Every free minute I do some research for my new Home-NAS. All available Makes and Models are somewhat shabby, or just too expensive. Most of the products share their drawbacks:

• Volume: Most Systems are too loud to keep them outside the cellar.
• Capacity: if one needs more than 1TB of (mirrored) spacem the range of products is even more limited.
• Configuration: mostly shipped with proprietary firmware, without any chance to extend or modify, those systems aren´t even my third choice.

After looking for suitable parts for a long time, I finally ended up with the following:

• Motherboard: Intel D945GSEJT. This cheap board has one big advantage compared to it´s competitors: it´s low footprint. With it´s height of about 20mm it´s equiped with basic interfaces and lacks bells and whistles (well, one COM-Port would be handy).
  Edit: I stumbled over this neat PCB. It spots an Intel Atom N330 (Dualcore with 2×1.6GHz) and 4 SATA Ports. May be worth a try…

• Harddisk: I was lucky to get my hands on 2 Western Digital Harddisks (WD2002FYPS). They´re out of WD´s line of Enterprise Disks, and especially built for working in a Raid-Array.

• Boot: My boot drive will be a 2GB SSD from Transcend (either a TS2GDOM44V or  a  TS2GDOM44H. I ordered both and will decide later). 2GB is plenty of room, even for a bulky NAS-Distribution or a whole OS like Ubuntu/Debian.

• Memory: At the moment I´m using a Samsung 512MB PC2-5300 memory module. Later I will switch to a bigger one, but for now the 512MB are enough.

• Misc. Stuff: I still have no case for my NAS. Maybe I will construct my personal one, we will see. Right now my lab feels fine on my desk.

• Software: I will check the following Distributions: FreeNAS, OpenFiler, open-e and plain Ubuntu Server. Additionally, I will give Windows a try. Wich version isn´t yet decided.

As soon as I hold my SSD´s in my hands I will update this post with further information. Maybe I can help somebody making a good decision.

During my research I also found the Kontron KTUS15 Board:

Kontron KTUS15 Intel Atom Z530 Board

Looks rather promising according to this article. The only drawback is the price (which is around € 300,- incl. VAT).

..to be continued…