Build Your Own NAS vs Buying a NAS?

Build Notes for DiY Intel i5 Custom Linux 8-Bay NAS (LINKS INCLUDED)

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Build Notes for DiY Synology DS923+ / QNAP TS-464 etc:

Topton NAS Motherboard N6005/N5105 4x Intel i226-V 2.5G Nics Dual M.2 NVMe Motherboard – $226.97

Mini ITX 4 Bays disk NAS Case – $57.90

350W Small 1U Flex Full Modular PSU – $47.87

SATA 3.0 III 6Gb/s 40cm Cable – $0.71 (each)

JinyJaier SSD NVME M2 128GB SSD – $9.76

Video Chapters
00:00 - The purpose of today's video - DiY vs Turnkey NAS and the Cost
00:43 - A NAS is more than just the hardware!
01:52 - The cost of current NAS hardware vs the Cost of building it. Domestic NAS
03:05 - The Importance of TrueNAS and UnRAID
04:00 - Building a NAS like the Synology DS923+ or QNA TS-464 yourself cheap from scratch
11:12 - Building a NAS setup like the Synology or QNAP WITHOUT the building/tech hassle
14:01 - How much will it cosst to build a NAS comparable to the QNAP TVS-h874?
16:59 - Comparing the Price of DiY NAS versus Turnkey off the shelf NAS Drives

Thanks for watching. Do you still need help? Use the NASCompares Free Advice section above. It is my free, unbias community support system that allows you to ask me questions about your ideal setup. It is NOT a sales platform, NOT a way to push hardware you don’t need and, although it is just manned by me and might take a day or two for me to reply, I will help you any way I can. Below are some more popular guides.

[sergueivergounov]

I purchased a NAS. It was excellent.
Years later the maker dropped support. Its proprietary software became outdated.
My computers with modern OS do not see it anymore. Not its web-page, not the files.
I will not buy a prebuilt NAS again.
The other NAS that I built myself, Open Media Vault, is always up to date.

[HeikosGarage]

That was again an excellent video.
The only downside I see with watching your content is that i always want to spend money afterwards.
I appreciate what you guys are doing, keep up the good work.
Heiko

[Special_Ed]

Nice, fair comparison. I went through the same debate a few years ago. I ultimately went turnkey for the power efficiency l benefits and that I really didn’t need much performance. But the DIY was compelling at the time just for learning and power.

[InspectorGadget]

Indeed, one pays for the software (license) with a turn-key solution. But I would also dare to say, one also pays for the (often excellent) Support and (2 ~ 3 years years) Warranty.
The beauty of DIY is that you can often repurpose older (but powerful) hardware and learn a lot along the way. (but also encounter some challenges along the way, never store your data on such a NAS without a more-then excellent backup! Preferably 2x backups!)
With that hands-on-approach you can fit your needs down to the comma's and have a lot of satisfaction of accomplishments. (but also sometimes frustrations).
With a turn-key solution the GUI and experiences often are quite smooth.
With DYI it might be rough at the edges and be prepared to learn a lot in a relative short time. And spend possibly spend a lot of time in building and fixing/fine-tuning the system.
With more than 30+ (turnkey) NAS in use since 2002 (about 2PT to 3PT of data) with less-than-a-handful of issue (2x defective PSU, 1x stuck in bios-boot mode) I believe it to be quite cost-effective and, very important, very reliable.

[cameronfrye]

Lots of good stuff to consider there. I built my own to learn, but I used some ebay parts and a case and power supply I had lying around. Knowing what I know now... I would have simply bought a Synology for the software package. The services I have on my TrueNAS system do the job, but it took me months to get things to where I'm happy. Thanks for the discussion!

[JBlongz]

If you’re tech savvy with some command line skills, and a lot of flexible time, building is better. If you need functionality ASAP, buy a QNAP or Synology.

[ewenchan]

I've used both.

I started out with a DIY build*, then bought three QNAP NAS servers, to supplement said DIY build*, and then decommissioned all of those NAS systems in favour of consolidating 4 NAS servers down to a single, new DIY build*, and then I had troubles getting NFS and SMB to play nicely with each other for one of the shared folders (yes, I know - NOT the recommended practice, but it's really easy to be able to set up NFS shares and mount them on Linux systems and it's really easy to set up and mount SMB shares for Windows systems). (Yes, I also know that you can mount NFS shares on Windows as well, but there is one extra step that you need to do, vs. SMB/CIFS working, just out of the box, on Windows.), so now I run my consolidated server plus 1 QNAP NAS server.

There are certainly advantages to both.

I wished that QNAP would keep up with the hardware that's available. The fastest AMD processor that they have that you can buy (as of this writing) is still the Ryzen 7 3700.

(There are faster AMD processors out there but QNAP hasn't build NAS hardware around it.)

And they are sorely lacking in the PCIe expansion department (vs. a DIY build).

But on the other hand, it is also true that for my wife, who is NOT technologically inclined, that she can upload the pictures from her phoen using the QPhoto app, that's a nice to have.

Yes, I probably COULD deploy something similar, but it would take a LOT of research on my part, vs. installing the hard drives on the QNAP NAS server, and pushing the power button to turn it on and I can be up and running in about 2 days, of which, about 20 minutes of that is my setting it up, and the rest of the time is the system initialising itself.

And then the QNAP also has myqnapcloud.com, which allows controlled access from outside my home network to be able to transfer files to/from my system (e.g. my 72-year-old dad sharing old pictures from when we were little with me), whereas again, I probably COULD set something like that up myself, using the DIY solution, but again, it would take time for me to research what works and what doesn't, and deal with all of the security risks myself (which, as a grossly underqualified sysadmin, I probably SHOULDN'T be in charge of securing m home network).

There are definitely use cases for both.

*DIY build - technically, someone else built them because I bought the servers used and preassembled, off eBay.

[JasonTaylor-poxc]

There is a compelling argument for going DiY to learn more about how computer systems are put together and work - but I don't recommend that for a NAS solution. For me, I build my own PCs for both personal and production workflows. I could have easily built my own NAS but I really like the Synology system - so I got one of their 8-bay systems, added SSDs for cache, and a dual 10g NIC - in addition to fully populating the system with NAS-rated hard drives. As a business expense, I just needed it to work. I also use the Synology mobile apps. Really, I was buying into the software and ecosystem more than the actual hardware.

[tomdillan]

Not sure why my other post was deleted by youtube but for my budget DIY Nas build I went with a Hp Z230 Sff with a xeon e3-1225v3 for ecc support, 16gb ddr3 ecc ram (still plan to upgrade to 32gb) pny quadro p400 low profile for jellyfin h265 decode, 5.25 drive to 1x 3.5 in hd and 2x2.5 ssd adapter, 2x120 ssd in raid 1 boot drive, 3x wd red 10tb in raid 5, pci-e to nvme adapter for a 256 gb nvme cache drive and truenas core install . There is still an open slot for a pci 2.5 gb nic adapter soon as I get a 2.5gbe switch.

[wertigon]

Biggest lure for me is that DiY allows me to upgrade RAM, hardware and SSD cache however I want. I know I am paying a premium for that, but for something that allows me to set up a few extra server functions like DNS and HTTP proxies it becomes worth it.

[sashag]

Great video. I watched a lot of your videos and last month pulled the trigger on my own build. Nothing I saw pre-built made sense. I wanted a jellyfin media server, and wanted to upgrade a dell micro pc with an i5 8500t and 1 16tb external hdd, to something with parity. The qnap units looked good, but the prices even on the i5 8400t ones are still nuts. Found the Jonsbo n1, and built a i5 12400t on an asus b660 with 16gb ram in it. Added 5x 16tb hdds, and a simple 1x 118gb intel optane ssd. Put unraid on it, learned the system in a few days, and it's running 24x7 with an up time of 1 week now. Total cost with drives was the same as 1 tvs 672 without hdds. It idles at 35w per the ups readout. Highest usage I've seen was 80w. Knowing I have the power to transcode 4k x265 for years to come, and no limit on supported hhds, meant more than the turn key nature of the current pre-built celeron systems, and the savings from the core ix systems.

[TOM]

Thanks great comparison. Buying a turnkey solution made a lot more sense during the recent Prime Day sales which brought the monetary differences down significantly.

[astralpowers]

I built my own NAS around the Jonsbo N1 case which can fit in 5 3.5" HDDs. I bought a cheap B550 mITX motherboard, reused an old Ryzen 2700, 16GB ram kit, a 500GB NVME M.2 SSD, and a 512GB 2.5" SATA SSD that were lying around from my old desktop build and the HDD's were from my old backup enclosures. You can really save by building it yourself and reuse a lot of old desktop parts.

[TheMuso]

This video covers the question I am asking myself now, as I have a machine as a file server that is starting to show signs of failure, either in the CPU or the board, I am not sure which.

One thing I really like about pre-built NAS is the hardware form factor. Yes, you can get PC cases with a similar form factor, but it seems to me that they end up being a little bigger than pre-built NAS cases, because they need to conform to hardware standards, ITX/ATX motherboards, PSU form factor, etc.

My difficulty in deciding comes from a software perspective. I would much prefer to run something other than the NAS vendor's software. I did have a Synology 1815+ a few years ago, and I ultimately found DSM too limiting for what I wanted to do. Ultimately it had a PSU failure, and since then I have put together various DIY solutions that have served me well enough, except for the hardware form factor.

I haven't tried QNap's solution yet, but I do like that they support ZFS, as that is what I am using now, so replication from my current system would be somewhat less painful, assuming QUT or whatever it is called allows for this.

[kienanvella]

Enterprises aren't buying 'high end' consumer NASs. Sorry, they just aren't. The people buying the high end consumer NASs are consumers with a lot of money, and photography studios.

Large enterprises are buying rackmount storage. Sometimes that's the Synology/Qnap rackmount solutions, most of the time it'll be like a Dell R730XD with some expansion shelves running plain old windows, or linux, or sometimes truenas. If you have deep pockets you'll have an EMC, Netapp, HP 3PAR, etc. solution - tons of other vendors.

Medium/small sized businesses saving a buck will get a used server, chuck in a bunch of 2 or 4tb hdds and install truenas or have their admin set up something.

Personally, I don't care about warranties. They're worthless anyway.

There is also a 3rd DIY NAS OS option - OpenMediaVault, which has plugins for ZFS. Or you can set up a synology hybrid raid setup in OMV, by using MDADM, LVM, and ext4/BTRFS - which is exactly how synology does it.

[FARBerserker]

The best "NAS" one could buy was the old Gen8 HP Microserver ProLiant N54L . .
I wish there were something like that but more modern AT THAT SAME PRICE POINT!

[LoveToMix]

I use Synology at work. It’s expensive but you have covered all the reasons well. I’m using 12 bay rack Mount with dual power supplies and looking to upgrade to a higher range device to have the ability to test VM backups. The NAS alone is about $AU7000, plus disks. This is cheap when I have about 60 machines to backup and Synology comes with software that will do it and luanch the backup in its own virtual environment to test out

[wsbellin]

Nice Video!!! Thank you very much for all detailed information.

[Thomasmcse]

I like your comparison. I made that for myself couple of years ago and most likely it's sooo time consuming. That was the reason decided to remove my own Server and replace it with a build NAS. It's just less overhead.

[Trains-With-Shane]

You could pick yourself up a used Dell Poweredge server for $300 that probably has 6-8 SATA/SAS slots, a quad or hex core Xeon, and likely 64gb ram that would blow the pants off of any of these options. I've got a trusty old R510 that supports 12x 3.5" bays currently populated with 4tb drives but I can scale that up to 8tb's without issue and run any combination of NAS software and VM's I want. Only reason I don't us because my VM lab machine is a separate box that has 2x hex core xeons and 288gb ram. a Dell R710 in that instance. I think I have $400 total in the R710 and most of that was the RAM as it only came with 64gb. Only downside to going with the old enterprise stuff is power draw, noise (depending on which one you get) and form factor.