Home NAS

[CougTek]

I really like that motherboard. I really hate the fact that the PSU is not redundant. It is ok for a home build, but that's the prime reason why I can't consider this build as a backup solution for one of our big customer who needs to save up to 10TB of data as a safety from the production servers. Too bad, because the overall price is awesome.

I'm eager to read about the i/o capability of this setup. I doubt you'll be able to maintain more than what a single modern SFF 10K SAS drive can achieve (~400 iops), but again, considering the price and capacity, it is still very good.

 

[CougTek]

Anyone sees why the Supermicro X10SL7-F-O motherboard wouldn't fit inside a Supermicro CSE-745TQ-R920B server chassis? A lot more expensive than the Rosewill, but more appropriate for a serious, enterprise server build (which wasn't the case with Handruin's system and I know it would be overkill for a home build).

Too bad that the Seagate ST6000NM0034 isn't on the motherboard's compatibility list as I have a great deal on those. The SATA version is though, but they cost me over an hundred $$ more.

 

[Handruin]

Anyone sees why the Supermicro X10SL7-F-O motherboard wouldn't fit inside a Supermicro CSE-745TQ-R920B server chassis? A lot more expensive than the Rosewill, but more appropriate for a serious, enterprise server build (which wasn't the case with Handruin's system and I know it would be overkill for a home build).

Too bad that the Seagate ST6000NM0034 isn't on the motherboard's compatibility list as I have a great deal on those. The SATA version is though, but they cost me over an hundred $$ more.

I actually started looking at that exact case but stopped shortly after seeing the price tag. It's actually a good deal given that it has two platinum rated 920w PSUs. If I needed it for what you were doing I'd have gone that route or even one of supermicro's rack mount cases which support 24 drives and also has redundant PSUs. I don't recall if my motherboard fits but I assumed it would since it's a micro ATX.

I would also guess a SFF 10K sas drive would offer better iops than my 7200rpm drives. With all 8 combined they may do more iops than a single 10k but that's just a guess and highly dependent on how well ZFS manages the IO. I can try comparable performance tests if you let me know what tests to run.

 

[CougTek]

I can try comparable performance tests if you let me know what tests to run.

Anything with a database-type of load. That would be quite useful. Thanks.

 

[sedrosken]

I just executed my crowning achievement:

I finally got off my butt and set up the Sempron as a FreeNAS box. It's sitting next to Dad's desktop and is currently staying on 24/7. I did this all without consulting the instructions first (I like to fry things, apparently) and it actually turned out well. It's mounted as the Z: drive on Dad's and my computers. Mom, the person I did this for (so she wouldn't have to run out and buy an external hard drive) wants no part of it, for some reason. She'll come around eventually, I'm sure. I slapped one of my spare 40GBs in for the system partition, and set the 250GB up as the network share. A humorous tidbit - it calls itself a Windows NT Server 4.9 in the properties dialog box when viewing it under Windows.

 

[Mercutio]

FreeNAS is pretty nifty, but it'll load off a 1GB thumb drive just as well as the 40GB drive you used.
Your mom might want the external drive because it's portable. She might also be operating under the not-uncommon impression that external drives are more reliable or somehow indestructible.

FreeNAS is super-nifty if you have enough disks to make a RAIDZ. Maybe your next project could be beg, borrow or stealing a couple more 250GB drives.

 

[Chewy509]

it calls itself a Windows NT Server 4.9 in the properties dialog box when viewing it under Windows.

That's just the CIFS announcement information as given out by samba (which is what FreeNAS is using to share via CIFS/SMB).

The actual values can be controlled via the samba configuration (smb.conf) via :

[global]
   announce version = 4.9
   announce as = NT

From the documentation: https://www.samba.org/samba/docs/using_samba/ch07.html#samba2-CHP-7-TABLE-4

So for a laugh you could set the version to be 7.0 to denote something from the future. (Windows 10 = NT 6.4)

 

[sedrosken]

Good tips Chewy, but it works as it is so I don't think I'll bother with messing it up.

I can't get ahold of any more 250GB drives, but as soon as I get an SSD I'll put the 500GB HDD in the Sempron.

Mom has no need for portability, she leaves her laptop in one place all the time. I can count literally on one hand how many times she's taken it somewhere with her, but it's her money she's wasting so I really don't care.

I'll leave it running, might map the drive on her laptop and copy over her stuff while she isn't looking or whatever. Leave it for a while, and then show her that it's all still there. See what she thinks then.

 

[sedrosken]

It's been up for almost four days now, that's the longest time I've ever let anything just sit and run. It's working beautifully, a little slow because we're still using 802.11G, but it works okay none the less. I tried to go about setting up a password protected share on the unused 30GB drive for my own backup, but it didn't work out. I ended up allowing guest access but removing the ability for it to be browsed to. So unless they know the (very specific) share path to get to it, they won't get to it. What are the odds of them figuring that out, anyway? Not that they'd care enough to go rooting around for it. I just have my own things that I want to keep separate from everything else. I put my setups on the main drive out of necessity, that zip file is over 60 GB. Otherwise I'd have put it on the invisible share as well. I've long since started keeping my documents on OneDrive, so they aren't a major concern, but my pictures and videos and music are. I've had a drive die without much warning before, I really don't need to get smacked in the face by another one taking my stuff with it.

 

[LunarMist]

Are these drives good for the NAS? Can they be used as simple storage drives as well in case RIAD plan does not work out?

 

[Mercutio]

I haven't used any of the 6TB units yet, but yes, you can use "NAS" drives for whatever you want. They're just drives, purportedly with firmware optimization that make them better for arrays. Personally I think NAS drives are just a bullshit reason to get people to pay extra money to get fully functional 5400rpm drives, but of course none of us can really say what they're doing on a firmware level.

 

[Handruin]

Lunar, just like Mercutio said, they're perfectly fine to use in JBOD. That's how I'm using my 4TB HGST NAS drives.

Merc, these are 7200 RPM drives, not 5400RPM.

 

[Mercutio]

I had my first two-drive failure in a Storage Space last night. My data is in arrays of six 3TB disk stripes with one extra drive allocated as a hot spare. I initiated a rebuild after one drive died and a second drive dropped out of the array during that process. My data still appears to be present, but some of the folders on my server don't seem to be accessible. Now I'm rebuilding again. It's going much more slowly this time - about 2% per hour vs. 10% per hour before. When that's done, I suspect I'm probably going to have to at least run a chkdsk on the array.

And of course I'm 700 miles away from the machine today and I'm not sure I can talk my stripper/cat feeder through pulling out the known bad disk to throw in another spare over the phone.

I guess it's not a huge deal since I have a parity snapshot from Monday, but it's still not something I wanted to deal with.

 

[Mercutio]

Also, the failed drives? The one that I can tell is FAILED is a WD Red, the only one I have. The one with status "lost communication" is a Seagate. I'll pull it and it'll probably pass all of Seagate's diagnostics, but I'll RMA it anyway.

 

[LunarMist]

Also, the failed drives? The one that I can tell is FAILED is a WD Red, the only one I have. The one with status "lost communication" is a Seagate. I'll pull it and it'll probably pass all of Seagate's diagnostics, but I'll RMA it anyway.

Is that system normally offsite or are you on vacation with family or something?
It's amusing to see you are finding more ammo in the war against WD.
How do you feel about the HGST drives now that they are a WD subsidiary?

 

[LunarMist]

The Hitachi drive seems to be good. I'm guessing the configuration is 5x1.2GB platters. Interestingly enough the seek times are much less than the similar Seagate drives and the mounting holes are located normally.

 

[sdbardwick]

Dammit! First Hitachi drive died yesterday two months after warranty expired. Retail boxed 7200 RPM Deskstar 2TB made in China. Did give me about a one week warning by going from zero bad sectors to 1987 during that time. Lets see how long the other 3 drives from that batch last....

 

[Handruin]

One of my Samsung 1.5TB drives just crapped out from my older NAS. It caused all kinds of weird problems for the OS with blue screens. Mine has been out of warranty for a while. Looks like I'm unable to buy this drive new anymore in order to replace it.

 

[time]

Dammit! First Hitachi drive died yesterday two months after warranty expired.

Does that make it 3 years old or 1 year old?

 

[sdbardwick]

Does that make it 3 years old or 1 year old?

3 years

 

[LunarMist]

U and V are missing sometimes, so I'm seriously thinking that it may be necessary to finally give in to the NADSS.

Which is the best unit, keeping in mind that I've been avoiding it for 8 years due to configuration concerns.
I should be wanting 8 bays with RAID 6, right? Is it worth trying the 10GbE? This will be the first and last chance at it. Thanks.

 

[Handruin]

North American Division of the Schopenhauer Society?

Is building your own an option? It's tough to say what's the best unit for you given no mention of budget and capacity requirements. You could do RAID6 or RAID-Z2 and be fine with 8 drives.

 

[LunarMist]

North American Division of the Schopenhauer Society?

Is building your own an option? It's tough to say what's the best unit for you given no mention of budget and capacity requirements. You could do RAID6 or RAID-Z2 and be fine with 8 drives.

I guess it is a NAS.

I'm not any good at installing and configuring alternative OS.
$1500 for the empty unit would be the upper limit since there would also be about $2400 of the 6TB Hibachi NAS hard drives (though I only need 6 now).
The device needs to sit in the corner and would be turned on and off via AC power for the backups. I realize this will be slower than the USB backups, but it's not critical if the data is reliable.
I've considered the Drobo, but they seem to have a lot of complaints and best performance is only with the Thunderbowl which is no good for the Windows.
Apparently the QNAP and Syonology are the common brands, but I'm open to others.

 

[Mercutio]

Synology is my favorite from a firmware and features perspective. Performance on the ARM-powered NAS devices is universally lousy, though it sounds like you'd be looking at an eight bay model which will probably have an Atom CPU. All of the four bay or larger devices do have some kind of double parity error checking and they all support online array expansion, though I'm skeptical as to whether that involves rebalancing existing data or not.

 

[LunarMist]

Something like these QNAP or Synology?

 

[ddrueding]

I'm a fan of the Synology units as well. But don't pull the plug on them regularly without doing a proper shutdown. It is a computer, they like to be shutdown properly. In fact, just set the drives to spin down at an appropriate time and leave the unit on so it can perform diagnostics and software updates.

Even with 4 drives it can saturate GbE, though I haven't tried 10Gb myself I am interested.

They are easy and fast and you will be kicking yourself for not going that route earlier if you just want your storage to work.

 

[CougTek]

Somehow, I really doubt Mooner has a switch with SFP+ ports at home, although I could be surprised. If you're able to configure port aggregation (it is quite simple) on your switch, then opting for a unit with four gigabit ports might be wiser. The QNAP TS-853 Pro would be just fine for your need, IMO. Same goes for the Synology DS1815+.

 

[Handruin]

Somehow, I really doubt Mooner has a switch with SFP+ ports at home, although I could be surprised. If you're able to configure port aggregation (it is quite simple) on your switch, then opting for a unit with four gigabit ports might be wiser. The QNAP TS-853 Pro would be just fine for your need, IMO. Same goes for the Synology DS1815+.

You can get 10GbE in TP and use CAT6 or CAT6A. I've done it in limited amounts and it's functional and faster than 1GbE. My understanding of port bonding is limited but I believe even if he binds 4 x 1GbE, the most he might see in a single session is still the limitation of the single 1GbE. Where he may see improvements is in multi-session access from multiple sources.

 

[Mercutio]

Netgear makes an 8 port, $1000 10Gbase-T switch, but I haven't seen any NICs yet for under $500. On the other hand, bonded gigabit links usually don't feel slow to me, even when I'm moving terabytes of stuff around. I know it's going to take a while, so I start whatever process I need to start and then go do something else.

 

[LunarMist]

I was not planning on a switch, but direct connection to a PCIe card. I thought those were only a few hundred dollars. However it looks likea weak CPU. Will it crap out on RAID 6.

 

[Stereodude]

... but I haven't seen any NICs yet for under $500. ...

I thought they were in the mid $300 range.

 

[Handruin]

What about this guy? StarTech.com 1 Port PCI Express 10 Gigabit Ethernet Network Card @$279. I have no idea if it's any good.

 

[ddrueding]

I've been looking into this, and I think you and I are after about the same thing.

Powerful 8-Drive NAS with 10GbE: Synology DS2015xs
Switch that supports the SFP+ of the Synology and some Copper 10Gbe: Netgear ProSAFE Plus XS708E
NICs from a vendor we know for Copper 10GbE: Intel Ethernet Converged Network Adapter X540T1
SFP+ Direct Connect cable (2m): SFP-H10GB-CU2M
CAT7 Patch Cables for the rest

That would be $3500 before drives to connect 3 computers. (8x 6TB Drives ups it to ~$5600)

Not quite in my range yet.

 

[CougTek]

There's also the same card, but with an SFP+ port if you prefer. The 2m DAC cable is ~62$.

 

[LunarMist]

Thanks for the info. Im still concerned about the apnea alpine CPU in RAID 6. I read on the AnandTech that it is a Cortex and they are unimpressed.

 

[Handruin]

I think what you'll find with most things in life is you'll either spend less money and figure out how to do things on your own or pay someone else a lot more money and gain the benefits from their R&D. My point being, either buy a higher-end pre-built NAS which will be much higher than your budget, or suck it up and learn an alternative OS and build your own. There is some middle ground if you want to build your own and run FreeNas as the OS/NAS management or even a windows server OS if you're more comfortable there. If you want to consider FreeNAS, all the hardware that I listed for my NAS earlier in this thread would work great and possibly be in-budget and fit most of your specs. If you need me to copy and paste the hardware spec I will.

 

[Mercutio]

Or, I dunno, pay somebody to put together a solution for you. You want a single user file server. That's not exactly rocket surgery.

 

[Handruin]

Or, I dunno, pay somebody to put together a solution for you. You want a single user file server. That's not exactly rocket surgery.

I would have suggested this but you and I both know the secrecy lunar prefers making this not very viable.

 

[LunarMist]

Sorry I'm so difficult.

 

[LunarMist]

I think what you'll find with most things in life is you'll either spend less money and figure out how to do things on your own or pay someone else a lot more money and gain the benefits from their R&D. My point being, either buy a higher-end pre-built NAS which will be much higher than your budget, or suck it up and learn an alternative OS and build your own. There is some middle ground if you want to build your own and run FreeNas as the OS/NAS management or even a windows server OS if you're more comfortable there. If you want to consider FreeNAS, all the hardware that I listed for my NAS earlier in this thread would work great and possibly be in-budget and fit most of your specs. If you need me to copy and paste the hardware spec I will.

Yes, you are correct as usual. I have gone out of scope and need to be more practical. I might consider the high end MAS or storage server eventually for primary data, but the 1815+ with 1GbE should be sufficient for backups as mentioned above.