Building Your Own NAS with an $800 Budget: A TrueNAS Build Guide
Are you ready to take on the challenge of building your own NAS with a budget of $800? Are you confident that you can outbuild your competition with ease? If so, then you’ve come to the right place. In this video, our expert team at StorageReview will guide you through two unique DIY builds and compare them to the prebuilt HPE MicroServer Gen10 Plus. Our latest project revolves around TrueNAS, specifically building our own TrueNAS devices on a budget of under $800. We believe that the ideal NAS should have speed, style, and exceptional storage capabilities. Join us as we take you through our parts list, setup process, and the thought process behind each of the three builds.
$800 TrueNAS Build – The Entrants
We have set a budget of less than $800 for all parts (excluding storage) and we will determine which build comes out on top. First up, Brian will introduce you to the competition, unbox his selected products, and explain the reasoning behind each choice. From the enclosure to the motherboard, Brian will cover it all, including some friendly trash-talk aimed at Kevin.
Next, Kevin will share the details of his MicroServer Gen 10 Plus and his reasoning for going the prebuilt route. In Kevin’s words, “While Brian and the intern have taken a more creative approach, I went with what works.” (We’re intrigued by this interesting style of smack-talk, Kevin). With a budget of around $600, Kevin also added a 100GbE card to spice up his NAS.
Lastly, our intern Ben will show off his parts and demonstrate the quick setup process, resulting in…an RGB NAS? Admittedly, it may look more like a gaming PC than a NAS build, but hey, it runs TrueNAS in the end, so we won’t judge in the realm of storage solutions.
$800 TrueNAS Build – What’s Next?
As we enter the final stage of this TrueNAS Build competition, we eagerly await the arrival of our individually selected drives from our sponsor Western Digital. Some of us have opted for all-flash storage, while others have chosen a mix of flash and hard drives. Kevin will be running benchmarks on each build to determine the top performer.
Apart from performance, we will also be comparing usability, serviceability, capacity, and overall sanity of the completed builds. And here’s the exciting part – once we have the results, our followers will have the chance to vote for their favorite build and declare the winner! We’ll also be giving away some amazing prizes, so make sure to stay tuned.
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