SoC / CPU and motherboard
At this point, everyone has to decide for themselves what the specific application should be. In my case, I want a NAS that is as cheap as possible, as expensive as necessary, and power efficient. My choice of platform was therefore an older SoC ITX motherboard from ASRock, which was available cheaply second-hand on eBay or AliExpress.
If you rather want to use a normal ITX motherboard, I’ll come to that in a moment.
The supply of such hardware always fluctuates strongly, so it is difficult to make concrete recommendations here. For operation as a pure NAS, I advise at least 2 cores / 4 threads and 4GB of RAM. The selection of cheap ITX SoC boards with 4 SATA ports is quite small, here are a few suggestions from my research at AliExpress.
The offers are sometimes offline or can not be shipped to all countries, so it’s a matter of luck whether you get a cheap board this way.
- ASUS AT4NM10T-I — AliExpress Shop-Link
Intel Atom D425 – 1 Core / 2 Threads @ 1.80Ghz
Maybe too weak, not tested - ASUS HUMMING BIRD — AliExpiress Shop-Link
Intel Atom D510 – 2 Cores / 4 Threads @ 1,66Ghz
Server-Board with 3x LAN - ASRock QC5000-ITX — AliExpress Shop-Link
AMD A4-5000 – 4 Cores / 4 Threads @ 1,50Ghz
Active cooling, used by myself (here) and works fine - Asrock Q1900-ITX
Intel Celeron J1900 – 4 Cores / 4 Threads @ 2.00Ghz
Passive cooling, I have already used and works well
If you don’t want to search for a long time, you can of course buy a new board directly. Unfortunately, the selection is small and it quickly becomes expensive.
=> Compare ITX SoC 4x SATA at Geizhals.eu
And because I don’t want to make my little project here for others dependent on finding one of the few ITX SoCs with 4x SATA, I invested some more time in Fusion360 and created a slightly wider version of the case. The extra 15mm allows for easy installation of a normal ITX mainboard with desktop processor and low-profile cooler. This way, you can also quickly turn the NAS into a full-fledged home server for virtualization, Docker containers and more!
I will write a separate article about this, but for now this one focuses on a compact low-budget NAS with SoC board.
Cooling
With the publication of this article, the optional larger parts are available, I first did some testing myself until everything fit. Only the side parts need to be reprinted, the rest remains identical. Coolers up to about 45mm high should then still have enough distance to the HDDs’ bracket to be able to cool a mid-range CPU.
=> Compare CPU Cooler up to 45mm at Geizhals.eu
My personal recommendation at this point is the proven Noctua NH-L9. Since this cooler does not fit universally for every socket, you should be careful not to buy the wrong version.
Noctua NH-L9i
Bestellt, wird in 2 Werktagen erwartetStand: 01.09.24 00:53 | 49,89 €*Stand: 01.09.24 00:54 | |
Lagernd | 49,90 €*Stand: 01.09.24 00:46 | |
Bestellware - 13-15 Tage Lieferzeit | 49,90 €*Stand: 01.09.24 00:35 |
Noctua NH-L9a-AM4
ab Lager | 49,90 €*Stand: 31.08.24 20:15 | |
Auf Lager - 1-3 Werktage Lieferzeit | 49,90 €*Stand: 01.09.24 00:35 | |
siehe Shop | 49,99 €*Stand: 01.09.24 00:38 |
Noctua NH-L9i-17xx
Bestellt, wird in 2 Werktagen erwartetStand: 01.09.24 00:53 | 49,89 €*Stand: 01.09.24 00:54 | |
siehe Shop | 49,90 €*Stand: 01.09.24 00:38 | |
ab Lager | 49,90 €*Stand: 31.08.24 20:15 |
A 120mm fan cools the hard drives and also removes warm air from passively cooled SoC mainboards. Before buying a fan, however, you should first check whether the board you are using has 3-pin or 4-pin PWM control. I would then make the choice of the right model dependent on the number and waste heat of the HDDs used as well as your own noise sensitivity.
Arctic P12 Silent schwarz, 120mm (ACFAN00130A)
Sofort abhol-/versandbereit | 4,03 €*Stand: 01.09.24 00:53 | |
Lagernd, Lieferung 1-2 WerktageStand: 01.09.24 00:53 | 4,19 €*Stand: 01.09.24 00:54 | |
Lieferzeit 6-8 Werktage | 4,20 €*Stand: 01.09.24 00:57 |
Arctic P12 PWM schwarz, 120mm (ACFAN00119A)
Lagernd, Lieferung 1-2 WerktageStand: 01.09.24 00:53 | 4,38 €*Stand: 01.09.24 00:54 | |
lagernd: 50+ | 4,39 €*Stand: 01.09.24 00:47 | |
bueromarkt.tv | sofort verfügbar, Lieferzeit: 1 - 3 Tage | 5,00 €*Stand: 01.09.24 00:25 |
Noctua NF-A12x25 PWM chromax.black.swap, 120mm
Lagernd, Lieferung 1-2 WerktageStand: 01.09.24 00:53 | 32,79 €*Stand: 01.09.24 00:54 | |
ab Lager | 32,80 €*Stand: 31.08.24 20:15 | |
siehe Shop | 32,90 €*Stand: 01.09.24 00:38 |
Due to the many cables, I also recommend buying another cover for the fan or simply printing it. This can prevent cables from getting into the fan.
So far so good, so the platform is chosen. On the next page follows a list of the various small parts and what else you need.
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