Hackintosh + OSX Server = NAS

[oculto]

Hi guys, I have some experience on hackintoshes (i have two at home, plus three real macs for the family) and NAS appliances. I had a 710+ Synology and a home build freenas running for years.

but it time to upgrade the freenas, with is less usefull today because the plataform and software. Freenas is great if you think about purelly NAS (ZFS filesystem, etc) but poorly performance if you think about home server application (OSX Server, plex server, IOS integration, etc)

So I think to build a hackintosh (mini-ITX) with 8GB ram and 3 or 4 HDDs, with will need to be a little different than a freenas buld.

For a freenas buld, I will use:
a simple x87 mini ITX board (need to buy - like $80)
A cheaper processor, like LGA1150 Pentium 35w/55w for $50

But for an hackintosh NAS +OSX server it will be:
Gigabyte H87 mini TIX board (need to buy for more than $100)
The cheappest CPU easy supported on mac (i believe it need to be at least a core i3 for $140)

memory, HDDs, case and power supply will be the same and I already have most of the parts.


For my project on OSX, know I will lost the ZFS filesystem (with is not entire necessary in my case) but the system will have more functionality and compatibility due OSX plataform. My question is about the processor, with need to work with pikers ssdtgen to throttle properly and sleep (wake on lan) and also has the capability to transcode videos on the fly for PLEX.

Have anyone here try to build a OSX NAS? some recommendations? what processor have the best cost/benefit/support ?

It will work without display/keyboard/mouse? (i plan to interact using screensharing, but if needed it could be plugged to my home theater HDMI).

Thanks in advance.

 

[Going Bald]

Forum search box. key words "server build".

Next question?

 

[mstasko]

Realize this is an old thread but my situation is similar to yours...just a few years later.

Did you end up building a dedicated OS X server?
If so how is it integrated with your systems?

I ended up scrapping my freenas system and reused the parts for a daily driver aka hack and have a synology 412+ that is starting to show its age given the number of streaming devices we now have.

So now I am thinking of building up my hack as a dedicated OS X server to take over a number of the more cpu intensive duties or build a synology clone (xpenology)

Thanks!

 

[steelfox]

Im using and Yosemite 10.10.5 hackintosh ,whit an msi h87 motherboard,running clover ,whit 4gb ram, intel i3 41xx .

I installed the osx server app, and im running 4 8TB seagate hdds in raid 5 ,

Raid 5 was made using the softraid 5.1.

I shared the 24gb raid folder over the network using the samba protocol, unmarked afp from the share because that sucks.

This is running really great for 4 months now .

 

[VioletDragon]

Im using and Yosemite 10.10.5 hackintosh ,whit an msi h87 motherboard,running clover ,whit 4gb ram, intel i3 41xx .

I installed the osx server app, and im running 4 8TB seagate hdds in raid 5 ,

Raid 5 was made using the softraid 5.1.

I shared the 24gb raid folder over the network using the samba protocol, unmarked afp from the share because that sucks.

This is running really great for 4 months now .

Theres quite a few people building NAS/Hacks on here lately. Im currently building one which is going to have total of 9TB a lot of storage for Time Machine back ups, Storage Back ups and a iTunes Server