Build Your Own NAS vs Buying a NAS?

hello and welcome back and that's right today I want to discuss the actual cost of building your own Nas and in this video I'm going to be comparing buying one of these devices here on the table and a couple of other Nazis versus the cost of building this sort of thing yourself how much cheaper is it is it cheaper at all and is it worth it in the long run so what I'm going to do is hop over to my laptop I'm going to guide you through exactly what it takes to buy and build one of these devices for yourself and then at the end we're going to do some calculations and work out if it was really worth the hassle or are you saving yourself a decent bit of quid let's go foreign [Music] further it's worth remembering that building your own server versus buying TurnKey solutions that is instant setup devices like synologic unit versus door and Terra Master is more than just about the money yes an enormous focus of today's video is going to be about the difference in value and the difference in spending and for a lot of you how much money you could save but it's worth remembering when you are buying a turnkey solution you aren't buying it because it's TurnKey you're buying it almost serviceled and one of the biggest reasons that people go for TurnKey Solutions likes and logical Asus store Terra Master is that they are combined Hardware software Solutions and although when you are buying it um either as a whole or you're trying to build your own Nas the hardware is what you're paying for it should be highlighted on NASA's and TurnKey Solutions the software factors into that pricing something I will cover in Greater detail later on also if you just want to break down analysis of the spending at the end of this video I'm going to be going through a lot of information there on screen and if you look in the time bar on the bottom you can probably skip ahead but throughout the course of this video I'm going to show you three different methodologies about um kind of setting up your own Nas system DIY style and then we're going to compare them against Nazis so straight away the Nazis we're going to be looking at in the first stage of this are going to be these the ds923 the ts-464 the Terra master f4423 and the Acer store Locker store for Gen 2. we're going for these because they're very similar architecture therefore by Nazis they knock around for about I don't know 500 550 knicker depending on where you shop around so you're talking about half a grand and all of these have got four gig of memory they've got a very competent processor slightly different with the Synology arriving with the embedded rhizome processor of the other three devices all arriving with an Intel n5105 or n0 um 5095 they've you know with the exception of the Synology they've all got 2.5 gpe they've got support of up to 16 gig of memory they're all four Bays you know that's really what we're focusing in on so we're using those four as our template and remember if you're going to go DIY throughout the course of this if you go DIY for your solution to build it from scratch you're still going to need Nas software and although there are a lot of different options out there the two that have Bubble to the surface have been true Nas the ZFS platform that's going to be important later and unraved far far more um resource friendly doesn't use anywhere near as much uh Hardware resources as the likes of trunas or even exp4 systems but at the same time it's a lot more license led the software itself is free and much like um true Nas which is a lot more complex but you have to buy individual licenses for your storage as you scale up there so what I'm going to break down into the cost of those but if you do want to learn more about the difference between say qts and DSM from Salon gym qnap versus true Nows and unraid and stuff I have made several videos on that that should be linked in the description but let's start super budget and for that we're going to go to AliExpress AliExpress you can get super cheap components and we're going to set about building ourselves a network attached storage device here so we're going to focus on that m5105 processor there the reason being is that's the one that we've got in three or four of those Nazis and it allows us to stay relative to cost we're not just gonna see how much we can get for 500 pounds because we still have to factor in the cost of the software and the service there so looking up that CPU and AliExpress there's lots of different options there's traditionally known as an nuc or Nook which is a small compact computer right the way down to another board that already have the CPU attached there so we're going to examine two of those both of those options but in this first instance we're going to look at motherboards that have got that CPU already on board now there were several options open some of them with multiple ethernet ports there some of which even though this one had six 2.5 gigabit Ethernet ports this one didn't include uh memory and in some cases didn't support m2mvme or add-on non-sata storage something that will become very important later on on the other hand here's another one again this was uh utilizing four ethernet ports there and again you could get it and it was 123 knicker there but the one that stood out for me was this one for 154 pounds you could get yourself either the no Ram no storage version or you could go ahead and get one that's got the M2 nvme and the sodium connected in there all in a bundle so again we'll come back to that later on because we'll go into the checkout at the end but that's the motherboard I ended up going for there next up you're gonna need memory because again you're going to need memory to run this system and you could go you know for the minimum if you want to match their full gig of memory there and again normally I would try to match the other the Synology much as possible however I think most users that are DIY in their system are going true nairs and true Nas if you run with anything less than 16 gig is not going to give you all of the features and services such as inline data duplication and inline data compaction and compression are things that are either limited or completely unavailable without 16 gig of memory so we've got to go minimum 16 gig next up cases I looked at lots of different cases and that's again there's an 8 by case there which was too big we were looking at this case here this is a six by a lot more Compact and kind of relatable there and then finally I came across this a four bay chassis very compact there good for airflow room for an um mini or Micro ATX um ITX motherboard there room for the PSU room for the ports to me that was um perfect we could have gone bigger but again for now while we're living on here we're trying to cut Corners in terms of cost and replicate the hardware experience of those Nazis at the beginning this is the one I went for again they just got more diverse and then they got uglier with less ventilation so I ignored ones like that to give you a sense of Relativity there was even ones that are quite comparable to that of qnap cases readily available now next up you're going to need your power supply and this was something that a number of users myself included completely forgotten previous coverage and that is when you DIY yourself most of the time you've got to go internal PSU most of these masses here have got external power bricks this allows the system to be even smaller more dedicated in airflow and low the internal temperature and also you can replace the psus easily whereas most of the DIY systems I was trying to spec up had internal PSU requirements there and that's what I went for so I tried to go for a PSU that gave me at least 250 to 350 watts and again there were several options there sort of shopped through and went for those and then finally we started looking at after that SATA cables it's a silly thing but you will need to buy SATA cables to connect each of those individual drives there because although they are the trays are included in a lot of those uh by uh enclosures those don't immediately they slot in to either no um connections at all or a default mux board that's not going anywhere not mux a standard controller board again I found cables relatively cheap but to buy them in bulk uh you have to pay a bit more ones like this when they were on promo for like 8p and you could only get one unit at that price finally an M2 nvme drive now it doesn't have to be nvme depending on your motherboard however whether you are using unride whether you are using uh true Nas or any of these softwares they have to live off an OS they have to live on a disk inside the system in the case of all of these devices mentioned here all of these arrive with an additional little module inside that extra module that's inside these systems and that is where the operating system lives when you initialize then it installs it on the hard drives as per ext4 and as you can see there's a four gig module there now you can't get four gig models and some devices you can like unraid can run off a USB drive let's find our tab again however unread might run off a USB drive but trunes won't need a proper OS disk and it's recommended an SSD and given the number of Bays available on most of those slots and we're going to be utilizing the SATA I went with some super budget 120 gig um M2 nvmes there these are not high performance not high speed lead but there'll be more than enough really for those of you that are just going to run the light OS off of it so that was enough for AliExpress there and we're going by all the parts that I went for it came to this it came to 343 pounds now bear in mind that although it's a shipping fee there that is approximate and depending on where you're on the world it will differ on top of that so it's going to be around that figure secondly it does not factor in local tax it does not factor in Regional taxes import export depending on where you are in the world and whether it's paid for on either side or if you can pay in advance it doesn't Factor any of that in but again we spent 12.88 on an SSD 59 Pence on individual SATA cables there 40 pounds on the PSU 48 pounds 98 Pence on the case and 222 pounds for the motherboard onboard memory there and the whole combination make cup there so again around about a 300 odd spend there not too shabby so again if we make our way back we can see what if because I'm sure a number of you in the comments are wondering I don't want to build a PC but I don't want to go turkey why not why not just buy an Intel Nook and you know slam some storage on that well let's have a look okay so let's go that little Nook method there the little tiny Mini PC and again if we try to get the ds923 it's knocking around down there for about 580 dollars if we try and go for the qnap that's knocking around for 573 dollars if we try and go for the terramaster year 4423 that's 515 and finally the Acer store there is knocking for 589 at the time of recording so let's start off first thing we want to look at is what was the right kind of box we were going for there and as you can see there was loads of options there I wasn't bothered about whether it came with Windows or not but most of them you didn't have much choice I just knew I'd had to go for a system that's got at least 16 gig of memory and that same CPU to be comparable there next we'd have to need storage because those little uh boxes there do not have an abundance of storage you can need a means to bolt on some storage so rather than go for a hardware array um I went ahead with the orico 4 Bay box did allowed us to have four SATA Bays delivered to the system and therefore giving you a storage but you'd have to manage the raid from within that Intel system there again we can look at it there just 189 dollars for that and again we could have gone the ATX motherboard method here uh utilizing Amazon but none of the options I saw there gave us the ability to buy that CPU board combination and again as we move forward that's the Nook we decided to go for for 259 dollars we make our way forward we even considered myself an Eddie while looking at this to go for this device here which was an m5105 kind of mini rack mount PC but there were so many things that made this very difficult to work around with it has no system plus it costs more than the Nook thing we saw and we'd still need that storage but overall the total came to 448 dollars that's right you're paying you know noticeably more than diying it yourself to buy two devices that are at least relative to what we saw there on AliExpress quite TurnKey in their nature and what we're going for is slightly less TurnKey for those so again you were definitely saving more money when you were going through the AliExpress method but a number of you I'm sure in the comments are wanting to say to me well the reason I'm going DIY isn't because I want to replicate the boring four by you know micro low efficiency methodology of a Nas I want to go big the whole reason for this is I want to you know go for a nice aggressive PC Builder specs there so why not how about we see what it would cost to build the qnap TVs h874 an Intel Core 12th gen system all right let's crack on with that so the qnap TVs h874 is kind of their big powerhousei desktop unit at the moment and right now it's selling ridiculously well in so far as finding it in stock in places is really hard going there's an I9 version out there there's an i7 version out there very hard to come by but luckily the I5 for the basis of our comparison does still exist and it's not going to have a 1737 that is a lot of money so if we carry on moving forward we can have a little look are these things shape up so first and foremost we're looking at an eight by case I went ahead and uh started going through and sort of sorting out the cases there and found quite a nice qnap looking case there but we'll get to that in just a moment next up there was after the case where are we going to do about the PSU because this system does not arrive with a power supply unit doesn't come with the processor or anything so once again we've got to build it up so next up was that precise CPU then as you can see you can get that CPU for 182 dollars there if we move along from 182 dollars we can make our way to get a CPU fan because that's right we're gonna need a fan for that CPU so I went ahead and gone for modest but good enough but just bear in mind this is going to be a 24 7 system and then from there started looking at motherboards to put that CPU into because although there were bundles for that CPU the majority of them either weren't available or were bundled with motherboards that were just way way way outside of a similar price bracket there so in the end I ended up going for this micro 80x gigabyte and again this doesn't have the CPU it's just the bare board so we're gonna have to go shopping for our components again so again 16 gig of memory for that um supported on there 16 gig because that 216 gig sorry because the original here you can see is priced up with 32 gig of memory and I went for the Silicon power value gaming Ram there 64 for those moving forward we're gonna need that boot drive again so I went ahead and ordered a try all added to my basket 120 gig transcend SSD and then from there we need the starter cable so I've got a pack of six and a pack of three starter cables there then we need the 2.5 dbe Lan Port because remember that motherboard is not designed as a Nas motherboard it's only got one ethernet port side to get a 2.5 GBE 2 port card moving forward we need that PSU it's got to be minimum 5 550 PSU um so we went ahead I believe with the dagger and there is our total it came to eight eight hundred and thirty dollars which again bear in mind that qnap was 1000 seven hundred dollars there so at least in terms of Hardware we're making something of a saving so why don't we summarize all of these numbers and see what we can equate from that so in order to work out just the kind of money we've either saved or not we have to work it all out in dollars luckily AliExpress was the only one that we weren't running in dollars and now we've converted those costs back over to Dollars there we can see that it's come to 401.97 we're not going to worry about the cents we're just going to round down on that one it's also worth our line don't worry about that saying the M2 mvme they're included at the bottom it hasn't actually checked it I've gone in it's fine so after that we can run through all of the numbers together so to minimize that so first and foremost that was our specifications we were looking at then if we scroll down we're able to see the first round and the second round indeed of that testing so again it came to 401 dollars for the AliExpress super budget methodology and with that we would have saved 179 on the Synology 172 dollars on the qnap 188 on the Asus store and 114 there on the Terra Master now when it came turn to the getting the end you see the little box Intel or otherwise connected with the jbod daz 4 by we can see it was 132 dollar saving 125 saving 141 saving and 67 saving on technology kidnap beta Dawn Terror Master respectively there however remember this of course it is a saving it's clearly cheaper to buy that hardware and build it yourself but build it yourself has to be the key word there now it'd be very easy for a number of us to say oh my time doesn't cost me anything which you know you might be slacking yourself off there but more um as you can see at the bottom there I worked out the TCO total cost of ownership time investment and maintenance concerns that you're going to need to factor in first and foremost more warranties now this is less appropriate here on the Amazon uh in UC and jbod but when it comes to this one the amount of time and hassle you may go through when having to deal with multiple warranties will be extraordinary because bear in mind that was just scratching the surface there of the components you're going to need to go for this isn't me trying to talk you out of it this is me just giving you a heads up before you go down the DIY route that it's not without extra hassle no money you're saving it depends on how much your time is is worth and that's going to become even more present because to maintain and monitor your system not just you know getting unrated on a USB sticking it in format and install it on a drive setting up the device setting up your individual dials and your little containers of storage but maintaining the system learning ZFS because I think a lot of users overlook that DSM qts and stuff like that they're designed to make things a lot easier for you they are so much more durable and user friendly yes they can feel limiting sometimes and yes they can seem sometimes be a bit flashy while at the same time not giving you the full control and configuration of ZFS sometimes but those platforms have got loads of mobile apps they've got loads of desktop clients they are smooth they've got their own remote access services and connections with third-party apps as well and you don't get that with the majority of that third-party software out there so just know that because of the absence of a lot of those tools you're either gonna have to spend time learning or if you've already got that knowledge have to apply it in time and energy not only building and putting the device together but connecting all of your devices around your home or business environment and then there's compatibility after that building and setup and more because all of the components I've gone through there have been a cursory check half an hour of searching on my part you may find that there's incompatibilities the incorrect current connectors on a particular PSU to go with your motherboard it may be that you can't use certain cards it may be that the PSU needs a certain socket fit for a motherboard that you're not going to go for now of course things are a lot easier to build your own PC these days but they're certainly not easy peasy lemon squeezy and there's a good chance that you will have to face errors of compatibility or at least spend more time double checking that compatibility which is when this money you're saving really starts to depreciate there because it comes down to how much your time is worth finally software I just touched on it there talking about the whole business of usability and the ease of usage but I think it also doesn't um You Know cover enough to talk about the support the warranties give you so at the moment if you've got an issue with third-party software you are kind of reluctantly stuck with Community Support whereas buying is a solution that has you know either and virtually Limitless software support in one trade or form depending on the lifespan of the product and that Hardware warranty included in there will ease a lot of headaches with regards to setting the device up first time and remember we're talking about savings here of yes between 140 and 179 dollars based on that do it yourself and as little as 67 which really tells you how much uh Terra Master is you know cutting down costs there um versus 132 of support of warranty of ease of use of loads of applications and just a general more user-friendly easy setup there now it's down to you what you spend but moving forward why don't we talk a little bit about that qnap comparison because we saw some serious savings there didn't we how about when you're building a 874 so again we needed a few extra components when putting that together for that I5 1210 setup but again as we saw and again remember none of those prices have got taxing or shipping and stuff like that factored in precise to your area but that was when we saw a huge saving of 907 surely that's a compelling argument for some of you that going DIY could save you real money the higher you scale up your system and it's true when you come to any kind of Nas server you do find that the more powerful the nas server in terms of CPU memory in general architecture and network connection the kind of the Gap there on top gets bigger that disparity between DIY and non-diy gets bigger on the turnkey solutions that I've got particularly powerful Hardware compared to buying all the components yourself now there's a couple of reasons for that first and foremost when you are diying it once again everything we mentioned so far the build time to warranty the compatibility the and the uh suitability deal of all the components the warranty and stuff like that all of those things play their part however these more Enterprise big enormous Solutions have got this B designed to be on 24 7. they've got to be designed for business use they've also generally arrived between three and five years of Manufacturers supported warranty the software is designed to last on there for considerably longer than smaller systems and overall the reason they cost more is these are designed for bigger businesses who are towards TurnKey they don't go for DIY they don't go for true now they don't go for unread yes you can you know build service for yourself and then let out server space and hosting to others sure if you know what you're doing but a lot of big businesses even medium even small businesses particularly those that don't want to spend time learning a new whole area of Technology they're not the people that are going to want to go out of their way to build an ads and maintain an ads and particularly When You Reach This scale of storage the less efficient you are being the more power is being consumed and ultimately the more it may cost you in the long run to not have an efficient build this is not me forgiving the qnet difference there what I'm saying is with that price difference you've got to factor in the software cost the utilities and the end user it is designed for you don't look at a Ferrari and say my God that Ferrari costs a lot of money I only want to go down the shop and back but I still want that engine it doesn't work out that way and I know a lot of you are going to correct me on the car terminology there I don't drive it was a terrible simile but this has been the difference in cost and hopefully understanding between building your own as and buying a turnkey now solution from Synology qnap Asus Dort and Terror master I'm not saying that TurnKey Solutions like those branded ones are perfect they are definitely not and there are numerous instances when a DIY server particularly with ZFS particularly during good offer periods works out better for some users out there as a Nas server than TurnKey Solutions I've mentioned it there at the bottom if you're a home user a non-business user or um you know a very inexperienced there okay experience in true Nas and PC buildings then go for a turnkey solution because if you go for a kind of do it yourself and you don't know what you're doing not only do you potentially lose all of that money you've just spent but the time and headaches you're going to have is just later on going to make you think I should have just got something easy and user friendly and then you doubled down on the time the loss and still went TurnKey final thing if you need any help setting up your solution be it to build your own server or to still debate whether to go DIY or go for a turnkey go to NAS Compares link to the description go to this button here on the right and get free advice from me at any we link to other resources there but if none of those can help you you can contact us for free advice it can take us a little while to reply to your queries because it gets real busy down there but we do respond to everyone alternatively after Nas Community the question on ask Nas Compares they're on the channel but apart from that thank you so much watching I hope you've enjoyed this let me know what you guys think in the comments I'm sure a lot of you are going to disagree but let me know down there nonetheless and I'll see you next time

Channel: NASCompares

Views: 106,124

Keywords: DIY NAS, Home Media Server, Network Attached Storage, Data Backup, RAID Configuration, Hardware Selection, Software Installation, Network Setup, Data Management, DiY NAS, Build your own NAS, TrueNAS vs Synology, UnRAID vs Synology, DiY NAS vs Synology, CUSTOM LINUX NAS vs Synology, Custom Built NAS vs Synology, DiY Server vs NAS, Old PC NAS v Synology, Mac Mini TrueNAS vs Synology, Build a NAS or Buy a NAS, Buy a NAS or Build a NAS, DiY NAS Drive, Custom NAS Build

Id: 96rSIfaTEEo

Length: 27min 9sec (1629 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 26 2023