NK4 "old" vs "new" hardware

Technology Buy Curious
1

Hi everyone. 1st post here.

I was looking at the NK4 guides and then using pcpartpicker to design the NAS.

Maybe i have completely missed the point, (and perhaps you will want to see 2 example builds to help see my point), but when I actually look for parts online to buy, the prices on these older CPUs and MB’s for NK4 recommendations seem to be more expensive than current prices for home PC parts.

I am in Australia, and many of the NK4 recommendations parts are only available from overseas or the local seller wants $4k+ (in one instance) for a server MB. Seems for what i want (low power storage, maybe some streaming / media server) i could potentially get away with newer PC parts than CPU parts.

What are the downsides to using home PC grade for NAS over server grade? is the Sata ports, or lack of ECC RAM? or something else?

Requirements for me:

Lowish power.
Lots of storage.
Docker containers (these can be tuned to consume little CPU/RAM)
good price point for CPU/RAM etc.
some streaming/media.

I would just run Linux on the NAS. I do have a build in mind, if it makes more sense, i will edit this and add it.

Thanks.

EDIT:

Here is my core build after some research:

https://au.pcpartpicker.com/list/RLfLWD

I have not decided on disks, raid card and cpu cooler, or power. The cpu and motherboard might be $700+ alone, plus the case (140) and add in the others, i am looking at around $1500 easy for a total build.

Is this really a NAS killer?

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I agree with the fact that shipping costs outside of USA are pricey. I’m with you on the importing or buying new dilemma.

I’m in Australia too and all the used HDDs from the guides work out to be too expensive. Better off to buy new from amazon - eg. 8TB shucable drives, these aren’t exactly ideal for a budget build though or trying to cut costs. Motherboards from eBay all cop big shipping costs too. Almost the same price as the used motherboard itself. I managed to pickup a RSV-L4500 4U case from Amazon with free shipping using a prime trial.

I’m thankfully not in a rush so will have to see what I eventually end up doing.

3

been doing some research for the last few weeks, and it seems for us here in Aus that we either pay close to new prices for older hardware (shipping costs plus currency) or just buy new hardware.

Id rather get newer hardware for the NAS than used. I will post a proposd build soon.

1 Like
4

Just checking in with you. How did you go with your build? Any decisions yet?