DIY NAS Appliance with Shuttle PC?

[Visor57]

Hi there

I want to build a NAS Appliance for personal use but can't seem to find a relatively easy solution. I'm an IT Professional so getting down and dirty isn't a problem for me, I just don't want to waste time barking up the wrong trees and the sort.

I've been thinking of using a SFF pc, maybe something from Shuttle that is sufficient to act as a file/archival server (Celeron). My main problem is the OS; what do you use? So far I have found little information of real use as most NAS manufactures use proprietary OS or Linux based systems. I did stumble upon a Linux project but it is more suited to distributed computing than simple NAS.
Microsoft also has a NAS OS called Windows Storage Server 2003 but I can't track it down from any of my suppliers, as it seems this OS is only sold to OEM Manufacturers specializing in NAS systems.

All I want to do is have an efficient and reliable OS running on a RAID-1 (mirrored - thanx drag) drive config for safe file storage on my home network. I may even want to configure the machine as a test web-server running Apache, etc. The machine will not use any peripherals (monitor, mouse, keyboard) and must be controlled via a browser interface.

Sounds simple enough, except tracking down a suitable OS is not proving to be so easy.
I'll appreciate any information

Cheers for now.

 

[drag]

Linux is great for this sort of thing.

And what exactly do you mean by NAS? You mean a file server?

Pretty simple. Even if you want RAID. You can do the RAID in software and Linux's software raid support is very fast and very high quality. You can setup RAID 5 with a hot spare if you realy wanted to.

RAID 0 is completely worthless, though. Why double your chances for data loss just for some tiny performance increase? (with just 2 ide drives the performance advantage of Raid0 of just to oridinary disks is pretty much non-existant).

(or do you mean raid-1, mirrored disk? raid-0 is striped data with no fault tolerance)

You just setup your box, stick a couple disks in it and setup SAMBA for SMB (protocol that Windows uses for windows print and file sharing). Mount the SMB share as a local disk and there you go.

Any Linux distro is perfectly capapble of doing this. Although there are special purpose ones for home and SOHO that have lots of extra features like routing/firewall capabilities, e-mail spam filtering and virus scanning, web serving, etc etc, like Clarkconnect. They have a free community supported version or a commercial version with aviable tech support.

For remote administration you would use SSH (like telnet, but encrypted), Webmin (webbased configuration GUI), or VNC. Clarkconnect and friends would provide a special purpose web administration tool.

Personally I prefer SSH for administratoin. If your connecting from a Windows machine use Putty.exe for a excelent ssh client.

 

[Visor57]

Thanks for the response drag

Yes,sorry , I did mean RAID-1 (corrected above post).
NAS stands for "Network Attached Storage" and that's basically all I want; a very compact, reliable file server that just plugs into the network and takes good care of my data and archived apps

One of my chief concerns about using standard Linux distros or just Windows is that I do not want to run into complications due to missing peripherals.

Also the testing web-server needs to be Apache with MySQL and PHP, these I can install and configure without hassle (bashed my head enough times ), so I won't be requiring built-in web-server software.

Is webmin built into Linux?

 

[Wizkid]

Webmin may come with some distros, but its easy to install yourself: www.webmin.com

 

[Visor57]

Checked out Webmin and it looks promising. I have Red Hat 9 so I'll try it out this weekend on a test machine and see how it goes.

 

[drag]

Personally for servers I think that Debian testing would make it ideal. This is because the apt-get package tool and the high-quality, well tested, and large number of aviable packages for Debian.

For instance say you install a basic Debian install and you have it all setup with network and have your apt-get sources all setup. Now you want to upgrade your OS to include the newest security patches and bugfixes. You go:
apt-get update
then
apt-get upgrade

And that will update your install. Now say you want to install apache, a FTP server, and php4.
So you do a search thru the aviable software to find the package names:
apt-cache search apache
apt-cache search ftp |less
so on and so forth.
Then you find the packages you want and then you install them:
apt-get install apache php4 proftp
(not sure on the names of the packages, btw)
Then now you have a fully functional Apache and FTP web server, all you have to do is replace the default page with your own, or replace the default configuration with your own special setup.

But that's not enough, oh no. You want SAMBA file sharing and you want to control it all thru Webmin. So you go:
apt-get install samba webmin webmin-apache webmin-samba webmin-proftpd

(also there are GUI and curses based front ends to apt-get. Synaptic is one for X Windows, aptitude is a command line menu version)


After that is done, then you setup access permissions for webmin so that you can log in thru a seperate computer on your LAN, and your set. Thru webmin you add a couple users and give permiision for a network share and your set.

(although I personally feel that good command line knowledge and familarity is invaluable. I wouldn't depend on webmin or any other GUI tool. To much can go wrong and you can always depend on the command line.)

The hard part about debian is the network install, most people from windows find it confusing until you do it a couple times, then it's old-hat.

If you want a more of a plug-n-play configuration with easy setup and a pre-configured web interface, check out clarkconnect
(you can probably just disable the services you don't need)

So on and so forth.

 

[Visor57]

Hi drag,

Thanx for the info

So far I've decided to try an approach that Open-E uses; install a compact NAS OS on an IDE Flash Drive.

NAS OS's I've found so far:

NASLite by Server Elements,
Darma NAS OS by Darma Computers.

NASLite is nifty but has a couple of cons I don't like:

• * Boots from Floppy Disk only
  * No RAID support (hardware or software)
  * No User Management
  * Very basic administration via Telnet

Darma NAS OS is a lot better and although the free edition is limited to two users per share, it is sufficient for my intended use. It also supports RAID, User Management and has a more detailed GUI interface run from a browser. Most importantly, it supports installation to an IDE Flash Drive

All that is required is a 64MB Flash Drive and although my supplier only has 128MB and 256MB IDE models (Transcend 40- and 44-pin models) they're not expensive so it isn't a problem.

So far so good. Now just to find a suitable barebone candidate...

 

[drag]

That Darma OS looks pretty cool. Nice little linux setup.

When you first said "flash drive" I immediately thought of "Mini-Itx". These are a very small factor motherboard/Via CPU combo, that are relatively low heat, low power, and low speed when compared to other things.

They have a few embedded-style motherboards with a attachable flash drive and PCMCIA slot, as well as dual network interfaces.

Then I remembered that the flash drive slot was unbootable. That and the low cpu power might not be a good choice for any application using software raid (although if only mild performance is needed then it wouldn't be a problem).

although this guy did something VERY cool with his mini-itx setup. 1.1TB file server on a shuttle-sized footprint. Don't know how the hell he got so many drives wiht a mini-itx setup, because mini-itx boards only have one IDE controller.


One place to find barebones is newegg.com. At least to shop around and see what is aviable. Usually I hesitate to recommend an online shop, but...
Newegg has always been very prompt with shipping stuff. Usually you order it in the evening and it's out during the next business day. Well I always use the "saver" ground shipping option, and it's not usually to expensive and it gets their within a week, which is pretty freaking good. However last time I order a huge (for me) bunch of stuff and apparently they had trouble with the order... It was almost 1 week before they shipped it out (which is fine), however they didn't ship it ground, they shipped overnight air at no extra charge. That was nuts, I had a 40+ pound UPS with my order! They didn't even mention it or e-mail me about it or anything, they just swallowed the cost. It wasn't even a big delay. It wasn't a month after I ordered it, or 3 weeks, or even 2. It was still within a week from when I ordered it.

 

[Visor57]

Wow! Now that's cramming a whole lot into a very tight space

At the moment I'm cosidering the Shuttle SB75G2 which utilizes the Intel 875P chipset and supports SATA RAID 0 and 1, has IDE ports and Gigabit LAN. I'm waiting to hear from Darma if the NAS OS supports Intel's Hyper-Threading otherwise I'll stick to a Celeron (Prescott). I'll also be using Kingston ECC Server Value RAM.

So far the cost estimate (converted to USD) is $1,201.25. 50% of that is the cost of the Shuttle.

 

[drag]

Cool. In this application I don't think that hyper threading will matter one wit either way. Maybe if you were running a database (which would be a multithreaded app) or something along those lines, but it's not going to matter (I am thinking) for a simple file server.

However if one of the feature bullet points of the OS is that it supports SMP setups, then you can be sure that it will support hyperthreading. Especially if it is using a 2.6 series Linux kernel. No SMP support means no Hyperthreading support (hyperthreading != SMP, but it uses much of the same code to be supported). I am thinking that kernels 2.4.17 and newer support hyperthreading.
see here


Also as a alternative to the onboard raid elements check out Linux software raid. Those onboard things don't realy have their own proccessor, they just allow the use of special drivers to do the raid. Most of it is done in software anyways, just with special drivers.

It's a similar situation between WinModems vs real hardware modems.

also with a decent CPU Linux's software raid can be faster then most people's real hardware raid setups without to much overhead.

I guess just use whatever is most conveinent for you. Just keep it in mind if it turns out that your flash-based OS of choice doesn't support Intel's onboard raid.

 

[Visor57]

The concern regarding the integrated hardware RAID did cross my mind and it may just be a better idea to revert to a cheaper 865G chipset based board using the Linux software RAID. Let's face it, cost is a concern and the main reason for attempting this in the first place
Reverting to 865 (Shuttle SB61G2) also means no more ECC RAM, but I'll stick to Kingston nontheless for peace of mind

This would bring down the cost to $ 1,071.80 (USD) which is a $ 412 saving vs something I was looking at from IOmega:

Iomega NAS 200d Series Specifications - $ 1,483.63 (USD)

? 320GB (2x 160GB Serial ATA-150 cold-swap drives, 7200 rpm)
? Intel P4 Celeron processor, 2.0 GHz, 128 KB L2 cache.
? 256MB DDR RAM.
? RAID levels: 0, 1 and non-RAID.
? Single autosensing Gigabit Ethernet port (10/100/1000), RJ-45 connector.
? 4x USB 2.0 connections


Custom Personal NAS Appliance Specifications

? Barebone Shuttle SB61G2
? 160GB (2x160GB Mirrored Seagate Barracuda SATA150 [NCQ Capable Drives, for what its worth])
? Intel P4 Celeron 2,4GHz Prescott 256KB L2 Cache 533MHz FSB
? 256MB DDR400 Kingston Value RAM CL3
? Linux RAID-1
? 10/100 Intel LAN (Upgradeable to Gigabit thanks to spare PCI Slot )
? Integrated VGA (Useful for Preliminary Setup and troubleshooting)
? front and rear USB2.0 as well as Firewire (Dunno if they can be used though :?)

So, at the end of the day you get more bang for your buck and have fun building it yourself

 

[Visor57]

In addition as a future upgrade one could always add a low profile 4-port Serial ATA RAID controller from e.g. Promise (FastTrak TX4200) and use 3 SATA drives (can't fit in more ) in RAID-5 mode (Linux) too

That particular controller doesn't appear on the NAS OS HCL yet but should soon. An interesting feature of the controller is NCQ and the fact that the drives I'll be using also support this feature. I wonder if it would work by default or if it would need to be OS activated like with WinXP (have to use Application Accelerator)?