Hello everyone, Some of you may have seen my previous discussions about storage challenges in our household. I'm a huge fan of streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime, especially as a film enthusiast. However, one common issue I've faced is when I want to watch a movie that's not available on these platforms. I've held onto a collection of DVDs and Blu-rays, which I've kept for both decoration and nostalgia. Unfortunately, they occupy a significant amount of space. It's a problem a lot of us have had right? I'm looking to address several key areas: Household Storage for music and films. A Dedicated Backup Solution - potentially standalone from the media storage. The ability to 'Remote' into the home network for out-of-office browsing. A user-friendly setup with the option for some tinkering if needed. A Compact and Aesthetically Pleasing system. Low noise I currently live apart from my partner, which means it doesn't necessarily have to be partner-friendly, but it would be great to find a system that she could easily use to browse our media catalog, likely using Plex as the use case in this instance. I'm not looking for this to be a substantial expense. I'd prefer a solution that can scale as my needs grow, or if I see the benefits of moving to a more extensive setup. As you can probably tell, I enjoy tinkering and getting involved at times. I also have a fondness for repurposing and recycling, finding value in old technology and giving it new life whenever possible. If something works well, why reinvent the wheel, right? This approach often leads me to explore the second-hand market, which I consider a treasure trove. I take pleasure in rejuvenating items that have been through some wear and tear, restoring them to a state where they are cherished once again. Enough of my life story already right?
So, where do we begin? Well, I thought I'd start by setting up a remote access machine. I came across a little troublemaker called @Arboreal, you might have seen him around who appears to be quite similar to me in terms of having a lot of items for sale and being quite the tinkerer. He had a boxed Q87T Thin ITX Combo for sale, which included an i3 4130 processor, 2GB + 4GB DDR3 memory, a 60GB mSATA SSD, and a power brick, all for £35 including postage. Good value! The low-power i3 has a really low TDP (thermal design power), which means it generates minimal heat, making it suitable for running as a media server. Although the memory is on the lower side, DDR3 SODIMM memory is affordable these days. The 60GB SSD provides enough storage to run various flavors of Windows. What's interesting about the Q87T is that it uses an external power brick instead of a standard ATX power supply, allowing all of this to be compactly housed in a small case. I replaced the memory for 2x8GB sticks (the cheapest i could find on Amazon, so i didn't hold out much hope) , Arboreal had swapped the SSD for a 256GB mSATA drive and i was able to add a 500gb SSD drive which made a reasonable machine with enough drive space to deal with a lot of my downloads as I needed. My intention would be to add this to 2x Porsche Design USB Caddies which hold 4TB drives. Hurrah! So spec as it stands. Q87T Thin ITX i3 4130 processor Yongxinsheng16GB Kit (8GBx2) Laptop RAM 1600MHz (yeah... i'd never heard of them either) Samsung PM830 256gb ssd V Series 500gb SSD Thermalright AXP90 X47 Low Profile I also pushed the boat out a little bit and chose to get a cheap case but i wanted that HTPC sort of look - another Amazon Find - Goodisory A01 Aluminum Mini-ITX HTPC Desktop Computer Chassis (Black Tempered Glass)
The only challenge with these items is that their appearance is merely "okay." True to Bit-tech fashion, I'm inclined to modify it to align with my specific needs, and more importantly, to enhance its aesthetic appeal. Anyway - more on that shortly...
In my quest to personalize and enhance the aesthetics of this device, I opted to attach a solid wood front to it. This required me to relocate a few internal brackets, including those for the USB and power buttons. Given that this device would be running 24/7, I aimed to minimize any distracting flashing lights. Please take a look at my somewhat makeshift solution: I used a piece of right-angled aluminum from B&Q, roughly cut and secured to keep the unit's facade flush and seamless.
Really pushing the boat out at this point as well - i went onto Etsy and found a seller who could cut wood to size - Bit of black walnut which has been graded and profiled down to 200mm long x 72mm wide by 4 mm thick. Crudely then just used some double sided tape to affix it. I think that looks decent. I had plans to have the face laser engraved but that might happen at another point.
This is where my work colleagues had a bad influence on me. We started talking about Synology - they both has storage solutions in this factor. I mean, just how affordable can these devices get? Well, it turns out, pretty inexpensive—only £35 from the Facebook Marketplace, believe it or not! I've now acquired a Synology DS212J, which, unfortunately, has a bit of sun damage. It spent the last few years on a bookshelf near a window, resulting in some of that plastic yellowing that tends to occur. This tends to mean that i have another 'project' to work through and make pretty again - right?
I quickly became aware of the limitations of the Synology unit. The DS212J is powered by a 1.2 GHz processor, equipped with 256MB of RAM, and features only one Gigabit LAN port. These specs result in rather slow transfers and a bit of a bottleneck. However, it immediately demonstrated that it can work quite well. I particularly liked the streamlined functioning of the operating system. There's a feature called QuickConnect, which enables you to access the NAS from outside your network without the need to set up port forwarding. Quite clever! Nonetheless, here's my modest setup - I've aptly named the server "Jeeves," and it's running Windows 11 with Plex. The Synology unit houses two 4TB drives and is currently configured for file storage through SMB. NAS CORNER! -
The current setup works perfectly, almost too perfectly for what I initially wanted. However, a nagging feeling in the back of my mind pushes me to seek more and tinker further. I wonder what a slightly newer NAS is capable of - could it handle Plex? Can I find something else to experiment with? Indeed, I can. This time, an eBay discovery - the Synology DS710+: CPU: 1.67GHz with a floating point unit RAM Size: 1GB (64-bit @ DDR800) (Note that the RAM is upgradable to 2GB, although some sources mentioned 4GB, but it didn't work in my case.) It may have appeared a bit messy in the listing, but I saw it as part of the journey to make things look new again, right? As I mentioned earlier, these NAS models have a somewhat old-school approach to setting up, relying on a setup tool and the manual uploading of the DSM (operating system) from a file to the unit. However, Synology tends to encourage users to migrate to their latest devices, leading them to remove older files from their website. This made the process a bit frustrating as I spent hours trying to locate the correct file to get it up and running. While waiting to find the DSM file, I decided to embark on some upgrades and cleaning/renovations as well. Addressing the scratches and marks on the unit became a personal challenge that I quite enjoyed. I used Mernzerna Heavy Cut Compound 400, which proved to be absolutely epic! This detailing favorite polish worked wonders by eliminating sanding marks, quickly removing scratches, and producing a glossy finish. It's all thanks to cutting-edge polishing technology with diminishing abrasives, or so I've been told! It made such lightwork of the facia panel....
It wouldn't be Bit-tech without some mods thrown in as well. Replacement Fan, memory upgrade to 2GB and a bit of a clean. This came with 2x 2TB Drives - These were SMART tested and then moved into the DS212J and the 2x4TB drives moved over. Everything was then assembled back together... and run up. NAS Corner as it stands...
Today i thought i would see how it managed with Plex and what impact it had specifically on the processor... oops - it's working pretty hard at just indexing the files at the moment. This is my journey up until this point - so who knows what the next journey will take me? Maybe i would be better selling all 3 devices and moving to something more substantial? I think i need to consider a UPS as well at this point.
Guilty as charged! Glad to see some of my ITX stuff has found a good home. I really ought to put that sleeping HP Microserver into service! Using the 'proper' NAS as a backup is ideal. I am clearing the decks and keeping Mrs A off my case . I have 3 ITX cases to list next, and that leaves me fairly well set up. I'm thinking about a NUC with a 2TB spinner as my second level of backup as it's tiny and low powered, that or the equally impressive Asrock Deskmini A300, which has 2x M.2 NVMe slots and room for 2x 2.5" drives in a sub 2L case. Watching this all with interest as I really should sort out the local backups better...
I have a used QNAP (but currently not being used), pretty sure it's a TS-412. I'd be looking to sell though to be fair. Would that float one's boat?
Yep, I agree, although it does run ok though. I can get it booted up and have a check and let you know, if you'd like any tests doing - lmk. I used it simply for file storage but the firmware allows for a lot more. It's unused as I built a NAS from an old Fujitsu PC and popped a pcie raid controller card in so I could connect seven 2.5 hdd's and a 2.5 ssd for cache and have them mounted in the case using a 5.25" hot swap bay.
