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NAS build - mostly AliExpress 🙂

Guy61

Guy61

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Jul 8, 2025
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Brandon, Manitoba
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I decided to bite the bullet and build my very first DIY NAS. With some setbacks via Amazon, I finally got it built with some new and some old drives! Here is what I finally used.

Specs:
Case: Jonsbo N3. (AliExpress)
MB: Topton 8 bay Intel n150 NAS motherboard (CPU included - fanless) w/ 2 SFF-8643 to 8 SATA, 2 NNMe, 1 10G port, 2 2.5G ports, (AliExpress)
Memory: 1 48Gb SO-DIMM (AliExpress)
CPU fan: none
PSU: Corsair SF750 (Amazon)
Case fans: 2 Noctua NF-A9s, 2 Noctua NF-R8s with purchase of 2 Fan grills (Amazon)
Boot drive: Orico NVMe SSD 1 TB M.2 drive Amazon)
Cables: SFF-8643 (2), 4 pin to 3 pin standard fan adapter (2), 4 Pin Molex Y Splitter adapter (1) (AliExpress and Amazon)
Storage drives (new): 1 Seagate 12Tb, (AliExpress), 1 WD Blue 12 Tb (Amazon), 1 WD Blue 10 Tb (Amazon)
Used storage drives from old systems: 3 WD 4 Tb, 1 Samsung 2 Tb and 1 Seagate 2 Tb
OS: Openmediavault 7.

I used the Noctua NF-A9s to replace the two case fans the N3 came with. I used the Noctua NF- R8s to supplement the case cooling (there was already space allocated on the N3 for them and added the grills to prevent any cable mishaps. I had a mishap with the backplane that came with the N3, as removing one of the SATA port cables also ripped the port off the backplane! Luckily, AliExpress had the backplane in stock, so I was only a week or so with less than the whole 8 ports.

Originally, I had plans to use UnRAID as my OS, but it didn’t agree with my Orico boot drive (it kept disappearing and appearing by itself). That did not bode well for a stable system. I contacted the manufacturer of the drive and they told me quote “Use another operating system”. So I installed Openmediavault 7 (OMV7) with no oroblems except for user error 😄. It also saved me money as there is no licensing fee for OMV@! I decided to use RAID 1 (striping) to keep most of my storage - 50 Tb of drives using RAID 1 gave me 45 TB of storage to use. I love the “new for me” SFF-8643 ports as it saves a LOT of clutter, with the SATA ports.

The CPU now only uses 5% on regular load, the memory is only at 6% on regular mode. Which is great!

The only worry now is overheating of the HDDs since there is barely any space between the drives now that the bay is full. I keep searching for a mod to use to help cool the drives down. Hopefully there will be a solution eventually. But with the max temperature of 39-41 degrees C, I can live with it for now.
 
Looks like a decent build. Did you have to pay shipping on the case? The (8 Port) 2 SFF-8643 boards are fairly new and would have probably been on my wish list when I built mine a few months ago. IIRC aside from the 8 Sata (vice 6 on mine) the other big difference is that yours probably has a PCIe slot?

As far as unraid goes.... there's no option to install it on an NVMe as boot drive, it needs to go on a USB and then you use the NVMe as cache for your dockers.
 
That's a LOT of ram and storage haha. Whatcha using it for? I'm too much of a scaredy cat to use R1 myself, but hopefully your R1 array wont bite you in the future.

Also... photos?!?!?!
 
Although I love the look of that case, the first thing I thought of when seeing it was how the vibration would be for the drives. Heat shouldn't be too much of an issue with only 8 drives and minimal system usage. The drives only really spin up when they're in use, so for a home system they stay quite cool outside of bursts from usage.

I'm not sure how OMV handles RAID, but doesn't striping always set all drives to the smallest drive size? I'm struggling to see a way the listed drives can add up to 45TB outside of JBOD.

CMetaphor said:
That's a LOT of ram and storage haha. Whatcha using it for? I'm too much of a scaredy cat to use R1 myself, but hopefully your R1 array wont bite you in the future.

Also... photos?!?!?!
Click to expand...

My guess for the RAM would be docker or VM usage? As far as storage though, that's not that much. I currently have 30TB usable in my NAS and it's amazing how fast you use it. Honestly, I think NAS storage is like a goldfish. Data somehow just grows to the size of it's environment. :p
 
Ya ive got 30TB also, but its like 99% full. Has been for ages. That's why im working on my file server constantly in the background of other projects.

Mainly the RAM amount was the question, does docker take that much? I know if youre running like 10+ VMs its good to at least have a gig of ram each (if not two) but otherwise ive never had a use for more than 16gb of ram on any reg NAS / file server PC. 🤷‍♂️
 
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sswilson said:
Looks like a decent build. Did you have to pay shipping on the case? The (8 Port) 2 SFF-8643 boards are fairly new and would have probably been on my wish list when I built mine a few months ago. IIRC aside from the 8 Sata (vice 6 on mine) the other big difference is that yours probably has a PCIe slot?

As far as unraid goes.... there's no option to install it on an NVMe as boot drive, it needs to go on a USB and then you use the NVMe as cache for your dockers.
Click to expand...
Yeah, UnRAID was installed on a usb drive … I saw articles that you could install it on a NVMe drive, but there were too many steps for me ( I like using the KISS principle). The board does have 1 PCIEx 1 slot,shared resources with the slot for a wifi card. The board does not say Topton on it but AliExpress says it is. I took some investigating and found it is a clone of a CWWK board. And, yes I had to pay shipping but it was a little less than Amazon…and I was having fun using AliExpress..geeking out over all the selection
 
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Caldezar said:
Although I love the look of that case, the first thing I thought of when seeing it was how the vibration would be for the drives. Heat shouldn't be too much of an issue with only 8 drives and minimal system usage. The drives only really spin up when they're in use, so for a home system they stay quite cool outside of bursts from usage.

I'm not sure how OMV handles RAID, but doesn't striping always set all drives to the smallest drive size? I'm struggling to see a way the listed drives can add up to 45TB outside of JBOD.



My guess for the RAM would be docker or VM usage? As far as storage though, that's not that much. I currently have 30TB usable in my NAS and it's amazing how fast you use it. Honestly, I think NAS storage is like a goldfish. Data somehow just grows to the size of it's environment. :p
Click to expand...
It is a backup for an aging Synology 218+, have a media server on it that takes a lot of space ( 2 10 Tb drives mirrored, so under 10 Tb useful and getting cramped). I agree on how the space gets filled quickly… I used to think 1 Gb was huge… lol… showing my age! RAID 1 is mirroring but if it is with parity, your parity drive is the biggest size you can use, so my parity drive is 12 Tb, the others are equal or lesser sizes. I may be wrong, just to let you know…I was taught raid as a future use of drives…most networks back then were ring networks
 
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And, the RAM? I always have a rule of thumb that the more RAM the better…who knows when a process will need a huge amount! And, yes I am dabbling in Docker. My old Synology has the option but hangs a lot! The Synology is maxed at 8Gb…it was shipped with only 2Gb…video stuttered and gave multiple errors, so adding another 6 helps (if you’re a stickler for details…I had to purchase 2 sticks of 4Gb SODIMM for 8Gb. I have the 2Gb stick floating around my home office somewhere)

I thought when I saw my buddy’s basement office and his computer hardware clutter a few years back, that he was just a messy person…lol..it happened to me too! But, he was single then, and I was in a relationship that I liked having a tidy home…I don’t know what it is like now that he is married but I’m single now so maybe that’s it for IT guys.
 
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as popular as the n150 / n355 and whatever else of the same family is when you can pickup the 8505 it can really be worth the step up. These n series chips are basically just 4 or 8 e-cores but the 8505 has a single p-core and 4 e-cores. Allows it to have a small oomph of cpu processing power for single threaded tasks that could use a little help but mainly spends most of it's time in the e-cores anyways
 
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