The Idea behind this instrucatbale was to create a quiet cheap low powered NAS box using some 2.5 inch hard drives.

What you need to build you own NAS BOX

4 2.5 inch sata to hardrive connector
1 26pix box
1 powered usb hub
1 eeepc (I'm using a 1st gen eeepc running at 800 mhz)
DVD/CD/USB pen drive for installing freenas
PC Fan
USB Lead
USB Power Lead

Drill
Screws
Computer & Printer
Camera
Dremel or other tool for cutting thin aluminium case
Wire
A network cable or a wireless network

Some hard drives to put in to the NAS

Here is Video of the NAS Box Being put togthere.

Step 1: Place & Cut

The first job is to take apart the eepc. It is easy here is a link to a take apart guide

You need to Remove the feet from the eeepc case do this by pulling them off using some pliers see picture

Turn the board upside down and attach the the feet to the board with some screw

Draw around the network point so you can see where to cut a hole

Do the same for the power supply

Cut the holes out of the case

Hot glue the feet and attach it to the case

Step 2: Cooling

The case needs a little bit of cooling one fan running off the usb port should provide a enough cooling.

You need to cut a hole in the case so the fan can be fitted to the case

You need to make a USB Fan, here is the link to the instrucatable I used to make my fan.

Once you've made the fan it needs attaching to the case I've used some unibond no more nails tape

Step 3: Cable It Up & Installed the Hard Disk

Next the Hard Disk needs putting in to place and connecting to the board

Place the USB hub in place and stick it in place with some no-more nails tape.

Stick 2 of the hard disk caddies to the bottom of the case with some more tape

Stick 2 of the Hard Disk caddies to the top of the case.

Cable up the caddies to the USB Hub and the USB powered to the device

The devices are powered as list below

Two of the Hard Disk's are powered from the USB power Plug
One of the Hard disk's is powered from the USB hub
One of the Hard disk's is powered from the USB Port.

Step 4: Install the Software

Freenas

In the bios before install the software you'll need to disable the on the board CF Card read and enable wake on lan

Download freenas from Here.

Burn the image to a cd (if you don't have a cd drive you can use http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ to burn the ISO to USB drive)

Boot the computer up using the CD.

After the computer has booted press 7 to install freenas on to the hard disk.

Follow the on screen instructions to install.

After the system has rebooted you need to connect to the NAS box you do this by typing in the ip address of your NAS box in to your internet browser ( the ip address is listed on loading screen).

Step 5: Setting Up the Share

Setting up Freenas below I've listed out to add the disks and share them on your network if you like to know more or get the most out of your NAS box Try this FreeNas Guide

Now you need to setup & format the Disk and the share.

Login in to the system User name: admin Password freenas
Go to Disk management
Click the + symbol to add a disk
Select the Disk from the drop down
Give the Hard disk a name
Click Save
Click apply Change
Go to Disks > Format
Select the disk
Select the disk format UFS
Go to Disks > Mount
Select the disk which needs mounting from the drop down
Name the disk's
Click apply Changes
Got to services > CFIS/SMB
Click on enable
Click shares
Click on the + symbol
Select the directory than you want share
Give it a Name
Apply the changes

You should now be able to connect to network share by connecting the freenas ip address

Step 6: Conclusion & Speed Test

A Few notes about the build

The performance isn't fast but more than enough for one user and I think the slightly slow performance is worth it for the quietness of the box which you can't hardly here.

To test the speed I ran 3 tests the first was to a copied a 1GB file to the NAS box 5 times the average time was 160 seconds, which gives a speed of about 6.25 mb per seconds

The 2nd Test I tried was copying 3 files each one about 400 MB the time where as follows

Write

1.23 GB 135 Sec'
1.22 GB 133 Sec
1.23 GB 140 Sec
1.22 GB 155 Sec
1.22 GB 155 Sec

Average write speed 8.77 MB per second

The 3rd Test I tried was copying the files off the NAS box

Read

1.23 GB 160
1.21 GB 165
1.23 GB 167
1.22 GB 167
1.12 GB 155

Average Read speed 7.56 MB per second

All the tests where ran over a cabled network. The CPU Load didn't peak at over 59% and the temperature of the CPU didn't go above 59^oc

The Case needs a little tidying and a paint job but is functional at the moment

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10 Discussions

VendelK

3 years ago

Dont view in video.

Dont a take apart guide.

Dont versionumber FREENAS.

It's hard to build

Hi Oszkar

astral_mage

7 years ago on Step 2

i wouldve used a hole saw sized to the fan then drill 4 the 4 bolts.

irishjim68

7 years ago on Introduction

Did you have to format/reformat any of the storage drives to use them with FreeNAS?

dcastor

9 years ago on Introduction

Not strange at all, I've lived in England and in the US. I noticed that quite often the prices were the same in pounds as what I would pay in dollars back home. Probably due to the high cost of living in England.

philip42

9 years ago on Introduction

It's a nice idea, but I would take an old junk computer (about 5-10 years old) and install a decent size hard drive. The hard drive could use a SATA-IDE converter if the motherboard doesn't have a SATA port, or could even be connected via USB (albeit slower). The advantage of a junk computer is they're dirt cheap. You can use one you've retired (or even one you passed on to somebody else when you give them the computer you've just retired.