For this post I will walk you through the steps I took to create my own custom NAS unit that is more than a match for any ready-made QNAP, ReadyNAS or Synology.  I did do a brief summary of the build on Reddit where you may find the answers to any questions you have but I thought I’d add some more detail here.

The main drivers/requirements for this project were:

• The ready-made NAS units I had been using were slow and could only take limited upgrades
• Parts for the ready-made NAS units were very expensive i.e. fans & PSUs
• It had to be as cheap as I could make it but without jeopardizing quality/performance

Before I start I just want to say a big thanks to Arctic fans. The Freezer Pro 7 that came with the motherboard etc had some issues with the clips. I asked them about how to buy replacements and they sent me the whole fan/heatsink set brand new for nothing!

Also thanks to Fractal Designs. I needed not only the rubber grommets that the HDDs sit on as I’d run out but 52 special fractal screws for them. Again I asked how to buy these and they just sent them for free.  Amazing service from both companies!

Purchasing components

I didn’t need to buy disks, like most IT enthusiasts I had a bunch of old disks lying around that I just re-purposed for this project.

This was the fun/easy part.  I knew that I was after a motherboard/PSU/CPU/RAM deal so kept a look-out for a few weeks until one appeared.  I had been looking for something that could handle a x6 core Xeon so when the below deal on this X58 1366 motherboard popped up I knew it was perfect.  The plan was to try and get a good deal on this and then purchase the CPU I wanted separately.

I bought the x6 core Xeon X5675 separately as below, for the price this is a very capable processor.

Next up were the RAID cards, this is a NAS after all so one thing I will need lots of are SATA ports.  I found the below great deals on a Fujitsu Siemens RX300 and a Dell H200 card.  I wasn’t looking for anything in particular here, I just saw these two come up and they looked good.  Both of these I flashed to IT mode so that I just had an extra bunch of fast SATA ports, exactly what I wanted.

Where to put all these components?  I needed something big enough to it in all the drives but with excellent built quality and proven air flow.  I came across this great deal on a Fractal Midi R2.

These are the break-out cables I used from the RAID cards to the SATA ports on the disks.  Cheap and high-performance, very impressed with these for the price.

The GX 750 PSU came with lots of SATA power connectors but I want up to x16 SATA disks to be powered.  I ordered the below SATA power splitters and they worked perfectly.

I had to order the quick-release drive trays and extra x3 bay drive cage from Fractal

The SSDs were probably the biggest expense for this project, although I looked out for deals on Amazon and got them both for just over £40 each

Full Specification

All components involved in the build include:

• ASUS X58 asus p6x58d-e motherboard
• Coolermaster GX750W PSU
• X5675 CPU & artic freezer 7
• 24GB Corsair Vengeance RAM
• Fujitsu 1068 RAID
• Dell H200 RAID
• Fractal R2 MIDI case
• 14 x 3.5 inch HDDs
• 2x SSDs
• 4x Fractal 140mm fans
• 1x Arctic 120mm fan

Step 1 – Take inventory and assemble components

In this step I basically just unboxed everything and made sure that it worked.  I discovered all the things that I needed that were missing and made any last minute orders (mainly cables etc.)

Before you install the motherboard, install your SSDs!  There are mount points on the back of the case for these but you have to get them screwed in before the motherboard goes in

Step 2 – Install the motherboard, CPU and heatsink

This should have been a straightforward task except that the clips to attach the heatsink were broken.  I asked Arctic fans how I could purchase more clips and they sent me an entire new Freezer Pro 7 for free!

Step 3 – Try to plug things in without making a mess!

Yes, this probably sounds kind of stupid – large case, loads of space but still struggling with cables?!  Its more difficult than you think.  After some wrestling with the power cables I managed to to get main motherboard power and CPU power connected.  I also connected the power, reset and USB connectors.

Step 4 – Time for a quick test!

Before we go any further, lets just quickly install the RAM, boot the machine and make sure it works!

Step 5 – Install the extra x3 bay HDD cage

This was fairly simple in the Fractal case, I could screw it to the bottom of the case fairly easily

Step 6 – Test the RAID cards

I then used the break-out cables to connect up a lone 3.5 inch disk to each of the ports in both cards to make sure that the disk was recognised

Step 7 – More cabling

This stage was mainly routing the power cables the best way possible and connecting up the break-out cables to the first bank of disks in the extra drive cage

Step 8 – Installing disks and more cable tidying

Here I just installed more of the HDDs and tried to tidy up the cabling a bit.  I was starting to learn than routing around the back wherever possible worked the best

Step 9 – Mitigating heat issues

I started to find that between the extra x3 bay drive cage and the main drive cage heat was beginning to build and not move.  Top solve this I added a 120mm Akasa slim fan which was attached to the main drive cage

Software

The machine runs ESXi 6.7 and upon this I run a Windows 2019 VM called NAS.  The RAID cards are passed through to the VM and I have created several volumes within Windows with the disks.

Preparing the RAID cards

In order to use the RAID cards as extra SATA ports and nothing else I had to flash them to IT mode.

Fujitsu Siemens RX300

This was fairly easy to flash, I just downloaded a firmware for it and applied it within a Windows VM using the below batch file

@echo off
cls
echo .
REM     ========================================================
REM         Start firmware and BIOS update
echo .     Using 3081E Board, PCIe HBA, Initator-Target (IT) firmware with chip B3
echo.
echo .  COMMANDLINE THAT WILL BE USED:
echo    sasflash -l Flashlog.txt -o -f 3081ETB3.fw -b MPTSAS.ROM
echo.
pause
echo.
echo .     Proceeding to Flash and Log too Flashlog.txt
echo .     in the current directory
echo.
sasflash_x64.exe -l Flashlog.txt -o -f 3081ETB3.fw -b MPTSAS.ROM
pause

Dell H200

This was a bit more involved but I managed to flash it successfully following this article

That is pretty much it! I added some more VMs for my specific setup but if you just want to run it as a NAS it is a beast of a machine and will outperform any ready-made NAS on the market by a long way and at a fraction of the cost with many more drive bays.