So I decided to build an i3-based mITX system which should definitely be able to handle the load ($300 flat too, not bad). Gigabit ethernet, 4 USB 3.0 ports, and an eSATA port with a dual core 2.9 GHz low power i3 (i3-4130t). At the same time I've ordered an ODROID-XU4 because I'm interested in its capabilities. I'll test out the ODROID to see how it performs, but I'll probably end up running the mITX system long-term.

I'll let you all know how it stacks up, and thanks for the suggestions.

The i3 ought to work and be pretty common to set up and configure. The ODROID may be a good choice. I'd guess the full box with everything on it may be $150?

Got the ODROID up and running on Arch, it was very easy. It did take some serious cleaning with a q-tip and isopropyl to get the USB 3.0 ports to recognize anything though...they really need to work on their manufacturing process.

I'm getting a very solid 57 MB/s rsyncing (through ssh) from a 4-disk 7200 RPM RAID 5 on my home server through gigabit ethernet to the ODROID, to an external USB 3.0 6 TB 7200 RPM drive. I'm pretty satisfied with that, even a full size x86 machine usually only gets 80-90 MB/s, and the ODROID was $89 shipped including case, fan, and power supply. It was about double the cost of the RPi, and about 6x faster for this application.

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Really wanna see if I can get my hands on one! That speed over usb is good. My computers are all dinosaurs and I cannot even get that speed, albeit it is not best hdd either and the external thing is a green drive. So that explains the speeds.

Where I live the pi would be equivalent of 89 as well after all the required extras.

Happy you got it sorted!

Thanks for the report.

Got the mITX system up this evening.

Chassis: Cooler Master Elite RC-110
PSU: Seasonic SS-300ET
Mobo: ASRock B85M-ITX
Proc: Intel i3-4130T
Ram: 2x Kingston KVR16N11S8/4
SSD: Sandisk SDSSDX-240G-G25

Total price was right at $300 not including the SSD since I had that sitting on my bench. Loaded CentOS 7 Minimal on it, no surprises. Same test as with the ODROID with the same external drive I'm getting a solid 95 MB/s, not bad. It is much bigger than I expected though, the ODROID in its case is roughly 2.5" x 3.5" x 1", the mITX system is closer to 1 cubic foot, not even a remote comparison. I probably should have paid closer attention to the size of the chassis, I was expecting it to be maybe 1/4 its real volume, which is a little disappointing. It's nearly the size of a mini tower, I thought mITX was supposed to be miniature...

Oh well, it'll probably live in the basement anyway, I was more concerned with the power consumption. The ODROID looks like it's idling around 3W and peaking around 6W during data transfer (not including the power consumption of the drive itself). Unfortunately I can't find my AC power meter at this time, so I can't measure the mITX's consumption, but I'm sure it's significantly higher. Once I track it down I'll update this thread with the results.

You can bet the i3 will be higher. Some of the NAS boxes have Wake on lan and that may save a bit if you want to try that on either. Always kind of hard to decide on this stuff. I worry sometimes about 1 watt being on all the time.

Yeah power consumption really adds to the bills. But the cpu is a T model, so it should not be much more than the average light bulb in the end of the day.