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Not sure what you are trying to do there. <br />
<br />
You can certainly drop a RAID car into a high end PC and throw half a dozen drives on it. From the POV of your W10 host box it would just be a drive array, not a NAS. You could of course share it on a LAN, and the W10 box could still map to shares on itself.
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I have used Adaptec RAID controllers &nbsp;in PCs before, they work fine. Bit costly though. <br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.adaptec.com/en-us/products/series/8/" rel="ugc">https://www.adaptec.com/en-us/products/series/8/</a>
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You can do a VM and run both O/S. &nbsp; Unless your NAS is doing encryption then there is very low CPU overhead. &nbsp; Not much I/O overhead either as bottleneck would be the NIC(s). &nbsp;Going 1Gig Ethernet won't take a lot of disk I/O.
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Using a VM is the way to go but consider this ...a simple hardware.software failure would bring both systems down ....so it would be much better to plan a separate NAS solution .<br />
Personally a have a small separate NAS and everything i need is there from everywhere,,,,I mean my Rig,my Laptop,my RPi,smart TV,tablet...so it is rather essential to be a stand alone solution...
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it would be better to give us more info to start from :<br />
what are you trying to do ? &nbsp;<br />
and why a NAS inside a PC? &nbsp;what is holding you from the normal outside NAS ?<br />
<br />
if we know these answers - your options will be clear i gueess
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The best way would be to setup VMware ESXi Free as the host operating system, all the storage RAID protected on a big volume, assign it to a single DataStore within ESXi, and then create 2 VMs, one for Linux &amp;&nbsp;FreeNAS and other for WIndows 10.<br />
<br />
You can even have more than 2 VMs then. But the PC must have a CPU compatible with ESXi, basically a Xeon processor.<br />
<br />
Have a look for it here (VMware Hardware Compatibility List or HCL):<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php" rel="ugc nofollow">https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php</a>
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In my description, what you would have is basically all the resources assigned to a VMware vSphere ESXi host (CPU and Disk), and then from there use virtualization to segregate resources for the NAS, and resources for the Windows10.<br />
<br />
The problem is that it won't really be a PC, as once you reboot it, you have to go to ESXi and start the VMs (you can have them on autostart), but your PC would be dedicated to VMs, and to connect to them you would have to use a 2nd machine.
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Some of the answers are outside the scope of the question. I know you can do JUST RAID, VMs, ESXi, etc.<br />
But the question was can I build a 2 in 1 system (instead of building a WIN10 box, and then building a separate NAS box).<br />
<br />
Let's say someone only has enough money to build a WIN10 system + 4 RED drives, but cannot afford to buy another case, motherboard, CPU, RAM, etc.<br />
<br />
<br />
So, from the responses I am getting, I'm taking it as the answer is no, it would not work?<br />
<br />
Again, this is not necessarily something I would actually do, and I know it's not the most efficient way (there's obviously better ways).<br />
This is just a theory or thought I had the other day, and I'm just curious if this scenario would work.
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a NAS system is asystem connected by network <br />
so why would you try to put it inside a PC ?<br />
<br />
i don't see any advantage - &nbsp;or why you would do that?<br />
sorry &nbsp;- but i seem to miss the scopê of your question
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NAS is already a <b>n</b>etwork <b>a</b>ttached <b>s</b>torage. &nbsp;You might be confusing the term NAS with what you really want to do. &nbsp;A NAS is a specific device. &nbsp;You don't create a NAS inside a Windows system, but your Windows system can be configured to be your NAS, in a sense. &nbsp;You just need to add disks to you Windows system and share your filesystem. &nbsp;You probably just want a Windows file server.<br />
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If you need to connect non windows systems to your Windows file server, they just need to have SMB or SAMBA services or tools installed and they can mount your Windows file share.
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I think you have been a bit hasty shutting this down already.<br />
<br />
I think the answer should be maybe!<br />
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As others have said you could put another mobo in the same case, or you could run 2 virtual machines so that you can have a NAS, but why would you want to go to all that complexity if all you want to do is add some storage to your existing system?<br />
Maybe you want to experiment with a NAS system, well that would be OK, but all you need to do is to repurpose some old system (even an old laptop) that will cost you pennies and install one of the free NAS offerings - job done
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Again, that's outside the scope of the question. The point it not to just make a NAS work anyway possible. <br />
<br />
It was to use the same system (not just stuff more hardware into the same case) with 2 different OS (WIN10 and FreeNAS), on separate Hard Drives<br />
<br />
Carols was the only one to directly answer the question straight to the point and stay on topic. Therefore I awarded him the points.<br />
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Thanks again everyone, great discussion!
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You can do a VM in exactly that configuration.
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<div class="content wysiwyg-content">
I know this question may be kind of &quot;out there&quot;...I have never tried it, it's just a thought and theory, so please let me know if I'm way off?<br />
However, is it possible to have a high end Window 7/10 computer with an internal NAS also? Let's assume you have a 6 core i7, 32GB RAM.<br />
<br />
Could you setup a NAS inside the same system using the same motherboard, etc. However, you would have 4-10 NAS WD RED drives in a RAID (5, 10 or whatever your preference is), plus maybe a small SSD for the NAS OS, let's just keep it simple and say FreeNAS.<br />
<br />
<br />
You would then have a completely separate HD or SSD for Windows 10. You would make the WIN 10 drive be the primary boot device.<br />
<br />
In theory, shouldn't Windows be able to see it, and other computers on your network be able to map to it?<br />
<br />
Would this even work, or does it need to be a separate external independent system for it to work?
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I know this question may be kind of "out there"...I have never tried it, it's just a thought and theory, so please let me know if I'm way off?
However, is it possible to have a high end Window 7/10 computer with an internal NAS also? Let's assume you have a 6 core i7, 32GB RAM.

Could you setup a NAS inside the same system using the same motherboard, etc. However, you would have 4-10 NAS WD RED drives in a RAID (5, 10 or whatever your preference is), plus maybe a small SSD for the NAS OS, let's just keep it simple and say FreeNAS.


You would then have a completely separate HD or SSD for Windows 10. You would make the WIN 10 drive be the primary boot device.

In theory, shouldn't Windows be able to see it, and other computers on your network be able to map to it?

Would this even work, or does it need to be a separate external independent system for it to work?

2 in 1 System? NAS inside your computer tower shared with WIN 10?

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Storage Software

Windows 10 is a personal computer operating system featuring the "universal application architecture" (UAP); apps can be designed to run across multiple devices with nearly identical code, including PCs, tablets, smartphones, embedded systems, Xbox One, Surface Hub and HoloLens. Windows 10 also includes a virtual desktop system, a window and desktop management feature called Task View, the Microsoft Edge web browser, support for fingerprint and face recognition login, voice-based search (Cortana), new security features for enterprise environments, and DirectX 12 and WDDM 2.0 to improve the operating system's graphics capabilities for games.