Btw I don’t run unraid, my setup has debian 10 with docker containers + snapraid.

Is there any way around the 32GB limit on the C204 chipset? Has anyone be able to use 16GB DIMMS for example? Looking to down size from an existing LGA1366 system but don’t want to lose too much memory.

There isn’t a way around the limit.

2 posts were split to a new topic: NK 4.0 no video on boot

@JDM_WAAAT could you please suggest any other compatible mini itx motherboard to build NK v4.0, as suggested mini itx board is not available . Thanks for all your help and support.

I would highly recommend Micro-ATX over Mini-ITX. There’s a ton more expansion options, it’s cheaper, and more available…

I can find Mini-ITX stuff if you really need it.

1 Like

i apologize for reposting it as i am unable to trace my previous reply.

i agree that Micro-ATX would be more beneficial compare to Mini-ITX, however i was trying to reuse some of the components that i already have(e.g:-fractol node 202, with SFX power supplies,hard disk,ram) to minimize the cost further . All i need is a Mini-ITX mother board (with SATA 6.0 Gb/s Ports, RAID Configuration 0,1,5,10) like (DQ77KB) that you suggested in the NK 4.0 guide, and compatible (Intel Xeon E3-1200 V1 / V2 series/Intel 2nd and 3rd Generation Core series) processor . This will be my first NAS and hopefully it will be good enough for experimenting . if its possible for you and can point me to right direction for all Open source NAS related software,tools and OS it would be great help . i would be very much thankful to you for all your kind help and support in this regard.
Regards
Nayan

I’ve finally managed to flash my SAS Controller to IT mode but my HDDs still aren’t showing up. A search seems to suggest it may be an issue with the cable and something to do with forward/reverse. I’m using a SAS SFF-8087 Host to 4 SFF-8482. Is this the wrong cable and do if I need to buy a new one then what am I looking for? Thanks.

Did you plug in power to those cables? Did you 3.3v mod the drives?

They’re plugged into the power. I haven’t done the 3.3v mod though. Must not have seen that step. Is it as simple as a Google search for instructions?

I’m thinking of using the HP Z220 CMT workstation because I literally have like 10 of these sitting in my shed collecting dust. These come with I believe the Intel Xeon E3-1225 V2? Considering at looking at Unraid again for OS and testing out QuickSync. Would these be worth messing with or should I consider some of the components listed above? Has anyone built with the HP Z220’s before?

Hi!

I really wanna make a build with the Fractal Node 804, but I find it difficult to under how can I fit 10 HDDs in there when most of the motherboards mATX have like 4 SATA slot. I am not planning to use a GPU rather an Intel Quick Sync from the latest gen. Would be great if anyone could help

Thanks

The case can fit 10 HDD just fine. You can use a LSI SAS HBA to connect 8 more hard drives.

Looks like the Rosewill 4412 is back in newegg but for 250 Newegg Rosewill 4412.

People coming from Europe should take a look at the Fujitsu D3644-B (6x SATA, Micro-ATX). It’s a C246 motherboard and costs 140 €. With an used i3-8100 for ~60 €, its a really efficient system with a powerful iGPU. It should be even possible to install the Iocrest M.2 E-Key 2x SATA card to reach a total of 8x SATA ports, but finally this will result in a price range similar to the Gigaybte C246M-WU4 (160 €, 8x SATA, Micro-ATX).

I use the Gigabyte C246N-WU2 (Mini-ITX) in my main server and its power consumption of only ~7W (with active 1G LAN, SATA SSD, W10, 16GB RAM) is a dream. Now with active 10G card (~6W), 8 sleeping HDDs (~4.5W), USB-Stick (Unraid), 64GB ECC RAM and NVMe, it idles at ~19.5W.

I wonder why the C246 motherboards have such a bad availability, especially outside of Europe?!

I have followed your builds for a while and I am excited to build the T110 II next weekend. I am a little confused in the section below on the T110 you list SATA cables for the HDD, so what if I want to use SAS drives? Do you have a recommendation for those cables or these will fit those drives as well? I am a total NOOB but I have researched and read different things so any advice will be greatly appreciated.

You need a SAS HBA and cables to use SAS HDD.

1 Like

Thank You!!