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Recommendations for a Mini-ITX build

intelligence

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intelligence Newbie

intelligence

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Hello!

 

Planning on what will be my next NAS.

Currently I'm on a Synology DS409 which I'm very satisfied with, but of course, over the years it's become a little sluggish.

 

So naturally for my next NAS I'm looking for good performance, for a relatively low buck. I've looked over the alternatives available from Synology at the moment, but it doesn't quite cut it. It costs too much compared to what you get. But I love the simpleness of DSM, so that when I started looking for custom solutions and found XPEnology.

 

Now, I've been googling around for some time, looking for recommendations for builds, but I haven't found that many suggestions. So thus I'm asking here if you could help me pick out a Mini-ITX board and a CPU that would work with XPEnology.

 

I'm aiming for a quiet, low powerusage solution, that won't have trouble transcoding stuff with Plex Media Server etc. Ideas?

 

So for I've only chosen Node 304 from Fractal Design as the chassi. Everything else is up for discussion.

 

Thanks for your help!

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intelligence Newbie

intelligence

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Yeah, I get that.

However the performance with a custom build would probably be better.

 

This is what I'm looking at now, do you think it'll work with XPEnology?

ASUS H87I-PLUS mITX

A-Data S102 Pro 16GB USB 3.0 (storage)

Intel Core i5 4570T 2.9 GHz

Corsair 8GB (2x4GB) CL9 1600Mhz VENGEANCE LP

Fractal Design Node 304

 

For me it seems like this is a good build to consider if I'd want to be able to have multiple plex streams (transcoding) and run torrents and what not aswell.

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DHD Regular Member

DHD

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Yeah, I get that.

However the performance with a custom build would probably be better.

 

This is what I'm looking at now, do you think it'll work with XPEnology?

ASUS H87I-PLUS mITX

A-Data S102 Pro 16GB USB 3.0 (storage)

Intel Core i5 4570T 2.9 GHz

Corsair 8GB (2x4GB) CL9 1600Mhz VENGEANCE LP

Fractal Design Node 304

 

For me it seems like this is a good build to consider if I'd want to be able to have multiple plex streams (transcoding) and run torrents and what not aswell.

 

32MB USB stick can use as boot disk :grin:

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intelligence Newbie

intelligence

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Hehe, not available from the particular store :smile:

 

But how about when installing packages, will that be distributed across the storage or the USB?

But they probably don't take up that much space anyway.

 

Any thoughts about the CPU or anything else? Any ideas how the CPU will cope with transcoding? Ideally it should handle multiple streams. I plan on letting my parents and friends connect to it via Plex.

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soulsurfing Newbie

soulsurfing

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im using Giada N70E-DR mobo, been running latest 4.2 build for couple of months..very stable and everything works

 

oh and I use the same case as yours

 

Are all the 6 ports working on this motherboard? Anything that is not working correctly? Any changes you have to do? I am looking at this exact setup with that Giada board but want to check to see if this all works before I buy it.

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disruptorx Newbie

disruptorx

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im using Giada N70E-DR mobo, been running latest 4.2 build for couple of months..very stable and everything works

 

oh and I use the same case as yours

 

Are all the 6 ports working on this motherboard? Anything that is not working correctly? Any changes you have to do? I am looking at this exact setup with that Giada board but want to check to see if this all works before I buy it.

 

 

yes all ports working fine, I’m running 6x 3TBs on mine

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intelligence Newbie

intelligence

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Nice! Are you going with H60 aswell? (What does he mean with caps blocking a H90 btw? From the PSU?).

I've been thinking a bit and I might just go for OpenMediaVault, it's not as nice as DSM but upgradability seems easier and safer. Seems like it'll evolve into something as nice as DSM sometime in the future.

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Vspec Newbie

Vspec

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Hi Intelligence

 

I will most probably go with a Noctua NH-U12S want to keep it quiet plus the room that the NAS will live in is cool already. The only thing I will need to get is an Intel NIC as the onboard network doesn't seem to work with DSM 4.3 (thats the only issue at the moment). I was tempted to go with the Z87i-pro but thought it would be overkill for a NAS motherboard.

 

I think he means the cpu plate on the H90 is probably larger than the H60 hence its hitting the capicitors on the Z87i motherboard?

 

So my setup will be

 

Fractal 304 (6 drive bays)

ASUS H87I-PLUS (6 SATA III Ports)

i5 4570S

16GB Vengence RAM 1600MHz

6x4TB Reds

Seasonic 400w Platinum fanless

Intel Pro NIC

Noctua NH-U12S

 

Cheers

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manfriday Super Member

manfriday

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built two using:

ZOTAC Atom Dual-Core 1.6GHz/MCP7A-ION/DVI&HDMI/A&V&GbE/Mini ITX Motherboard IONITX-G-E

one runs 4.2 the other 4.3 with updates per these pages

2GB RAM each

4.2 unit has 3x2GB SATA (SHR)

4.3 unit has 4x1GB WD RED drives + 750GB Green drive plugged into older 4 port RocketRaid

mobo combo was $69

might decommission 4.2 unit or try HA just for giggles

 

Many thanks to all involved in making this happen!

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fgullama Newbie

fgullama

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Hello all,

 

I recently stumbled upon this forum. Very cool stuff! I am considering trying this out to refresh my old Zotac Atom running WHS v1. Looks like it might work pretty well... This is the motherboard model: IONITX-A-U Atom N330 Dual Core 90-Watt PSU WiFi ITX Intel Motherboard.

 

I'll write in as soon as I have time to try this out with 4.3. Any input/suggestions beforehand would be appreciated if anybody has familiarity with this particular setup. It's pretty much just the motherboard using onboard VGA, wired Ethernet, and two Seagate 1.5tb hard drives.

 

Thanks!

 

Frank

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fgullama Newbie

fgullama

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Just to report back. I got XPENOLOGY 4.3 with the latest update up and running on my IONITX-A-U Atom N330. It works pretty well! My only curiosity is that I seem to get spotty performance transcoding videos via Video Station... It's curious in that sometimes it will transcode a video using 60-70 % CPU and everything is smooth, then other times it goes to around 100% cpu transcoding the same video and playback is is all jerky. This looks to be related to the ffmpeg process sucking up all available resources. I had better luck the other day with Plex, but even that now is going to 100% cpu and choking. It's very.... Unpredictable... Which is driving me nuts. :smile:

 

I know the dual core Atom is not going to be so great at transcoding, but I know it was working better on and off. Note that I do know that it does not always transcode, depending on the video. This is only referring to when the ffmpeg process is spawned when streaming a video. With the variations occurring with the same test videos. It's very weird! Any ideas would be appreciated on that one. :smile: I'd say overall though, this board works quite well with minimal headaches setting up with XPENOLGY. Hopefully this helps somebody else out there.

 

Frank

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