Noobs Guide to Building a NAS - 5 Mistakes Everyone Makes!

The K suffix on Intel CPUs isn't related to integrated graphics. It only means they're unlocked, so you can overclock them. You said you can overclock F-CPUs, but the F suffix only means it has no integrated graphics. And they have the same amount of performance-cores and efficient-cores, regardless of suffix.

So for instance, the i5-13600 has got integrated graphics, but can't be overclocked.
The i5-13600K can be overclocked and has got integrated graphics.
The i5-13600KF can be overclocked, but has no integrated graphics.
There's no i5-13600F, but if there was you couldn't overclock it, and it would have no integrated graphics. :)

Unraid strongly recommends against PCIe to SATA adapters with more than 2 ports (reliability issues). They recommend PCIe to SAS cards with SAS to SATA breakout cables instead.

basic i3-13100 is more than enough for a NAS use, having 4 P cores (8 threads), igpu and up to 192GB ram, it's basically 33% faster than i7-4770, and gives you 8+8+4 PCIe 5.0/4.0 lanes which is plenty for dual 25Gbe NIC and 3x NVME SSDs

I’m building a super simple NAS just to try it out because I’ve never had one. I had an extra PC case with enough drive bays as well as enough HDD storage lying around anyway, I just got a 400W modular 80+ Platinum PSU for cheap secondhand, now all I need is an older i5 main board and I’m done, all for about 50 bucks

Thanks. Excellent level of detail !

Glad you addressed the PSU thing 👍

One big advantage of using an ATX converter (Pico PSU or the like) in place of a regular power supply in a build is the possibility to use a low voltage UPS / solar controller as a secured power source. Of course this is only suitable for a low consumption server or NAS.
Doing this reduces the numbers of UPS conversions up and down and thus the overall losses.

In my home lab I have got:
- 3 servers (, small machines: Asrock J50x and Atom 330)
- a QNAP NAS
- a 22 inch flat screen (modified to accept 12v (from 14v))
- a gigabit switch (modified to accept 12v (from 9v))
All this runs an a single 12v 600w LED power supply.

The power supply is not the best but finding a good high efficiency power supply was not easy.
I Tried looking for a PC like PSU with a beefy 12v rail and converters but is is not often indicated.

The point with this is to be able to use solar equipment (a solar controller) in front with a battery to fix permanent power.
I hope this gives ideas to other people for their builds.

This was a great video. In a way it took me back to own mATX PC build last February. For what its worth, I chose the Corsair RM 550X Modular PSU. I consider this a highly efficient, quiet and Excellent PSU. Thank You.


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A cheap alternative could be the Dell EMC ktn-stl3. 15 bay for 55-120 dollars depending on if it comes with caddies. Great video with some really smart advice.

This was a great video thank you for all the professional information I think it helped me so much for my first build.

Hi, Thanks great info, Looking at your chipset diagram can tell you almost everything about ports and slots.

Looking forward to seeing what you do with the N3, as been looking at it since it was announced

@nascompares 
Q) How much space does the single low-profile PCIe slot provide you on the Jonsbo N2? (Beyond the single slot)
I'd love to see if one of the Low-profile Arc A310/380 cards would fit in there for transcoding.

PS: SAS is not high end any more. When used enterprise 4TB drives are around for a pittance, you can put together a goodly pile of them on a real budget. Just as I have. Ok, some of them require hours upon hours of reformatting to work with truenas, but for the low income folks, that can be worth it.

Well, I won't say I enjoyed it, but I certainly needed to watch it. That was a lot.
Thank you for going over all of that. Thanks also for ALL of your other work putting out useful info. This channel is super useful for noobs to the home server/NAS world.

Excellent video ! Very useful and I would have been much better confident if I had seen it a couple years ago.
Anyway I did a pretty good job and found your video very reassuring to me 👍🏻

The power supply is such an important factor (yet underrated) in a NAS, I would certainly go with gold or above from a name brand. I am partial to Seasonic myself, and pay the premium for platinum. If you ever have a problem you can't figure out, try swapping the PSU.

1. Are single parity enough to do most basic nas like store data ?

2. Should be fine to use 2 sata connector as OS and cache drive ?

3. Do you have any chance to data all PSU rated from reputable brand like corsair ? I heard so many people like corsair RMx because there a proof that PSU have enough power efficient.

4. So for cpu with F series can't be use for transcode on media server unless plug gpu on it ?

You won the like and the suscribe with this! Thanks!

12:40 Speaking of mistakes when it comes to PSUs that also crosses over into Cooling... be aware of thermal rating of your PSU. Good PSUs start at 50C/122F, meaning they will provide their listed power even up to that temperature. That generic gray brick picked for that NAS build likely caps out at 22C/70F meaning that if it goes above common room temperature the amount of power provided and the quality at which it is provided will take a dive straight into the crapper.