Low power NAS without RAID

[Mysticalsam]

I want to built a NAS for file sharing mostly accessed by me on my laptop and my PC, or via phone. Now the thing is I have been reading articles about NAS and they all ended up with RAID. I don't want RAID. I just simply want a pc running at low power 24/7 so that I can access data.
I am getting a motherboard at cheap price as $33. this is the link http/www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWebSite/Product/Product_Detail.aspx?DetailID=1371&MenuID=17&LanID=0
I want to attach my 1TB to this. I am not worried about backup as I have other 2 TB in my PC for that. I will copy movies, songs, and other files which I require time to time in 1TB and use it in network storage.

So the problem comes is which OS/software I should use. I heard about FreeNAS but I dnt want to use ZFS. I wanna stick to NTFS.

Will lubuntu with samba server will be good ? (As I want light OS)

or any other recommendations. It should be just simple as sharing drives in windows (But I will not use windows as I think It will eat up resources and consumes more power.)

 

[kanewolf]

I don't believe you are REQUIRED to use ZFS with FreeNAS. I believe you can use EXT4. You have painted yourself into a small space. NTFS is a poor choice for a primary file system for a Linux box.

A low power non-RAID NAS, to me says Raspberry PI 2 .

 

[Mysticalsam]

I can use ext4. That sounds good. But should I go with FreeNAS then or with linux distro ?

 

[kanewolf]

I can use ext4. That sounds good. But should I go with FreeNAS then or with linux distro ?

I would do FreeNAS, since it is tailored for NAS usage it should be easier to get up and running.