NAS Drive

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,625
Location
USA
Yes, you could go a step further and get a mainboard that has a BMC on it then you really don't even need a keyboard and mouse connected directly to it. This is what I built mine from and the supermicro has a BMC on it to make your life easier.

Intel Intel Xeon E3-1270V3
SUPERMICRO MBD-X10SL7-F-O
32GB RAM DDR3L ECC (8GBx4)
12 x HGST 4TB Deskstar NAS
SAMSUNG 850 Pro 256GB (boot/OS)
SAMSUNG 850 Pro 128GB (L2ARC)
Seasonic 650W 80+ Gold
Case: Rosewill RSV-L4411

You must be a glutton for punishment or have the storage controlled. Listening to 12 Hitachi NASDrives for hours at a time would be brutal. I have just one 6TB Hitachi and it's annoying enough. :(
 

Handruin

Administrator
Joined
Jan 13, 2002
Messages
13,737
Location
USA
You must be a glutton for punishment or have the storage controlled. Listening to 12 Hitachi NASDrives for hours at a time would be brutal. I have just one 6TB Hitachi and it's annoying enough. :(

It's in my basement so I only hear it when I'm down there on the treadmill or doing laundry. It's actually not that bad the 4TB drives don't have the same sound as the 6TB drives.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,625
Location
USA
I was thinking about 8 x 6TB drives at minimum since the 8TB 7200 RPM versions are pricey. How much difference does 5400 RPM make compared to 7200 RPM or is the number of drives more important than the speed?
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,625
Location
USA
I downloaded the FreeNAS, but it is an ISO file. Would I need to buy a blank CD and an external USB drive to boot from? :(
I could probably hang an internal optical drive somewhere temporarily, but this is not a good start and it's been years since I worked with the discs.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,625
Location
USA
I installed it, but only see a text screen with 14 options and not really anything that lets me select the drives.
 

CougTek

Serial computer killer
Joined
Jan 21, 2002
Messages
8,724
Location
Québec, Québec
I think it's a very well formed question mark. What's wrong with it?

Regarding FreeNAS, you have to manage it from the web interface. Use the user "root" at first, with the password you gave it during installation. Then create another user and use it to access it afterward. You should see the IP address on the screen with the 14 options.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,625
Location
USA
I think it's a very well formed question mark. What's wrong with it?

Regarding FreeNAS, you have to manage it from the web interface. Use the user "root" at first, with the password you gave it during installation. Then create another user and use it to access it afterward. You should see the IP address on the screen with the 14 options.

I don't know why the link doesn't show up since I saw it during the post. Now the code is visible if I quote the post, but messed up. It's very strange.

What do you think of the NAS?
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,625
Location
USA
Regarding FreeNAS, you have to manage it from the web interface. Use the user "root" at first, with the password you gave it during installation. Then create another user and use it to access it afterward. You should see the IP address on the screen with the 14 options.

Do I need to access it from another computer on the network?
 

CougTek

Serial computer killer
Joined
Jan 21, 2002
Messages
8,724
Location
Québec, Québec
Regarding the QNAP NAS you've linked, it's very good for the price, but unless you plan to use it for a mid-size office or use it to run VMs, it is probably overkill. It is the kind of unit I'd use for my companie's need and we have more than 200 employees.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,625
Location
USA
Regarding the QNAP NAS you've linked, it's very good for the price, but unless you plan to use it for a mid-size office or use it to run VMs, it is probably overkill. It is the kind of unit I'd use for my companie's need and we have more than 200 employees.

I was thinking that 10 bays would be nice and the ECc RAM, PCIe, etc.
 

CougTek

Serial computer killer
Joined
Jan 21, 2002
Messages
8,724
Location
Québec, Québec
The QNAP TS-831X-16G would be plenty fast and includes 2 10G SFP+ ports. It's half the price of the TVS-EC1080-E3-8G. 8 bays instead of 10, but with 8TB and 10TB drives available, you shouldn't fall short on storage space.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,625
Location
USA
The QNAP TS-831X-16G would be plenty fast and includes 2 10G SFP+ ports. It's half the price of the TVS-EC1080-E3-8G. 8 bays instead of 10, but with 8TB and 10TB drives available, you shouldn't fall short on storage space.

Thanks. It must be a new model.
I can't find any transfer rate specs, but isn't that Armenian CPU too slow for RAID 6 and 10GbE, or does a weak CPU mainly affect IOPs?
 

CougTek

Serial computer killer
Joined
Jan 21, 2002
Messages
8,724
Location
Québec, Québec
Annapurma is in Nepal, not Armenia.

It won't saturate a 10G port and it certainly won't equal an i7 for sustained iops in random access workloads. However, unless I'm mistaken, you plan to put mecanical drives into your NAS, so those will be the bottleneck, not the NAS processor. If you'd fill the NAS with SSD, then it would be another conclusion.
 

ddrueding

Fixture
Joined
Feb 4, 2002
Messages
19,511
Location
Horsens, Denmark
Did the Annapurna Circuit from Pokara when I was younger, including a detour to base camp. Probably won't do another 30+ day hike again.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,625
Location
USA
It looks like the NAS I have uses the same Annapurina CPU. Sometimes it is slow, but I'm not sure how much is bottlenecked by the 1GbE. This would be a better backup than the one I have.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,625
Location
USA
Yes. It is the purpose of a NAS.

I will put a few drives in the one computers to use as NAS and then get two 10GbE adapters to see if the performance is reasonable from that to the main computer. 520 DA2 is ok?
 

ddrueding

Fixture
Joined
Feb 4, 2002
Messages
19,511
Location
Horsens, Denmark
I will put a few drives in the one computers to use as NAS and then get two 10GbE adapters to see if the performance is reasonable from that to the main computer. 520 DA2 is ok?

Yup, that is the one I've been buying. Not the cheapest, but I haven't had any issues.
 

Handruin

Administrator
Joined
Jan 13, 2002
Messages
13,737
Location
USA
I will put a few drives in the one computers to use as NAS and then get two 10GbE adapters to see if the performance is reasonable from that to the main computer. 520 DA2 is ok?

If you are planning on using FreeNAS, just do some searching to make sure that adapter is supported under their platform. I believe FreeNAS is based off FreeBSD and it seems like Intel adapters are well-supported but I haven't confirmed if the 520 DA2 is or is not.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,625
Location
USA
If you are planning on using FreeNAS, just do some searching to make sure that adapter is supported under their platform. I believe FreeNAS is based off FreeBSD and it seems like Intel adapters are well-supported but I haven't confirmed if the 520 DA2 is or is not.

I don't see the X520 listed, but it's an older adapter that seems to be in the compatibility list of several other NAS units so I can still use it if the FreeNAS does not work out.
 

ddrueding

Fixture
Joined
Feb 4, 2002
Messages
19,511
Location
Horsens, Denmark
Works fine.

By the way, I now have a QNAP TS-831X sitting on my workbench. I'll be populating it later today if anyone here wants tests or screenshots of config screens.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,625
Location
USA
How do you get it so fast?
Mainly I'd like to know if you get similar to Page 2 performance with hard drives in RAID6.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,625
Location
USA
I put the SFP+ cable all the way to end of the hole, but it does not come out again. Is there some special removal technique?
 

Handruin

Administrator
Joined
Jan 13, 2002
Messages
13,737
Location
USA
I put the SFP+ cable all the way to end of the hole, but it does not come out again. Is there some special removal technique?

Is this an LC to LC fiber optic cable or a twinax? There should be a clip that you compress in order to disconnect it from the SFP+ transceiver (assuming it's optical).
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,625
Location
USA
It's the DA cable version. I don't want to mangle it. I figured 2m cable should be enough.
 

Handruin

Administrator
Joined
Jan 13, 2002
Messages
13,737
Location
USA
It's the DA cable version. I don't want to mangle it. I figured 2m cable should be enough.

Is there a plastic/nylon pull tab on your DAC? That should release the clip when you try to remove it. The SFP+ connector should be part of the cable in this setup. Does it look similar to one of these?

dac-img1.jpg
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,625
Location
USA
Is there a plastic/nylon pull tab on your DAC? That should release the clip when you try to remove it. The SFP+ connector should be part of the cable in this setup. Does it look similar to one of these?

D'OH! I tried that but obviously did not pull enough. I should probably install the card first. :)
 

CougTek

Serial computer killer
Joined
Jan 21, 2002
Messages
8,724
Location
Québec, Québec
By the way, I now have a QNAP TS-831X sitting on my workbench. I'll be populating it later today if anyone here wants tests or screenshots of config screens.
You're like Lucky Luke: you pull the trigger faster than your shadow (regarding purchasing stuff).

You spotted it before or after I linked it in this thread?

I'm curious how much data it can read/write in sequential transfers thru the 10G ports. Even fully populated, it won't saturate the link because the processor isn't quick enough, but how much can you expect to gain over another unit limited to gigabit links is what I'm curious about.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,625
Location
USA
I'm curious how much data it can read/write in sequential transfers thru the 10G ports. Even fully populated, it won't saturate the link because the processor isn't quick enough, but how much can you expect to gain over another unit limited to gigabit links is what I'm curious about.

The data on Page 2 was achieved with SSDs and RAID 5 only.

Capture.PNG
 

ddrueding

Fixture
Joined
Feb 4, 2002
Messages
19,511
Location
Horsens, Denmark
I purchased it as soon as you linked it. I've been looking for something in this configuration (10-gig, 8-drive) for a while and it was not a hard decision. I'll be populating it with 8TB HDDs and a direct-connect cable to a high-end machine with SSDs in RAID0. We'll see how it performs. Might be Monday before I can get it done, though.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,625
Location
USA
When I looked they were coming from the QNAP or do retailers stock it?
 

Handruin

Administrator
Joined
Jan 13, 2002
Messages
13,737
Location
USA
The data on Page 2 was achieved with SSDs and RAID 5 only.

View attachment 1103

There's not enough information to understand this performance marketing data. You're still looking at using less than half the 10Gb link's potential for writes in whatever way they chose to write this data...be it monolithic files or random and for what duration. Sure, maybe you can see short bursts of speed while onboard RAM is used to stage and buffer but run this test for 20 minutes and let's see what the numbers are like.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,625
Location
USA
My concern is that writing hundreds of GB of data will slow it down significantly.
 

LunarMist

I can't believe I'm a Fixture
Joined
Feb 1, 2003
Messages
16,625
Location
USA
Apparently the MB cannot take the 10GbE card and still see the boot drive. :cursin: Can there be some interference between a PCIe slot and M.2?
 
Top