The files are getting their own computer.

I need more storage. The research needs space, the video projects need space, and I’d quite like to keep doing both without negotiating with a hard drive.

So, naturally, I’m building another computer. This one is for the files.

The thing with research is that finishing something doesn’t mean you’re done with its files. You want to keep the result, but you also want the data and code that produced it. Then you try something else, and now the old version is useful because you can compare the two. Add video footage to that and there’s plenty worth keeping. I want room to do more of this without having to decide what gets evicted first.

I also want to sit down at a different computer and pick up the same work. That’s where the NAS comes in. Network-attached storage is exactly what it sounds like: storage the other computers can reach over the network. Give the files their own machine, and they don’t have to live on whichever computer I happen to be using.

The build started with four 4 TB drives. Then I added two more, so we’re at six. The storage requirements have already expanded during the process of buying storage. Good to establish the theme early.

They’re going into a Jonsbo N6, a compact case with nine drive bays. Having a few empty bays left feels sensible given how the first four went.

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One thing I don’t need to buy is the 32 GB DDR4 kit from my old PC. After looking at RAM prices for the previous post, I’m very happy to put that back to work. It’s going on an ASRock B760M Pro-A/D4 with an i3-14100. I did consider how much else I could run on this thing once it’s sitting there switched on. For now, though, getting the storage working well is plenty to be excited about.

Fitting six drives in the case is only part of it. The motherboard has four SATA ports, so I’ve added an expansion card to connect the rest. Then all six need power. Even the power supply choice ended up being partly about cables: I went with a Corsair RM1000x after weighing up a smaller supply and an extra compatible cable kit. This is the bit I want to show as I build it. It’s much easier to understand what everything does when you can actually follow the connections.

With that much work going onto the drives, I want some room for a drive to fail too. I’m planning to use RAIDZ2, which lets the storage pool survive two drive failures. That means the 24 TB printed on the six boxes works out to roughly 16 TB before the other overhead. I’m fine with that trade.

It still needs a separate backup. If I delete the wrong folder, having six drives faithfully agree with me won’t help. And since I’m going to the trouble of keeping the files around, there’s a battery backup in the build as well. Once I’ve set up automatic shutdown, it’ll give the NAS time to shut down properly when the power goes out.

I’m putting it together now, and I’m so damn excited to get it running. I love compute. This isn’t the machine that will be running the models, but it gives that work somewhere to go. More room for the things I want to try, and a way to get back to them from another computer. That’s a pretty satisfying thing to build.

I’ll be using TrueNAS, so there’s plenty to get into once everything’s connected. I’m particularly curious how loud six drives will be together. Mostly, though, I want to copy the first project over, open it from another machine, and get back to making the next thing that needs more storage.

What’s going in the box

The parts, if you’re curious. Amazon links are paid links; the RAM in gray is coming from my old PC.