NAS device or fileserver?

[idea]

My fileserver is 875/900GB filled. I need to make a decision. I'm going crazy trying to decide what to do. I'm going to either buy a NAS with 4x SATA and RAID5, or build my own FreeNAS. I'm a big DIY guy but this time, I really have to think about it. Maybe you guys can help.

Do-It-Yourself FreeNAS:
I don't have any spare PC parts, so I'd have to spend time finding some. I also have to spend a few hours reading reviews on RAID5 cards before I buy one. Then I'd have to spend a few hours looking for HDD deals to buy. Say I spend $400 on related PC hardware, WITHOUT disks. I'd search For Sale/Trade forms for used CPU, mobo, PSU, Gigabit ethernet, RAID5 card, enclosure, cooling, cables, etc etc. 4x250GB costs about $300. Then I'd have to spend a days building, installing, and testing the configuration with FreeNAS. Doesn't sound like a lot of fun. Maybe I just made my decision.

Network Attached Storage
Zero hours invested in build, install, and test. Completely plug-and-play. Even comes with HDDs so I don't have to look for any deals. 1TB Buffalo TeraStation costs $600 from Dell SB right now.

1TB FreeNAS: $700 plus countless man-hours of deal hunting, building, configuring, testing.
1TB Buffalo Terastation: $600 and ZERO man hours of fiddling around

 

[myocardia]

Haha, I hadn't thought it over that in depth, but you've already got me convinced as to which one is the better solution.

 

[idea]

It's really sad but I no longer have the love for tinkering with computers that I used to.

It should also be mentioned that the FreeNAS method is usually faster in reads/writes but higher in power consumption. Customer reviews show that the particular NAS I chose as an example, the Buffalo Terastation, does 3MB/s on a 100mbit LAN. Slow enough to piss people off.

 

[Madwand1]

FWIW, you can build a server with new parts for around $400 + drives.

You could probably source similar parts from a local computer store and have them build and superficially test the HW for you. You might lose some choice and get a bit higher cost, but that's the tradeoff.

This pricing assumes on-board or Linux RAID, which will probably still compete favorably with the Terastation. The user reports on the Terastation aren't exactly stellar, so you probably get something for the effort and cost.

Power consumption is an issue where under-powered boxes should come out on top, but how much can you gain compared to a 150W file server PC? And is the difference really important?

 

[stogez]

The beauty of FreeNAS is that you dont need a $400 computer to run it. It will run on the bare minimum. You could buy a whole comp for <$100 and still be able to run FreeNAS on it. The only thing to add would be a decent Raid5 card and whatever drive configuration you want.

 

[idea]

How about these motherboards with onboard SATA RAID0/1/5 controllers? Are they worth anything to this NAS cause?

 

[MercenaryForHire]

I'd go with the Buffalo, since you don't have the spare parts or the drive to tinker.

- M4H

 

[andy04]

If speed is not your biggest concern, then I'd say you can even use a PCI Raid card... that along with an old/cheap system can bring your cost down. I have a similar configuration it has 2 320s and works pretty well. Its a old 1.7 P4 Dell.

Also I personally dont feel comfortable about the NAS concept as I feel the temp may run high with continuous operation (I live in southern Texas and we have 7-8 months of summer...). Maybe I am wrong but I feel the drives will, maybe burn out. With my "FreeNAS" I can monitor the temp and health the traditional way!

 

[amheck]

These are suppose to be pretty nice.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Infrant-ReadyNAS-NV...3QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

You can run them with 1-4 drives. They're all fast swappable and this unit gets really good reviews. It's more then the Buffalo, but from what I've read, I think when I get ready to purchase, this is the way I'm going to go.

FWIW.

Aaron

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: idea
How about these motherboards with onboard SATA RAID0/1/5 controllers? Are they worth anything to this NAS cause?

On-board SATA has the secondary benefit of often including a good on-board GbE implementation; both staying off the PCI bus and avoiding crowding them.

On-board are actually quite fine for RAID 1/0 (AFAIK, Intel does RAID 1 better than nVIDIA). RAID 5 is not so good for writes, but if done well, they'd probably still beat the current consumer NAS boxes. Reads should be even faster. Linux RAID 5 could be better than on-board, but on-board has the advantage of easier Windows support should you want that. Linux with on-board RAID is iffy -- last I checked, there wasn't even support for nvRAID 5, although there was support for RAID 0.

 

[Slowlearner]

At work, I need lots of hd space to store archival material (CAD/CAM files and such), I went through this exercise a few months back. I even have a couple of old Compaq servers, that have been retired after being on 24/7 for five years. Played around with many Linux distros, settled on Ubuntu, and had no problems installing them - the only difficult part I ran into was configuring Samba so that the Windows PCs could could access the server. I also looked at ready built NASs and as an experiment bought a Buffalo Terastation 1.0GB based solely on price. It was a breeze to set up (half an hour), its been running fine for the last 5 months - its quiet and small, and pretty well built with 4 WD sata 250GB drives. Its drawbacks are (1) its not particularly fast though it has a gigabit NIC, and (2) in case of power failure takes quite a while to rebuild the RAID5 array. I am running both at the moment, and am very pleased with them. The price difference between the two is only 300$ - so I am not really convinced building your own, using parts lying around is worth the effort.

 

[RaiderJ]

I have a DFI LanParty board (expert?) that does onboard RAID 5, and has another 4 SATA ports that can do RAID 0/1/JBOD. I paid $100 for the board on this forum. Get a board like that, your drives, and you're good to go. 939 procs are dirt cheap and can do software RAID with no problems. It'll require a bigger case than the Terastation, but in my mind it's a lot better deal since you get gigabit ethernet and much better transfer speeds.

I use my setup for a NAS device, FTP server, skype/ventrillo server, newsgroup/bittorrent downloader, etc. Plus, I added in a decent video card and use it for HTPC style gaming!

 

[Kwatt]

I just built a Freenas box.
Using one of these, a 64MB Silicon Tech IDE flash drive I had laying around from an old project and a Seagate 400GB SATA drive.
The Asus box I was not using for anything else right now and I needed a file server so I thought I would put them together and see what happens.

To buy this stuff now the cost would be $276.51 shipped to me from NewEgg.
purchasing these items: Asus Via Barebone,400GB drive,256 DDR,256 Compact Flash, and IDE flash adapter


I had everything already so my cost to try this was the cost of the CD I burned Freenas to.

Caveats:
Only SATA 150 on board.
Only 10/100 on board.
Only one PCI slot.
Only one 3.5 internal bay.

I used a 5.25 to 3.5 bay adapter. I could also remove the floppy drive and the CD Rom and have a total of 4 hard drives.
If I was building right now I would use this compact flash adapter. It plugs into the motherboard with no cable needed and gets power for the compact flash from the IDE jack.

Just started testing. Results for transfer 1 iso copy only! 694.5 MB Ubuntu iso required 6 minutes and 16 seconds.
Power 23 watts at rest. (hard drive set to shut down after 5 minutes) 30 watts with disk spinning but not writing. 38 watts during disk writes.

Freenas will do software raid but I don't need it so I won't be testing this. At this time.

I think 32 MB's is all that is required for the OS. But you can't use the disk the OS is on as part as of a raid array.
You can use one disk for the OS and storage though. I used the flash drive to reduce power requirements.



Kwatt

 

[amheck]

Very interesting Kwatt, can you explain more about how/why you used the CF? Could you easily add a RAID card to that setup?

Also, where's the best place to go to learn how to build one of these? I've built my last 3-4 PC's but all this is pretty new to me.

 

[Kwatt]

Originally posted by: amheck
Very interesting Kwatt, can you explain more about how/why you used the CF? Could you easily add a RAID card to that setup?

What I am using is an old flash drive. It is just flash memory on a board with a IDE connector and rails to mount in a 3.5 drive space. I used it because I had bought a half dozen or so 5-6 years ago. The power requirements are very small and it is large enough for freenas to fit on. I did not want the OS and data on the same drive because if they are on the same drive I could not use the Freenas raid software. I am not planning on raid at this time but I like to keep my options open.

If I was starting with nothing I would use compact flash. I have a couple of the adapters linked in the list above. And a computer sees the CF in one of these as a hard drive. Just fast with no moving parts. I have even installed MS DOS to CF in the adapter and removed the CF card and placed the CF in a USB reader and booted from it. DOS booting from USB.


About the raid card. There is one open PCI slot so you could put a PCI raid card in the box. If you did you would not have a place for a 10/100/1000 card though. If hardware raid is more important to you than 10/100/1000 networking that would work. You just have to pick which is more important to you. Hardware raid or Giga networking.

At the current time I don't need either one. I just want a place to store files that is not a heater. 23 watts is nothing and I believe the ASUS motherboard in this box allows you to shut down the CPU fan if the temp. falls below a safe level. (although i am not sure about that yet).

This is in the trial stage right now. I am looking to replace my current server that has a Cryix cpu in it on a AT motherboard.



Kwatt

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: Kwatt
Just started testing. Results for transfer 1 iso copy only! 694.5 MB Ubuntu iso required 6 minutes and 16 seconds.

694.5 MB / 6m 16s ~ 1.85 MB/s ~ 14.8 Mb/s.

Is this across wireless?

I think something's not right / untuned in that setup (unless it's just wireless) -- with that hardware I'd think that it should be more competitve with consumer NAS boxes.

(And just for illustration, with gigabit and faster hardware that data could be sent in less than 15s. I think it's literally cool & all to run small low-powered boxes, but my tastes run more towards high performance atm.)

 

[Kwatt]

Originally posted by: Madwand1

Originally posted by: Kwatt
Just started testing. Results for transfer 1 iso copy only! 694.5 MB Ubuntu iso required 6 minutes and 16 seconds.

694.5 MB / 6m 16s ~ 1.85 MB/s ~ 14.8 Mb/s.

Is this across wireless?

I think something's not right / untuned in that setup (unless it's just wireless) -- with that hardware I'd think that it should be more competitve with consumer NAS boxes.

(And just for illustration, with gigabit and faster hardware that data could be sent in less than 15s. I think it's literally cool & all to run small low-powered boxes, but my tastes run more towards high performance atm.)

No it is not wireless. The patch cable I used was an old Cat5 that was hand crimped. I have some new cables on the way and I will be change them out.

15 seconds sounds good. With what I have I would have to choose between a SATA 300 card or a Giga nic card no room for both. If I stick with this setup I may end up getting one or the other.

I may start another thread and start asking about the benefits of each.
*********************************

amheck

Building it was easy it took me more time to find the 5.25 to 3.5 drive adapter and the flash drive. Than to get it up and running.

Freenas was easy.



Kwatt

 

[idea]

Well, I bought a brand new 1TB RAID5 NAS. Its not fast or full of features but it works. I consider it a temporary solution until I find the time to build my own NAS, then I will sell it.

I have some questions for people with experience building and running a RAID5 server
- I'm set on buying a hardware RAID card. The features and performance are worth the price. At least 6 SATA ports. What is the best choice? I'll probably hunt a used card.
- In the event of a drive failure, how is the bad drive identified? Assuming I don't have an enclosure with fail LEDs. Do you label the SATA cables or something?
- Is an OS drive not on the RAID controller a good thing to have?
- At this time I do not plan to buy a 5.25" bay Hot Swap enclosure, but in the future when I do, is it easy to just put the existing RAID5 drives in there and go?

Now that I have the 1TB NAS I feel better. When I get some free time I'll hunt the parts and build my own. I'll even try to find a nice enclosure to make it look pretty, like a real SoHo NAS.

 

[amheck]

what'd you buy?

 

[Madwand1]

That's cool. One of these could also make a backup server for the other. RAID alone is not a backup, and having a full backup makes RAID maintenance much easier.

First decision for controller is the interface. PCIe is best for the future and consumer-level builds. PCI will have a bandwidth limitation, but could still be OK, provided that the PCI bus is uncrowded by NICs, etc. But it's a bit of a waste to get a higher-end RAID controller and limit it via the PCI bus, so this is the resort of the bottom price bracket IMO.

PCI-X is viable, and appropriate for workstation/server-class builds. I've done one and also come to regret it somewhat, as I don't don't feel that the server-class build has done much for me in home usage beyond raising the cost and limiting the choices. But if you're going all out with ECC RAM /etc., then this can be viable and appropriate. Note also that modern server boards are coming out with good PCIe support.

I'd say that a Highpoint RocketRaid 23xx or 22xx would be the entry level of storage controllers. Their feature set and performance looks fine. One thing I don't like is the fixed stripe size of 64K, but most don't try anything but this default, so it's not an issue for them. (BTW, I'm running a Highpoint currently on an nVIDIA 6150/430 desktop mATX board in the "video card" slot.)

I'd look at AMCC/3ware and Areca in addition as higher-end offerings. A downside of PCIe is that it's newer and so great used deals won't be as readily available to mitigate the cost. I also think that these cards can be overkill in many cases when you're just using them as GbE-limited file servers with limited concurrent user load. That said, if you regard them as longer-term "investments" of some sort, then getting a better card up-front might be worthwhile. You can also get RAID 6 support down this path.

=====

The controller will always tell you which port failed. You could (carefully) identify that port by a controller diagram / markings on the board and trace it back to the drive. You could also maintain a consistent intuitive ordering of ports and drives.

======

Yes, keeping the OS off the array is a huge convenience for installation, configuration and maintenance and moving to different systems. You just have to find a spare drive / slot to do this. I'd suggest a small / old drive and maintain a separate backup of it. Alternatively you could use a big modern drive and get some additional use for its left-over space, e.g. a second-level backup of important stuff in a hidden partition.

======

I haven't done any hot-swapping or felt the need for it at home, so I can't answer that part.

 

[Dewey]

I have a machine with a 3ware RAID 5 card. What I don't like is that it keeps the drives spinning 24/7. I have replaced every drive in the array once due to failure. The Buffalo and Infrant NAS devices claim to spin down the drives which I would think will produce less heat, less noise and make the drives last longer. The most I need access to my mass storage is once a day so waiting for the drives to spin up doesn't seem limiting to me.

 

[Muse]

What is the point of RAID in a NAS? Is it for data redundancy in case of HD failure?

I really am interested in server solutions now since I got my laptop. Sharing the data on my desktop is a pain without centralized data. I'd like to minimize power consumption, however. I do have an extra system sitting around, ATX IDE PCI AGP 1.2 GHz (Truth in my sig).

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: Muse
What is the point of RAID in a NAS? Is it for data redundancy in case of HD failure?

I can think of a few reasons:

1. More space while appearing as a single drive. This can be done with "spanned" "RAID" configurations as well -- a bunch of simple drives with their capacity concatenated without the other benefits and risks of real RAID.

2. Better performance due to concurrent access of multiple drives for individual and multiple requests. This is pointless with many configurations. E.g. with 100 Mb/s networking, even a single drive can saturate the network. E.g. with a consumer NAS box, you'll be lucky to get 1/2 of a single drive's speed. But if you do heavy work locally or use a decent gigabit LAN with appropriate hardware and performance elsewhere, you can get a significant performance benefit from RAID.

3. Uptime preservation. Even when a drive goes dead, you can still access the data, keep on running albeit much more slowly until the drive is replaced and rebuilt. Needs hot-swap for the last mile.

4. Data preservation. This is generally a dumb idea, but we all think wishfully... The idea is that drive failure is the greatest risk, so with RAID you can have a failed drive and still preserve data. The problem here is that there are many other modes of failure beyond single drive failure (malware, software fault, hardware fault, human fault, etc.), and more importantly practically, inexpensive RAID systems on consumer environments are not very reliable themselves, and are prone to failure and disappearance. This is why almost every mention of redundant RAID hereabouts says "RAID alone is not a backup".

5. Trying something new and cool. Well, it's not really new, and not always cool, but it is kinda new to many people, and still pretty cool despite its potential flaws.

 

[Beatnik]

These aren't bad: http://www.infrant.com/products/products_details.php?name=ReadyNAS%20NVPlus

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: Beatnik

These aren't bad: http://www.infrant.com/products/products_details.php?name=ReadyNAS%20NVPlus

Fakegigabit write performance, and just above fakegigabit read performance according to this review:

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/29829/75/1/3/

(I only consider the 1 GiB file size results to be reliable.)

These are much slower than a what a well-designed but still inexpensive consumer DIY NAS/fileserver can do. (SNB's DIY NAS does not fit this description.)