NAS + Host Check

[DangerBK]

Been out of the HTPC scene for a hot minute. Looking to setup something for a 16TB library. What I'm looking to achieve is 4 1080p streams. I'm hoping to not need to transcode. For clients I'm looking to maybe use Roku. I want something very familiar for the user experience. This will all be no internet access (on a boat). A bit of a unique challenge is that I would like for the host server and clients to all be DC powered. Roku is no issue with USB. I did find a 300W DC to DC power supply for mini-ITX that looks like it may work. Here is the link to the PC part picker. Any advice on if I have the right CPU/Drives etc would be appreciated. Toss out any recommendations you may have regarding anything.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071P3HMNK

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/PZBmJy

CPU: Intel Core i5-13500 2.5 GHz 14-Core Processor  ($244.85 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B760I AORUS PRO DDR4 Mini ITX LGA1700 Motherboard  ($179.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory  ($40.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 980 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($104.99 @ Dell Technologies)
Storage: Seagate IronWolf NAS 8 TB 3.5" 7200 RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($179.99 @ Adorama)
Storage: Seagate IronWolf NAS 8 TB 3.5" 7200 RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($179.99 @ Adorama)
Case: Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case (doesn't appear to be in stock anywhere? Good ideas on a case?) 
Total: $930.80
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-02-12 00:34 EST-0500

[Efficient_Good_5784]

Looking at the pcpartpicker list you gave, I would say it would work fine for needs. Just make sure to enable HWA since that's more power efficient and can transcode much faster than the CPU alone can.
You can look at the Node 304's "bigger brother", the Node 804. With the 804, you have the space to put in a full-size CPU cooler too (don't know if you have one on hand).
Also, if you need the NVMe drive to be 1TB, you can upgrade the 980 Pro to the 990 Pro for like $4 more. Though I would say you could probably look around for a cheaper NVMe if you're only going to host the OS on it and never use it for anything else.
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KgnnKX

By the way, I would be worried about the NAS being on a boat.

1. Humidity and salt in the air would be a concern. It would be best to not have as much air blowing through the system to prevent rapid corrosion of the metals in the PC.
   
2. Since boats are on water, the rapid and/or constant movement of the boat rocking would be concerning with regards to HDDs since they now have to handle all the excess vibration and movement.
   
3. I would assume electricity is at a premium when on a boat. SSDs would be perfect here since they use way less watts than HDDs do. SSDs would also help with my point #2.
   

You also say you want to host 16TBs worth of data. I'm assuming you're going to run some type of NAS OS since you are choosing NAS-grade HDDs.

1. With just 2 8TB hard drives, you'll have to strip them together to reach 16TB (14.5TiB) worth of space. If one drive fails, you will lose all the data (if both are on the same pool of data that is).
   
2. If you're not going to be using NAS software and you wont be adding both drives together in some sort of pool, I would look for non NAS drives. NAS and server-grade HDDs are set up to rely on other similar drives within some sort of raid setup when dealing with unreadable sectors on their disks.
   

[tmsrxzar]

i would point out that there are actually PCs designed for Marine use https://seatronx.com/products/computers/...-computers
which you will note are fanless amplifying the point made by @Efficient_Good_5784 where you would want to limit the (salty) airflow over PC components

[DangerBK]

Looking at the pcpartpicker list you gave, I would say it would work fine for needs. Just make sure to enable HWA since that's more power efficient and can transcode much faster than the CPU alone can.
You can look at the Node 304's "bigger brother", the Node 804. With the 804, you have the space to put in a full-size CPU cooler too (don't know if you have one on hand).
Also, if you need the NVMe drive to be 1TB, you can upgrade the 980 Pro to the 990 Pro for like $4 more. Though I would say you could probably look around for a cheaper NVMe if you're only going to host the OS on it and never use it for anything else.
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KgnnKX

By the way, I would be worried about the NAS being on a boat.

1. Humidity and salt in the air would be a concern. It would be best to not have as much air blowing through the system to prevent rapid corrosion of the metals in the PC.
   
2. Since boats are on water, the rapid and/or constant movement of the boat rocking would be concerning with regards to HDDs since they now have to handle all the excess vibration and movement.
   
3. I would assume electricity is at a premium when on a boat. SSDs would be perfect here since they use way less watts than HDDs do. SSDs would also help with my point #2.
   

You also say you want to host 16TBs worth of data. I'm assuming you're going to run some type of NAS OS since you are choosing NAS-grade HDDs.

1. With just 2 8TB hard drives, you'll have to strip them together to reach 16TB (14.5TiB) worth of space. If one drive fails, you will lose all the data (if both are on the same pool of data that is).
   
2. If you're not going to be using NAS software and you wont be adding both drives together in some sort of pool, I would look for non NAS drives. NAS and server-grade HDDs are set up to rely on other similar drives within some sort of raid setup when dealing with unreadable sectors on their disks.
   

I agree on the SSDs. I do have to keep this build to no more than 1k. I was just planning to run Linux on the box but I've never run a NAS before. Having data redundancy if a drive fails would be nice but I'm wondering if I can get to 16 TB with SSD also with redundancy and not bust 1k. Any thoughts on how I might achieve that? Also, it will be in a climate-controlled space sealed off from the marine environment so just assume no issue there. The movement could be an issue but this is a large sailboat so not a powerboat smacking around. Still. Also yes the NVME would really be for OS only. I'll take any recommendations on any of this.

[Efficient_Good_5784]

Having data redundancy if a drive fails would be nice but I'm wondering if I can get to 16 TB with SSD also with redundancy and not bust 1k. Any thoughts on how I might achieve that?

That's the problem. To get up to 16TB with SSDs is way more expensive as when compared to HDDs. For server work, I would only get SSDs that are made specifically for NAS use as those are meant to handle more lifetime writes before failing.
Depending on how you use the SSDs, if they're not meant for NAS/server use, they can fail faster than what you normally would expect from them.

Also, keep in mind that RAID is not a backup. If the whole machine fails, there goes all your data.
Depending on what type of RAID you want to go with will tell you how much drives you'll lose to redundancy.