DIY NAS: 2026 Edition

#1

Post by sashk » Thu, Nov 27, 2025, 2:54 AM UTC

DIY NAS: 2026 Edition
blog.briancmoses.com

Re: DIY NAS: 2026 Edition

#2

Post by speff » Thu, Nov 27, 2025, 3:30 AM UTC

Q - assuming the NAS was strictly used as NAS and not as a server with VMs, is there a point in having a large amount of RAM? (large as in >8GB)

I'm not sure what the benefit would be since all it's doing is moving information from the drives over to the network.

Re: DIY NAS: 2026 Edition

#3

Post by PikachuEXE » Thu, Nov 27, 2025, 3:42 AM UTC

speff wrote: post #2

Q - assuming the NAS was strictly used as NAS and not as a server with VMs, is there a point in having a large amount of RAM? (large as in >8GB) I'm not sure what the benefit would be since all it's doing is moving information from the drives over to the network.

If you use ZFS you might need more RAM for performance?

Re: DIY NAS: 2026 Edition

#4

Post by loloquwowndueo » Thu, Nov 27, 2025, 3:43 AM UTC

speff wrote: post #2

Q - assuming the NAS was strictly used as NAS and not as a server with VMs, is there a point in having a large amount of RAM? (large as in >8GB) I'm not sure what the benefit would be since all it's doing is moving information from the drives over to the network.

Caching files in ram means they can be moved to the network faster - right?

Re: DIY NAS: 2026 Edition

#5

Post by mewse-hn » Thu, Nov 27, 2025, 3:44 AM UTC

speff wrote: post #2

Q - assuming the NAS was strictly used as NAS and not as a server with VMs, is there a point in having a large amount of RAM? (large as in >8GB) I'm not sure what the benefit would be since all it's doing is moving information from the drives over to the network.

ZFS uses a large amount of ram, i think the old rule of thumb was 1GB ram per 1TB of storage

Re: DIY NAS: 2026 Edition

#6

Post by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF » Thu, Nov 27, 2025, 3:46 AM UTC

mewse-hn wrote: post #5

speff wrote: post #2

Q - assuming the NAS was strictly used as NAS and not as a server with VMs, is there a point in having a large amount of RAM? (large as in >8GB) I'm not sure what the benefit would be since all it's doing is moving information from the drives over to the network.

ZFS uses a large amount of ram, i think the old rule of thumb was 1GB ram per 1TB of storage

Huh. More than just the normal page cache on other filesystems?

Re: DIY NAS: 2026 Edition

#7

Post by speff » Thu, Nov 27, 2025, 3:48 AM UTC

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #4

speff wrote: post #2

Q - assuming the NAS was strictly used as NAS and not as a server with VMs, is there a point in having a large amount of RAM? (large as in >8GB) I'm not sure what the benefit would be since all it's doing is moving information from the drives over to the network.

Caching files in ram means they can be moved to the network faster - right?

Makes sense. I didn't know if the FS used RAM for this purpose without some specialized software. PikachuEXE and Mewse mentioned ZFS. Looks like it has native support for caching frequent reads [0]. Good to know

[0]: https://www.truenas.com/docs/references/l2arc/

Re: DIY NAS: 2026 Edition

#8

Post by WarOnPrivacy » Thu, Nov 27, 2025, 3:50 AM UTC

I have built 2 NAS that borrow ideas from his blogs. One uses the Silverstone CS382 case (6x 6TB SAS) and the other uses a Topton N5105 Mini-ITX board (6x 10TB SATA). I'm quite happy with both.

ref: https://blog.briancmoses.com/2024/07/migrating-my-diy-nas-in...

Re: DIY NAS: 2026 Edition

#9

Post by tekla » Thu, Nov 27, 2025, 3:51 AM UTC

01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote: post #6

mewse-hn wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ZFS uses a large amount of ram, i think the old rule of thumb was 1GB ram per 1TB of storage

Huh. More than just the normal page cache on other filesystems?

ZFS will eat up as much RAM as you give it as it caches files in memory as accessed.

Re: DIY NAS: 2026 Edition

#10

Post by dllu » Thu, Nov 27, 2025, 3:53 AM UTC

Very sad that HDDs, SSDs, and RAM are all increasing in price now, but I just made a 4 x 24 TB ZFS pool with Seagate Barracudas on sale at $10 / TB [1]. This seems like a pretty decent price even though the Barracudas are rated for 2400 hours per year [2] but this is the same spec that the refurbished Exos drives are rated for.

By the way, interesting to see that OP has no qualms about buying cheap Chinese motherboards, but splurged for an expensive Noctua fan when the cheaper Thermalright TL-B12 perform just as well for a lot cheaper (although the Thermalright could be slightly louder and perhaps be a slightly more annoying spectrum).

Also, it is mildly sad that there aren't many cheap low power ([1] https://www.newegg.com/seagate-barracuda-st24000dm001-24tb-f...

[2] https://www.seagate.com/content/dam/seagate/en/content-fragm...