VoiletDragon's NAS Build: H97N-WIFI - Core i3 4360 - HD4600

[WonkeyDonkey]

Check out the Fractal Design cases. A couple of those may suit your needs, in particular the Define Mini. Its been around a while but is matx and holds up to 6 drives. I had one previously and its a very solid case.

 

[jfredson]

Check out the Fractal Design cases. A couple of those may suit your needs, in particular the Define Mini. Its been around a while but is matx and holds up to 6 drives. I had one previously and its a very solid case.

Oh wow, that is a beauty and might even be more in line with what I'm trying to do. Thanks for the recommendation.

 

[jfredson]

By the way, what is the install like for a headless system like this? Do you need peripherals for the initial setup or how do you do it?

 

[WonkeyDonkey]

Assuming you use built in graphics, just connect a screen and install as normal. Once complete, you can remove the screen, but a headless adaptor would be a useful investment. OSX does struggle running headless when there is no screen connected.

 

[jfredson]

Assuming you use built in graphics, just connect a screen and install as normal. Once complete, you can remove the screen, but a headless adaptor would be a useful investment. OSX does struggle running headless when there is no screen connected.

Very cool, thanks. So I will need a peripherals for the initial install then? Gonna have to find a friend with a keyboard and mouse and monitor lol

 

[WonkeyDonkey]

Yep. Im not aware you can remote install with a hackintosh.

 

[VioletDragon]

By the way, what is the install like for a headless system like this? Do you need peripherals for the initial setup or how do you do it?

Headless Adaptor works fine no need for Mouse or Keyboard when using OS X/macOS built in Screen Sharing. You will need to connect a monitor, mouse and keyboard when installing OS X/macOS.

 

[VioletDragon]

Update 13-08-2017.

The last few days I've been really busy upgrading the Server to 10.12.6. Spent a few hours backing everything up as i wanted to put all the drives into a RAID0. You're probably wondering why i used RAID0 and not RAID1 with redundancy this is because i wanted all the storage and not half of the storage I'm currently building a off site backup server which will be in a RAID and with redundancy but due to the fact if i used RAID1 in macOS with redundancy i would need to to buy more Drive in order to have more than 3TB space in RAID1. The Backup Server will have more Storage than the main Server only because all 8 Drives in the Backup Server will be in a RAID with redundancy in macOS Server i will do a build write up too. I had to use a few 1TB Drives to back everything up as the data on the Server isn't just mine but Family & Friends data which they access through the VPN (Virtual Private Network) such as Documents, Movies, Music, Pictures etc. I have to have a think and decide wether to leave the Backup Server on 24/7 if this is the case ill end up moving everything into a server rack along with the pfSense machine which is a plan in the near future as I'm wanted to get my own office for my business. Apple has brought back RAID Assistant in 10.12 which is nice makes things nice and easy. At the time of doing all this it gave me a chance to move somethings around in the cupboard as i installed a UPS to keep both the Server & pfSense routers uptime up as where i live we have a lot of Power Cuts so i installed a
APC BK650EI 400 Watt which keeps the machines up time for 30 minutes which is plenty of time to get everything turned off. Ive set pfSense to send me text which tells me how much battery is left and also tells me when the electric goes off. When the battery gets low it shuts down both machines which is handy.

Enough of my rambling heres some Screenshots of the works I've been doing.

 

[joetazz]

Hi All,

Firstly thanks VoiletDragon and WonkeyDonkey for posting your nas builds.

I am currently researching the best components for my NAS build and would really appreciate any advice on what I've got so far. I am looking for a small and fast as possible build. I will be sort of using it as an external harddrive / NAS hybrid as I will be read/writing files directly from applications running on my workstation onto the NAS.

Ideal requirements I am after -

1. Internal dual drive RAID that can read/write 800 MBs +

I'm thinking 2x Samsung EVO in stripe RAID - should give around 800-900 MBs

2. Smallest form factor /case as possible. I am planning on using just two 2.5" SSDs.

3. Fast external connection interface - Thunderbolt 3 would be amazing but I can't find an ITX mobo with TB3.

4. Dual GbE - This is the area I know least about. If possible to get 1-2 gigabit speed over the net (I have crazy fast internet connection). Setting up dual ethernet link aggregation is the main thing I need advice on. Do I have to do any Mac software or bios settings to get dual ethernet speeds or is it fairly automatic?

Mobo - I was looking at the GIGABYTE Z270N-Wi-Fi. It has dual GbE ports. USB 3.1 connection which should give me around 10 gigabit connection to the SSD RAID.

Case - Feel like I need to do some more research on small cases but Fractal design do these has style cases - http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/cases/node-series/node-202-integra-sfx-450w-psu

Would love to hear anyones thoughts of any recommendations!

 

[JCG730]

Following along on this discussion. I started my NAS/Storage Server/ xServe Hackintosh last week. It will be in a rackmount hot swap chassis running Sierra server. I'll be posting a build thread soon.