Buying or Building a home nas

[Stuka85]

Hi, I’m planning to buy/Build a home NAS

I’m interested in Synology DS 214 or Asustor AS-202TE i plan to put a lot of photos there (RAW and JPEGS) and movies (MKVs). I’ve read about ZFS and ECC and how they both prevent errors in the files during time, but i don’t know if the synology or asustor have any error correction protection.

I want to know if this kind of NAS (synology or asustor) have that error prevention or ill have to go the DIYO route and build a freenas that have this capability (ZFS, ECC, etc)

 

[mfenn]

No, a low-ish end consumer NAS isn't going to have ECC or any kind of checksumming built in. They run Linux with plain old md software raid.

What's your budget look like?

 

[Stuka85]

i can go to about $800 maybe $1000.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

That's plenty of money to do a homebrew 4+ bay ECC equipped NAS.

Do you intend to use it as a NAS and only as a NAS, or as a more multipurpose home server? (Media streaming, transcoding, game server, etc.)

Do you have any space limitations? (Is SFF preferable because you're in a small apartment?)

 

[Stuka85]

yes, i would like and sff, media server with streaming to a chromecast would be awesome.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Okay, well... try this:

Case: http://www.logicsupply.com/components/cases/storage-oriented-cases/a7879/ ($150)
Mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157467 ($192)
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116974 ($45)
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820226477 ($104)

So, that's about $500 without drives. 3TB drives are $100 each, so $900 if you fill the bays. It would be a plenty good enough box to run FreeNAS and a PLEX server. You can probably cut that back by about $150 if you skip the ECC RAM. (The motherboard would be around $75 and the RAM would be about half the price too.) But you add a very, very small chance of something horrible happening. (You should also stick with UFS if you don't use ECC RAM, so I'm told.)

The rule of thumb for RAM on ZFS is 4GB + 1GB per TB of pool space, but that's generous. (You can get away with less if you're not using dedup. ZFS likes to use RAM for caching too, but you just take a slight performance hit.)

IMHO.

*stands back, dons flame retardant jacket, and awaits all the "constructive" criticism*

 

[mfenn]

Dave's build looks pretty nice from a mini-ITX point of view. You can save a good chunk of change by going with MicroATX instead of mini-ITX. The resulting build will be physically larger of course, but not incredibly so.

As for ZFS, people really overestimate the amount of RAM that it needs when dedup isn't in the picture. The less RAM you have, the less benefit you'll get from the ARC, but the ARC doesn't buy you much in a media server situation because you're going to be streaming large files at a constant rate.

ZFS does need a lot when using dedup, but dedup is not very useful in a typical home media server environment because compressed media files contain essentially random data that will not dedup. It's much more useful in a business setting where you have multiple users who keep copies of the same files (email inboxes, etc.).

 

[Stuka85]

thanks for your replies, i got a question, the celeron processor will use the ECC memory? i understood that only xenon or opteron processors work with this kind of memory.

is there a good case in micro ATX Form factor? (the mobos are cheaper)

thanks!

 

[smitbret]

thanks for your replies, i got a question, the celeron processor will use the ECC memory? i understood that only xenon or opteron processors work with this kind of memory.

is there a good case in micro ATX Form factor? (the mobos are cheaper)

thanks!

I think you are correct. If you want ECC that is inexpensive, you'll probably have to jump to an AMD AM3/AM3+ setup and you'd have to go MicroATX instead of Mini.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819113286

+

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131795

Is really similar to what I am using (FX 6100 instead of FX 6300). With 6 Spinners and an SSD, it pulls about 52W at idle and 64-72 when serving files. I do use it to transcode video to different locations and gets a little over 100W when that happens.

I've been quite pleased with mine.

Not sure how small you need to go on cases, but I have my Server in a Fractal Design Define Mini and have been very impressed with it so far. It's a little tight with the # of HDDs and if I had to go back and do it again I would have gotten the R4 or even the XL R2.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

ark.intel.com says which CPUs support ECC or not.

http://ark.intel.com/products/78955/Intel-Celeron-Processor-G1820-2M-Cache-2_70-GHz

That one does.

As far as mATX cases go, there are a lot of good brands - Fractal Design is one.

I'd probably go with this, for the money.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811163223

4 drive bays stock, but if you get a 3:2 adapter to go where the CD-ROM bays are, you could get 7 3.5" HDDs in there no problem.

 

[Stuka85]

i really like this case,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811352027

now the question would be, a nice PSU that can work 24/7 without issues.

I Found this case with powersupply too. but the PSU looks very generic and i dont want problems with it running 24/7

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1688200382&pf_rd_i=507846

 

[Cerb]

now the question would be, a nice PSU that can work 24/7 without issues.

Most of them. A home NAS should be among the least stressful types of computers for any PSU. Given the limited space, a Corsair CX430M might a good option.

Also, if you use a case w/o hot-swap, and do software RAID, label the drives in the case. With the Node, maybe put an address label or two (if small one-line ones) on the top of each U-shaped rail, with some unique part of the serial number. That way, if I drive goes out, physically finding it with the machine offline is a lot easier (I wouldn't trust Sharpie ink to stay readable over time just on the paint). Then, you can use hdparm/sdparm -i in Linux, or camcontrol identify in FreeBSD, to find a bad drive, either directly, or by enumerating the good ones.

 

[Stuka85]

thanks for the tips cerb

 

[mfenn]

For MicroATX, here's what would build:

Celeron G1610 $50 - supports ECC
SuperMicro MBD-X9SCL-F-O $165 - out of band management, ECC, etc.
Crucial DDR3 1600 Unbuffered ECC 8GB $105
PNY 16GB USB drive $8 - install the OS here using the provided internal USB port
Seagate 7200RPM 3TB x3 $330 - better cost per gig than 4TB
Corsair 430CX $20 AR
Fractal Design Define Mini $100 - quiet, supports 6 3.5" drives without adapters
Total: $778 AR

Note that I am intentionally going with Ivy Bridge over Haswell here because server focused distributions generally lag behind desktop ones in terms of supporting the latest chipsets.

You could save about $150 by skipping the server motherboard and ECC memory. Alternatively, you could go more expensive by adding a pair of SSDs for mirrored ZIL and L2ARC and/or more data drives.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

For MicroATX, here's what would build:

Celeron G1610 $50 - supports ECC
SuperMicro MBD-X9SCL-F-O $165 - out of band management, ECC, etc.
Crucial DDR3 1600 Unbuffered ECC 8GB $105
PNY 16GB USB drive $8 - install the OS here using the provided internal USB port
Seagate 7200RPM 3TB x4 $330 - better cost per gig than 4TB
Corsair 430CX $20 AR
Fractal Design Define Mini $100 - quiet, supports 6 3.5" drives without adapters
Total: $778 AR

Note that I am intentionally going with Ivy Bridge over Haswell here because server focused distributions generally lag behind desktop ones in terms of supporting the latest chipsets.

You could save about $150 by skipping the server motherboard and ECC memory. Alternatively, you could go more expensive by adding a pair of SSDs for mirrored ZIL and L2ARC and/or more data drives.

At first I was like, "$82.50 each for 3TB drives? Woah, sign me up!"

But it turns out you made a typo.

 

[Stuka85]

For MicroATX, here's what would build:

Celeron G1610 $50 - supports ECC
SuperMicro MBD-X9SCL-F-O $165 - out of band management, ECC, etc.
Crucial DDR3 1600 Unbuffered ECC 8GB $105
PNY 16GB USB drive $8 - install the OS here using the provided internal USB port
Seagate 7200RPM 3TB x4 $330 - better cost per gig than 4TB
Corsair 430CX $20 AR
Fractal Design Define Mini $100 - quiet, supports 6 3.5" drives without adapters
Total: $778 AR

Note that I am intentionally going with Ivy Bridge over Haswell here because server focused distributions generally lag behind desktop ones in terms of supporting the latest chipsets.

You could save about $150 by skipping the server motherboard and ECC memory. Alternatively, you could go more expensive by adding a pair of SSDs for mirrored ZIL and L2ARC and/or more data drives.

awesome. that build looks sweet,

i would change the hard drives for some western digital red, (i know they are more expensive, but i think they are more reliable.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2089...eals-the-most-reliable-hard-drive-makers.html

 

[SolMiester]

I really want to build a box around this Silverstone case
http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=452&area=en

 

[Charlie98]

i really like this case,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811352027

now the question would be, a nice PSU that can work 24/7 without issues.

I Found this case with powersupply too. but the PSU looks very generic and i dont want problems with it running 24/7

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...pf_rd_i=507846

Understand, both of those cases are mITX... not mATX like the board in Mfenn's build. Before you get too carried away you need to make a decision on which form you want. The Node 304 is a pretty groovy case, I like it, too, but I would probably build a NAS in another Define Mini (like Smitbret did.)

 

[mfenn]

At first I was like, "$82.50 each for 3TB drives? Woah, sign me up!"

But it turns out you made a typo.

Fixed! Thanks for spotting that.

 

[mfenn]

awesome. that build looks sweet,

i would change the hard drives for some western digital red, (i know they are more expensive, but i think they are more reliable.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2089...eals-the-most-reliable-hard-drive-makers.html

WD Reds are also 5400RPM, which means they're slow. The idea of RAID is that you don't care if a drive fails, and by buying the least expensive drive, you are self insuring even after the warranty period.

Also, it's easy to draw really flawed conclusions from the Backblaze study. They found that if you take Green drives that were rated for 8hr/day duty cycles and run them in a 24/7 server environment, then the drives will die early. That is kind of a no brainer. Stick with 24/7 rated 7200RPM drives and you'll do fine.

 

[Stuka85]

i would probably start with 2 hard drives, thats why i want reliability starting my home nas =).

 

[mfenn]

i would probably start with 2 hard drives, thats why i want reliability starting my home nas =).

My points still hold for any RAID level.

 

[Stuka85]

My points still hold for any RAID level.

i guess ill have to read about raid a little bit of raid schemes hahaha.

 

[mfenn]

i guess ill have to read about raid a little bit of raid schemes hahaha.

With two drives, you'll be running RAID 1, which means that each drive is an exact mirror of the other. If one drive fails, you can replace it, and not lose any data. So you don't really care if the drive fails, then you should get a less expensive drive (not that I think the Red is particularly more reliable anyway).

Spending less money per drive also means that you can get more drives for increased reliability (spares or higher RAID levels). Adding another drive increases reliability by a far larger factor than buying a more expensive drive.

 

[imaheadcase]

For $800 get the Synology DS1503+. It DOES have error protection and uses ECC memory. It also has tons of app addons that make other tasks useful (cloud storage, webhosting, etc). It can hold 5 hardrives (upgrade to more if you want with drive cages) and Synology is the best NAS you can buy.

I've did the research myself lately and decided building a server now-a-days is not worth it, not many great easy to use free options anymore since windows home server is no more (well not newer).

For what you want its PERFECT. I use mine for Sickbeard/CP/SABnsbd and data storage. I pick the directory i want and it uploads to the cloud as well.