Dedicated NAS?

[Dick Montage]

Hi, I currently have an old Core i7 machine running as (and I use this term VERY loosely) my NAS.  It's running Win11 (which is arguably the wrong OS for the task) and I predominantly use it for:

• Storage - using NTFS on 10tb HDD drives, no RAID (music, movies, photos, documents)
• Network shares - served over SMB
• Torrent downloads - running uTorrent as a client application
• CCTV consolidation - using BlueIris software

The more I think about it, the more I think this is quite inefficient, as:

• It must be drawing a decent amount of power
• Windows is hardly a hands-off OS and maybe not the most suitable OS for this purpose
• The PC itself is a standard tower form-factor, so kinda unnecessarily large

However, the benefits here are:

• I already have the hardware, and I love reusing old hardware
• I am more than comfortable within Windows

I know this is a very open-ended question, and opinions will vary but - would I be better served by purchasing a dedicated NAS appliance?   I know there's no "definitive answer", but I'm keen to explore the conversation.

For note: The BlueIris software is Windows only - I use it to monitor all my cameras, and even piggyback them into HomeKit (which I am becoming less and less enamoured with as a home automation tech and considering moving away from maybe).  But could a NAS run a virtualised Windows OS for that one piece of software maybe?

Thank you

[Setnom]

Considering that you have everything already set up, including the use of your cameras and that software that is Windows only, I wouldn't touch anything. I just wouldn't bother, hehehe.

Altough a "real" NAS can virtualize an OS, it won't be the best system to do it in because of weaker specs in comparison to your existing one.

[Dick Montage]

One of the reasons I am asking is because I kinda feel a smaller footprint device may be easier to just sorta put under my TV…

Think maybe I could rehouse the existing hardware (albeit with a smaller motherboard)?

[Setnom]

Do you absolutely need the BlueIris software?

For example, Synology, one of the most recognizable NAS brands, has an app for that: https://www.synology.com/en-global/surveillance/9.0

[Dick Montage]

On 29/05/2024 at 18:45, Setnom said:

Do you absolutely need the BlueIris software?

For example, Synology, one of the most recognizable NAS brands, has an app for that: https://www.synology.com/en-global/surveillance/9.0

I'd happily look at another app, but BlueIris is more than just CCTV software, it provides a really cool layer that allows ANY camera to be used as CCTV.  I have read it runs perfectly well in a virtualised environment though

[Setnom]

I don't doubt it runs well on a virtual machine. Is that virtual machine running on a typical NAS, though?...

The issue is that a "real" NAS isn't purposely built for virtualization. It can do it, Synology also has an app for that, hehehe, but an OS like Windows 11 isn't exactly lightweight for a consumer-grade NAS. Maybe use Windows Server instead?

You probably will need a beefier processor and to add more RAM. Also, don't forget: a virtual OS like Windows, on an HDD, will, again, be slower, than in an SSD.

[Dick Montage]

I see what you mean.  So I'm thinking a NAS (Synology, QNAP), 4 bay... And for the CCTV software - a small mini-pc.

[Setnom]

That works.

Maybe try the native CCTV app before purchasing the mini-PC? To see if you like it? If yes, then the mini-PC won't be needed.

If you still prefer BlueIris, then buy the mini-PC and have that software save the footage to the NAS.

[+InsaneNutter MVC]

I went from a somewhat similar setup to your current one, to building a new low powered NAS / Home Server running Unraid.

As you say there is no definitive answer, it really does come down to personal preference.

I decided to build my own NAS / Home Server as I enjoy DIY related projects like that and can ensure everything is setup exactly how I want it to be, with no worry of planned obsolescence.

The case I went with the Jonsbo N3 case as it had a relatively small footprint, space for 8x hard drives and good airflow. Their is a slightly smaller N2 case also.

Hardware wise, the video below inspired the ITX motherboard choice for my low powered build:

The Intel processor on these low powered boards can hardware transcode 4K video on Plex, so all the more appealing.

A newer Intel 12th Gen version of that motherboard is now available, as discussed here: https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/12gen-n-series-nas-motherboard-topton-cwwk.42432/

To run a VM with BlueIris I suspect you'd want to go with a motherboard that allows using a more powerful processor though.

One thing I knew I wanted to do was transition all the services I had installed on Windows or running in Virtual Machines to Docker containers. I perceived containers to be a much more efficient / modern way of running services like Plex, Pi-hole, my SFTP server, UT 2004 server and so on. Docker didn't exist when setup my previous Home Server / NAS in 2012.

Everything in a container is isolated from the host OS, so you can be very specific with what data it can access and what ports on that container are open on your network.

I think the hardest decision was deciding what OS I wanted to run, the main contenders for me were TrueNAS and Unraid.

TrueNAS is certainly the more “enterprise setup” which you would 100% use over Unraid in any professional environment. However, in my opinion that doesn’t always make it the right choice for home use. Ideally with TrueNAS you need to buy all your hard drives upfront as it was difficult to add more storage at a later date and expand your pool (I think the ability to do this was added more recently) however energy consumption was also a criteria for me. I really did not want all the hard drives to spin up whenever data was written or accessed.

Unraid I felt was a lot more ideal for home use. With Unraid you can add additional drives at a later date with ease, even mixing and matching different size drives if you had some smaller older drives you still wished to use. Because Unraid does not store your data across all drives in the pool (just one drive with the parity on the parity drive been calculated) only the drive you are reading from is spun up when you are watching a movie for example. Having one drive spun up is a lot more energy efficient than all eight drives. The downside is that read and write speeds will obviously be slower to a single drive, than if you were reading and writing to all eight drives at one. For me personally in a home setup this is a non issue.

Regardless of the choice above raidz on TrueNAS is not a backup, neither is the parity drive on an Unraid setup. You still need backups of any data you care about.

Hopefully that gives you some inspiration on a possible DIY route anyway.