SAN or NAS drive cases

[imported_darin]

Hi,

I have a lot of old Hd's sittting around and I would like to build my own NAS or SAN.

Looking for a external case that has Network,USB,or Firewire or All Three type's of connectors.

That I can put a bunch of old IDE,SCSi, or SATA drive in a case with it's own power to hold a bunch of HD's That is hot plug able. Like a network CDrom tower but for
HD's instead. So I can build a poor man's SAN or NAT.

Drives I have are like 4 gig,8 gig,9 gig,20 gig,40 gig ,60 gig etc. Want to make One big volme or storage area out of them all most have like 20 IDE drives. And like 9 scsi drive's 9gig,4 gig,18 gig etc.

anyone know of a units like this. At work we have HP/compaq storge works SAN 6TB. (150/ 250 GB hotplug drives) But that is to much $$$ for me and no rack space at home.


Want to build my own if I can find the parts. But Use IDE,SATA or SCSI or a mix if possable.


sorry I got the initals messed up NAS or SAN is what I want to build

NAS=Network Attached Storage or SAN =Storage Area Network

would like to have a TB(Terrabyte) or 2 of space for stuff.

Thanks,

Darin

 

[ShellGuy]

Take a look at this.




Will G.

 

[Steve]

NAT=Network Address Translation

NAS=Network Attached Storage

 

[ShellGuy]

I wager he ment NAS and SAN which is Network attached Storage and Storage Area Network.



Will G.

 

[imported_darin]

Yes that is what I ment sorry got letters mixed up NAS and SAN is what I want to build


NAS and SAN which is Network attached Storage and Storage Area Network.

 

[ShellGuy]

NAS is much cheaper than a SAN so i would go that way.


Will G.

 

[Madwand1]

I think this application deserves a new name / acronym. How about Franken-RAID (FRAID)?

Let's say you have one monster controller that can connect 8 of these drives, and let's say they are of the larger size -- 60 GB each. That's only 480 GB, a fair amount of power, and an unusual / presumably expensive controller, and a lot of fat cabling. And you have to do that 2-3x again, in the same box.

You also have to logically concatenate all that storage capacity, and handle drive failures. With that many that old drives, you must plan for drive failure and replacement, and have some reduncancy, ideally built into the system.

(However, the clicks and whine coming from all the different drives coud make for some interesting harmonics, and the execution of this idea, ignoring heat and power consumption, probably deserves some environmentalist award, or at least an artistic award.)

No offense intended; perhaps it's a limitation of my imagination, but I don't think this idea would work.

An easy way to get a TB of space these days is to get a MB / controller which supports at least 4 drives in RAID (SATA RAID is the most practical, RAID 5 would be advised, but RAID 0 could be used assuming some other backups). Connect 1 drive in PATA for the OS, and get cost-effective modern 250 GB - 300 GB drives for 1-1.2 TB storage.

SATA RAID controllers that handle up to 8 drives aren't hard to find -- these might be more advisable for more flexibility, quality of managment software, and RAID 5 support. Ideally, in a PCIe interface for performance and forwards compatibility.

There are boxes that you can get pre-built do do this. They may or may not be cheaper than what you can build yourself, but by building it yourself, you could build a better box (not overlooking gigabit networking for example.)

 

[sygyzy]

Originally posted by: Madwand1
There are boxes that you can get pre-built do do this. They may or may not be cheaper than what you can build yourself, but by building it yourself, you could build a better box (not overlooking gigabit networking for example.)

Such as?

I think you are making it seem a little more complicated that it is. I am not sure why it takes $600 to have a box that just holds HD's, runs linux, includes 64 megs of ram and a cheapo processor. That's exactly what the Infrant ReadyNAS boxes are and they are "best in class". I wish there was a better/cheaper solution.

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: sygyzy
Such as?

Read my quote above -- such as gigabit ethernet. There are some NAS boxes that neglected to provide gigabit ethernet. Not the ones you referred to, but others. My point was that if you built it yourself, you could consider all such factors for yourself and improve on them where you want.

Originally posted by: sygyzy
I think you are making it seem a little more complicated that it is. I am not sure why it takes $600 to have a box that just holds HD's, runs linux, includes 64 megs of ram and a cheapo processor. That's exactly what the Infrant ReadyNAS boxes are and they are "best in class". I wish there was a better/cheaper solution.

I by default granted the point that a mass vendor could probably beat your own price and provide the cheapest solution. Your perspective seems to be one of minimizing costs for basic features, which I default out of. My perspective is one of tuning features to your own wants/needs without sacrifice, for minimum cost, though probably higher than ready-made.

There's actually no reason why some random vendor can't solve this problem well, and come up with a NAS box that will be pretty much optimal and solve all the problems that you would solve yourself. However, in a detail-specific optimizing solution, you will have more control if you build it yourself, and can get whatever details you want tuned to your own needs / wants, and in general have a greater probability of complete feature satisfaction if you do it yourself.

You could be satisfied with "cheapo" boxes that give you whatever features the vendor deemed important, but more selective consumers will not. Some would insist on capability > 4 drives, which none of the ReadyNAS boxes I saw listed could provide. Some would insist on better performance figures. Some would insist on a larger cache without using notebook RAM. But I'm not out to slam ReadyNAS or any other vendors specifically, I think my point is logically fine, with the addendum that of course there is no logical reason why some random vendor can't provide the same solution, merely the greater chance that you could turn tables and more easily provide an enhancement that that vendor hasn't yet provided, generally at a greater cost.

So, turning those tables -- why couldn't a person build a box just like the ReadyNAS ones for example, and build them with standard DDR RAM instead of SODIMM (perhaps even RAM that's lying around, and get a decent sized cache; moreover with a MB and CPU that's lying around, eliminating that additional cost altogether)? What's wrong with such an approach in general?

To reconcile -- of course there is a big place for pre-built boxes. There is also a big place, esp. on these forums, for boxes you build yourself, whether just for the hobby, or more control of price/feature/performance tradeoffs that you don't get readily in pre-built boxes.

Edit: If the above poster had just intened to point out that ReadyNAS has good pre-built solutions, I have no argument with that.

 

[sygyzy]

I apologize, I have to admit that your essay style writing is a little too much for me. I'll address a few points as I see them.

1. I think what the OP is asking for is too much. You are right. To connect 8 HD's and run them, would take alot of power and an expensive controller card. Let's make things more realistic. 4. That's the amount you have in any off-the-shelf NAS today. 4 hard drives, no optical drives, very simply m/b and cpu and ram. Remember, it doesn't take much CPU power to serve files. The power supply only has to supply the m/b, cpu, and hard drives. Easily done.

2. You lost me at the end of your third paragraph. I truly don't know what you are saying.

3. Why wouldn't someone build a box like the ReadyNAS? Well, where would one get the case, for example? Forge it himself? OEM's have certain advantages over consumers. Since ReadyNAS really has no serious competition, they can charge alot. I don't fault them for that. I am just saying it's an untapped market. Shuttle for instance, could make a SFF box that holds 4 HD's. They could even take the space that the optical drive would normally sit in.

 

[Madwand1]

I think we can drop the argument and agree that both positions / approaches have their place. Sorry for the verbosity.

I'd like to know one detail about the ReadyNAS that perhaps you could provide? What are the drive surface temperatures? If you have a temperature probe or a usable thermometer, would you provide a run-time reading of the temperature on the surface of one drive, ideally between two drives with the case closed?

If you could provide that, it would also be good to know your ambient room temperature at the point of air intake into the NAS box for comparison.

If it's too much trouble; don't bother... With my tendancies I have to admit that I'd probably build my own box even if I could get one as good for less.

Still, thanks for the pointer to ReadyNAS; it helps to know which products are working well for other consumers, and what the professionals are putting into their boxes.