NAS (FreeNAS, unRAID,...?) or Media Server?

[javitxi]

Hi to all the members of the forum,

Firstly, let me introduce myself: I'm Javier from Madrid (Spain) so I would like to apologize in advance for any mispelled word and/or grammatical issues as English is my second language. Actually, I'm an undergraduate student coursing my 5th (and last) year telecommunications degree, specialized at electronics (hoping to finish it by reading my thesis this summer). So, I think that I've some base level about TI, electronics and some of PC knowledge. Anyhow, maybe some of my questions may sound very basic, so sorry it it will be the case. Well, let's introduce the topic (firstly, I want to describe my needs and then, go ahead answering the questions in the template of Blain's topic with a stiky at this sub-forum):

What I want to do?

I want to build/buy/whatever a product/solution in which I can storage my cd/dvd/other digital media rips and content. I would like it to be a centralized solution in which I can access to the content from any Pc/capable device via LAN/WAN.

What I have (hardwire wise) right now?

I have:

- an old 'gaming Pc' (e8500, Asus P5Q-E, 2x2GB GeIL DDR2 RAM, HD5770, 150Gb Velociraptor, Corsair VX450W),

- a 'HTPC-wannabe' (I'm trying to build in my free time a DIY MDF vynil-plate style case -long story if you are interested in) (e5300, Zotac 9300 Wifi, 500Gb Caviar Blue, 2x2GB DDR2 RAM),

- p4 775, 1GB DDR RAM, 80GB hdd, builded with spare-pars,

- a dock station (Startech USB 3.0, eSata + fan, buyed it for the fan -long story also if you are interested in) and several HDDs with my digital media content in them: 2TB WD20EARS, 2TB Seagate Barracuda Green (ST2000DL003), 1TB WD10EARS (yes I'm aware of 'the green dead' of this hdds -including Seagate's one, but not few years ago when I purchased them), WD500ABYS (Black RE3 24/7 use, as it was intented to be and was a 24/7 downloading/ripping at the htpc) in which I safely storage a back-up of my photos and documents. Also I have a secondary back-up at an 80GB/200GB SATA spare-parts used disks they gave me to extend their usefullness (HD Tune checked, etc).

What do I do right now?

Concerned about 'the green dead' and degradation by use on hdds, I've decided to only access to the content at the moment I would be using it by the dock. By this way, I extend the lifespan of the other hdds by not letting them being idle or hybernating and then, waking them up by the OS (Windows XP/7). My dock (another reason I've buyed it) has an USB 3.0 bridge controller which powers off the hdd at the dock if the hdd is not accessed in ~5min. This is a great feature for me: if I went sleep at nights viewing a film/listening to a playlist/etc (some nights I keep on working until very late and I like to really disconnect with music lying on the bed), the hdd will power off and then, afterwards the monitor (sleep mode, HP ZR2440w, grat monitor 🙂 ), and finally the computer will hibernate after 15 minutes. So yes, powering off the hdds which aren't used and only wake them when they are accessed in order to access the content by a video/music player in order to extend their lifespam is important to me.

What I was planning to do?

I was thinking about the posibility of buying or building a NAS, but I'm not sure if this solution will be the right one for me or it would be better to consider a Media Server or another different thing. Let's get down the NAS road:

- pre-built NAS: after reasearching and reading the manuals of several NASes, I've decided that maybe, the best one that will fit my needs will be the Synology DS413j. It has wake on lan/wan, very low/low noise (also important for me) and a low power consumption at (full) hibernation state (all hdds powered-off); which will be a 'set, power it up and forget' solution. Also, it can hold up to 4x4TB hdds. So, if I go down this route, I'll be placing at it my 2 2TB + 1TB + 500GB hdds in a RAID0. In the future when their lifespan expires (or my storage needs grow) I'll be replacing them with 3/4TB hdds (hoping the cost of th 4tb drive will drop to a sweet spot in which 3TB are right now more or less: 100-120€. Take into account that Pc parts in the USA are generally cheaper than in Europe). Otherwise, I've to buy another 2 2TB hdds to set some kind of redundancy (RAID 5, i.e). Let's discuss RAID configurations and issues later 🙂

- DIY NAS: going down this route, I was thinking about the possibility of reusing the p4 kinda build ('cos it works @3Ghz flawlessly although a 'little bit' old) and throwing in a RAID0 with my 4 SATA drives and 2 IDE (legacy) drives of 320GB and 160GB (back-up of my parent's photos & stuff) (yeah, a p4 775 motherboard with one IDE channel and four sata 🙂 ). By going this route, I've researched about Freenas -with UFS, ZFS, etc and throwing in a lot of RAM -16GB on a sandy/ivy/AM3/FM2 mobo- at version 8.3, nas4Free, unRAID). The thing I like the most about this route is taht with Freenas, it will 'automatically' import my ntfs data to 'the new pool of data' by setting the RAID0. As on the pre-built NAS, let's discuss this later 🙂

Template question's time

1) What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.

Kinda media-file-server. I wish I could save some decent money to buy my parents a new HD TV (actually on a 4:3 TV that works fine, so no need to be replaced) to lend the file-server to my parents pc (a mini itx on a budget I've built -long story too 😛) and TV (kinda repay for paying me university and supporting me through all these years, 'cos they are on their mid-late 50s and in someway, I'm the new-age techie guy around the house).

2) What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread

If I can reuse parts, it will be settled. Otherwise, I'm open to consider any kind of budget (maybe what I need is more expensive than I though, so I've to rethink about it or view the pros and cons of it).

3) What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.

Spain (ES), so the price is gonna be in €. I knew several retailers in Spain and in Europe, so I have some background 🙂

4) IF you're buying parts OUTSIDE the US, please post a link to the vendor you'll be buying from.

Like said on #3, don't worry 😉 but thanks in advance 🙂 (maybe you will know a retailer with good prices around Europe with hot deals that is not amazon.co.uk or caseking.de).

5) IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc.

No fanboy. What covers the need is suitable for me 🙂. Maybe fanboy 'of the product': if the product is good, I don't care about the manufacter of it. Every single trademark has failures and defective products. It is just time and experience which products not to buy and which are worthwhile to.

6) If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.

If it would be possible, as said, any hardware of the listed at the begining of the post.

7) IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.

Nope.

8) What resolution, not monitor size, will you be using?

N/A. Not really related to the subject.

9) WHEN do you plan to build it?

In my free time, so it is not an asap project. I could survive without it, but it would be great to have it.

10) Do you need to purchase any software to go with the system, such as Windows or Blu Ray playback software?

I've Win7 x32 and x64 license. I've dvd readers to rip music/dvds.

So, many thanks for your time by reading this 'little' story and also for your suggestions 🙂

Javier

 

[Mixolydian]

Synology RackStation RS212

best technology purchase i've ever made.

 

[smitbret]

You already own all of the hardware you'll need to do an unRAID or FlexRAID setup. UnRAID doesn't require much more than 1GB of RAM, any old CPU and a bunch of HDDs. FlexRAID requirements depend on which OS you are running. It'll run fine with 4GB in either 32 bit or 64 bit Windows 7. A good ZFS setup will want you to run the e8500 or the e5300 and you could run 8GB of memory on that Asus board. I don't think ZFS is for you, though.

#1 - You are mixing and matching drives of all different sizes. Since ZFS employs striping, all drives will look exactly the same. If you use your 2TB Seagate, 2TB WD and 1TB WD, you'll get a striped setup with 2TB of usable space because it will only use 1TB on each of the 2TB drived.

#2 - If you want drives spinning down when not in use, then unRAID or FlexRAID are much better for this since data is not striped in these setups and files are stored entirely on just on drive. With ZFS a single file will be written across all drives and so every tine you access the array, all drives will spin up.

#3 - ZFS will not allow you to import drives with data already on them. The array must be built with empty drives and the array size cannot be added to unless you break up the array (losing all data on it) and then rebuilding it. With FlexRAID you can import drives with data into the array and keep all data intact. UnRAID will let you add drives to the array and expand it any time without losing the array, but those drives must be emptied and pre cleared first.

I would go the FlexRAID route in your situation. Just take the e5300 or e8500 CPU on the Asus board with 2x2GB of memory and install Windows to the 160GB HDD that you already have. Then build the array like this:

Parity drive - 2TB WD20EARS
Data Drive 1 - 2TB Seagate
Data Drive 2 - 1TB WD10xxx
Data Drive 3 - 500GB WD Black

You'll have 3.5 TBs of space and fault tolerance of 1 drive. If you wanted to add the 320GB IDE HDDs as Data Drives, you'd have over 4TB of space. I don't think I'd use the Velociraptor in a media server because of heat and noise issues. For that same reason, I'd also look at investing in the cheapest video card with passive cooling that I could find and do something else with the video card you already have.

For the cost of a video card and the FlexRAID license, you're done.

 

[smitbret]

You could even use SnapRAID if you didn't want to pay for the FlexRAID license and have the same parity protection.

I wouldn't even consider RAID 0 for data storage of any kind. Thay is insanity. You don't need the speed and the risk of data loss is too great.

 

[dartworth]

I picked up a Synology DS212j a few months ago. All my headaches have gone away 🙂

 

[javitxi]

Thanks Mixolydian and smitbret for your quick inputs 🙂

If you don't mind, let's discuss firstly the Synology RackStation RS212. If it will be a perfect match, it will have 4 hdd bays and won't be a rack mount system. Although they say it is silent, I've done some maintenance close and into a server room filled with (very noisy) sun systems. Well, you will say that there are 40mm fans that are silent (like Scythe ones), but I've some background at fans and they are not very optimal if you plan to move mid to a lot of air at low rpms (there are two mainly points of the fan which produce noise: the bearing and motor with the rpms and the air coming through fins/shrouds/whatever).

At this point you could suggest me to mod it and transplant it into a 'normal' Pc case; but this 'normal' Pc case has to support maybe an E-ATX motherboard. So, it will be more suitable 2x DS212j/normal/+ or just the ds411/413/412 j/normal/+ version. Anyhow, Synology will wipe out my existing content of the hdds, so I won't be happy at all with this route.

So, because I don't have the space to put a rackable pc or a buy/make a rackable-thing into a closet, let's focus on the DIY solution this time. If you don't mind smitbret, I would like to discuss firstly what I've said that I will expand on my first post. If you don't mind, it will be helpfull to create a 'how to' with a sticky with the conclusions of this thread / other threads (sorry, fan-reader of the website for several years but not so much lurker of the forum), if they are helpfull for any user.

Software available to create a DIY NAS

Freenas: free. Evolution of version 7
nas4Free: free. Evolution of version 7 of Freenas but it went in another direction.
Unraid: free up to 3 hdds.
Flexraid: free (trial) up to 14 days of use. From $30 to $60
Amahi: *free? (I haven't registered so no idea). Maybe I could assume Amahi is free because it is based on Linux (and the 'free' spirit of it).

(*at today 01 april 2013, I've already installed Ubuntu 12.04 LTS in a 80GB spare hdd and installed Amahi. Up to now it's free. I'm now at step #3 to try to retrieve as much knowledge as possible going this route and then compare; because the FlexRAID route was suggested with a detailed plan step by step.)

(Im' open to more suggestions 🙂 )


Pros/cons/what I want of the 'collection'/RAID/whatever of the media-system

1) I would like that my current existing data to be recognized by the system (whichever system would be) to avoid transplanting my info into another hdd drives /buy new drives to transplant the info to.

Freenas (8.3 version): FreeNAS® supports the import of disks that have been formatted with UFS, NTFS, MSDOS, or EXT2. Wiki about volumes. FreeNAS for noobs. I provide these links because they were from what I started to read.
nas4free (9.1 version): FAT, NTFS and EXT2/3 can be used to transfer bulk data to a UFS formatted drive ONLY. Link of the info. Nas4free user guide.
unRaid: as said by smitbret, you have to clean the disks firstly.
Flexraid: Support the addition of devices that contain existing data. Wikipedia link.
Amahi: kinda yes?. FAQ link.

2) I would like to have my files in a pool/cloud/whatever to be accesible. X user will access to only X content, Y user to Y content, etc.

I think all the options have this feature (user/group management). For example, group family and group guests. Guests and family will get access to videos and music content, but only family members will get access to their own photos. For example, User1 of family will be granted with access only to photos of X directory (let's call it photos of User1). User2 and User3 will be granted access to the Y directory (let's call it photos of User2&3) but User2 will have a folder of private content (personal back-ups, i.e) and User 3 will have another separate private content folder (reciepes, personal emails, etc).

3) I would like some kind of redundancy, but also, if a sector fails (but the Smart parameters are in warning -yellow- and not in fail -red), I don't want to substitute the entire hard disk. It could happen that maybe 2 hdds have a bad sector at the same time, so, in someway I would like that if I set up my 'collection' of hdds, I can recover the info that is in a failed sector hdd and maintain the other info in the other disks.

For example, in hdd1 of 2TB I have films, in hdd2 of 2TB I have music, in hdd3 of 1TB I have photos and in hdd4 of 500GB I have back-ups of some Pcs or just a copy of all the photos. So, as requirement 2), I would like that all the content will be accessible to the proper user /group. Also, I would like that in the case of, for example, hdd1 gets old and has a faulty sector to be remapped, I say 'it's ok' but do not affect to the data stored in the other HDDs /have to rebuild the array. So, we could sum this point up to: 'If a hdd happens to fail / have a faulty sector, I would like that the data stored in the other hdds to be the same (not to lost it) and I would like to recover the info on the 'faulty hdd' by X method to transplant that info into a new hdd and then, put it into the actual 'collection of data'.

Early conclusion/answer: stripping is no usable/suitable for me. So, as pointed out by smitbret on #1 and #2, Freenas and nas4free are not for me. Why? because they strip archives into the disks, so:
- I won't be able to spin down disks /power them off to extend their lifespan
- I won't be able to recover from a faulty disk by transplanting the disk into another Pc and copying the info into a fresh disk. If I have my data stripped around the array of disks, I have it 'taken hostage' by the array, which I don't like personally. If I have disk and it fails / has a faulty sector, I lost the info related of the faulty sectors, NOT the entire info on the hdd (and hdds will fail, the question is when => effort to extend their lifespan!).

So, that reduces the list into these candidates: Unraid, Flexraid, Amahi. At this point, as suggested by smitbret, let's consider the suggestion of SnapRAID. Also let's read this topic on AVS about Flexraid alternatives.

Therefore, the alternatives lead to build a NAS + something, which is the definition of a Media Sever: a 'thing' which acts as a NAS and more (another apps). Well, as far as I have researched, actually, the NAS scene offers you not only access to content but more apps (like Synology)... so in my humble opinion, all the users that have a digital media collection will tend to look for a 'media server' which will be a pre-built (with or without the hdds on) NAS or a DIY 'NAS+' (media server).

Up to this point discussed, I will want to thank you smitbret again for his/her input. I'll sutdy further the alternatives, topics as what is exactly storage pooling / data protection (I need to expand and mature my knowledge about it) and what you recommend smitbret.

So, thanks for reading and thanks in advance for any helpfull input! 🙂

Javier

 

[smitbret]

UnRAID has some really good controls for controlling share access. It doesn't have true pooling, pooling.

I have a Samsung HDD that is running in my FlexRAID that has some bad sectors that are reported by SMART. No issues at all.

If you want parity + storage pooling and want an alternative to FlexRAID try:

SnapRAID - for parity
Stablebit Drive Pool - storage pooling

Drive Pool is US $19.99, SnapRAID is free and I've heard really good things about that combo. I have installed SnapRAID and installed the GUI for it called Elucidate. Not quite as simple as FlexRAID, but easy enough. I just liked the "feel" of FlexRAID better.

Another reason I chose FlexRAID is because it operates from Windows, I can use the PC for other things, too. Since serving up media is not much of a load for a CPU, I use the available CPU cycles for other tasks. I do all my torrenting with it. I also re encode my BR and DVD rips with it. Any file sharing controls would be taken care of through the OS (Windows, Linux, etc.).

 

[mfenn]

I think that you have a few fundamental misconceptions about storage that I'd like to clear up.

Early conclusion/answer: stripping is no usable/suitable for me. So, as pointed out by smitbret on #1 and #2, Freenas and nas4free are not for me. Why? because they strip archives into the disks, so:

FreeNAS and derivatives support a full range of RAID levels, not just striping (RAID0). They can do block-based RAID1 (mirroring), RAID5 (parity) or the ZFS object based equivalents of these.

- I won't be able to spin down disks /power them off to extend their lifespan

Spinning down disks does NOT increase their lifespan unless the data is very infrequently used (once or twice a month). The wear and tear incurred by spinning up and spinning down absolutely kills drives. Drives that are spinning constantly will last longer than drives that are spun up and down several times daily.

- I won't be able to recover from a faulty disk by transplanting the disk into another Pc and copying the info into a fresh disk. If I have my data stripped around the array of disks, I have it 'taken hostage' by the array, which I don't like personally.

Any kind of block parity based RAID scheme is going to have the same problem.

If I have disk and it fails / has a faulty sector, I lost the info related of the faulty sectors, NOT the entire info on the hdd (and hdds will fail, the question is when => effort to extend their lifespan!).

All competent RAID schemes help you with this.

 

[smitbret]

Quote:
Originally Posted by javitxi (Post 34820348)
- I won't be able to recover from a faulty disk by transplanting the disk into another Pc and copying the info into a fresh disk. If I have my data stripped around the array of disks, I have it 'taken hostage' by the array, which I don't like personally.
Any kind of parity based RAID scheme is going to have the same problem.

******
Actually, FlexRAID, SnapRAID and unRAID all allow you to pull individual drives from the array and access the files on the drives independent of the array or original PC.

 

[mfenn]

Quote:
Actually, FlexRAID, SnapRAID and unRAID all allow you to pull individual drives from the array and access the files on the drives independent of the array or original PC.

Yes, because they are not based on block parity but instead do ECC at the object (file) level. The downside of doing error correction that way is that it is incredibly inefficient for large files.

 

[smitbret]

Yes, because they are not based on block parity but instead do ECC at the object (file) level. The downside of doing error correction that way is that it is incredibly inefficient for large files.

I don't understand why this prohibits you from accessing the HDD from outside of the array on non-striped RAID.

 

[mfenn]

I don't understand why this prohibits you from accessing the HDD from outside of the array on non-striped RAID.

I didn't say that you couldn't. I'm saying that file-based ECC is inefficient.