Advice needed: Building NAS for 80-100 military soldiers

[jmhall]

Hi, I'm in need of some solid advice regarding the equipment used for a large network I'm building.

I'm on a small firebase in eastern Afghanistan and want to build a server to host movies/music/games etc., for around 80-100 of my fellow soldiers here.

I'm already planning to use the Buffalo Technology AirStation High Power N300 Router & AP WZR-HP-G300NH for the wireless connectivity, and the Rosewill RC-416 for the wired connectivity. Both are gigabit.

For the NAS itself, I prefer Synology which I'm already using back home (The DS209). I'm already very familiar with the interface and capabilities. As such, I'm considering going with the Synology DS411+II (diskless).

Everything I've read so far has convinced me that going with 7200rpm drives is going to be pointless, because it is the NAS, and not the disks, that almost always become the bottleneck. So I'm looking at buying low-heat, energy-efficient "green" drives, rather than typical 7200rpm drives.

I'm considering using Seagate's Green Barracudas, 2TB (ST2000DL003). 64MB Cache, SATA III, and 5900rpm (not a typo, they are unique in their RPM). I've also checked Synology's compatibility list, and this drive is compatible with the DS411+II.

For the most part, the system will simply be hosting files. So, while I do care about the Write performance, I'm primarily concerned with Read performance. I think having those 4 Barracuda's running in RAID 5 (6TB usable space) will give me the best performance I can get, without building an actual server computer - something I have zero interest in doing here. I also don't have a lot of spare time on my hands here, so a pre-built NAS is probably my best bet.

Educated, informed opinions? Please let me know where you disagree or if you have any good suggestions. While I am going to split the costs among all of the soldiers, I am still somewhat concerned about cost. I don't really want to go over $1000 total - to include the drives.

As it stands:
Synology DiskStation DS411+II = $650
Seagate ST2000DL003 x 5 (1 spare) = $400
Total: $1,050

 

[thiggins]

Hi jm,

I think you're doing the right thing going with a NAS vs. building your own. Staying with the manufacturers recommended drive list is the right way to go, too.

What little testing I've done says using high performance drives isn't going to make much difference in NAS performance. Network filesystem protocol overhead is more of a limitation.

I don't think any NAS is going to support 80-100 simultaneous HD streams. My tests show the DS411+ will support 80 - 90 MB/s for streaming, so keep that in mind to set realistic expectations.

Be sure you put the NAS on a UPS.

Is that 8 port switch going to serve all your needs?

I have routers coming out of my ears here. If there's an APO I can ship to, I could provide the router and probably a switch as a small token of appreciation for the job you guys are doing over there. PM me and we'll work something out.

 

[stevech]

Suggest too that you plan for how to backup the NAS contents. A drive failure (RAID helps with that) is one thing, but also there's a possibility of administrator-oops, file system corruption, NAS controller failure, etc. An external eSATA drive is the usual way, but its storage capacity may be too small. If so, then a pair of smaller-capacity NASes, with one backing up the other is suggested.

 

[jmhall]

Hi jm,
I don't think any NAS is going to support 80-100 simultaneous HD streams. My tests show the DS411+ will support 80 - 90 MB/s for streaming, so keep that in mind to set realistic expectations.

Being that 1/3 of our soldiers are usually out on a mission, and 1/3 are performing duties around the base, I don't think that should be too much of a problem. Plus, I'm going to encourage them to simply copy the files they want, as opposed to streaming. If possible, I will disable streaming. I'm not sure if that's doable, but I'd like to be able to.

Is that 8 port switch going to serve all your needs?

I'm actually planning to order 17 of them, daisy-chained in 4 different directions, like an X, across our barracks.

Thanks!

 

[jmhall]

Suggest too that you plan for how to backup the NAS contents. A drive failure (RAID helps with that) is one thing, but also there's a possibility of administrator-oops, file system corruption, NAS controller failure, etc. An external eSATA drive is the usual way, but its storage capacity may be too small. If so, then a pair of smaller-capacity NASes, with one backing up the other is suggested.

Originally, I honestly didn't have a plan for backing up the NAS itself. However, another SNB user has decided to donate his old Thecus N5200 to us. It is capable of holding 5x 1TB drives. Though not capable of backing up the entire full contents of the Synology (6TB), it should at least be able to backup the majority of it, using either JBOD or RAID 0.

I will also be ordering additional drives to have on hand for immediate replacement, should a drive fail. It takes upwards of 4-5 weeks for mail to arrive here from the States.

I will also have each of them running through a strong UPS.

Thanks!

 

[GregN]

Just don't enable the DLNA server to "turn off" streaming.

With that large number of users, you might consider putting in a single managed switch up front and aggregating the gigabit interfaces to the NASes.

A used Dell PowerConnect can be had cheap on EBay ( <$100), and you can use both the QOS and Bandwidth limiting capabilities to spread out access more evenly to your Cat5 backbones.

 

[thiggins]

Just don't enable the DLNA server to "turn off" streaming.

That will only disable service advertisement to DLNA-only clients.

I don't think there is any way to prevent someone from browsing to a share with say, VLC, and just playing the content.

 

[jmhall]

That will only disable service advertisement to DLNA-only clients.

I don't think there is any way to prevent someone from browsing to a share with say, VLC, and just playing the content.

That's ok. Disabling the DLNA will at least take care of part of the problem. I could probably just enforce a session time-limit, say... 30 minutes. That should be enough time for people to copy whatever movies and such that they want. Even at 100mbit (which most of their laptops will have), 30 min should be enough. I'll let them know about the time limit.

I'm not really worried about them complaining. Ha. They're getting this all for next to nothing. And I'm ordering, installing, and managing their internet too.

Thank you for the advice, both of you.

 

[GregN]

That will only disable service advertisement to DLNA-only clients.

I don't think there is any way to prevent someone from browsing to a share with say, VLC, and just playing the content.

My understanding is DLNA also provides media transport, the media doesn't have to be on a shared disk for you to access the photos music and movies, the DLNA server provides access via HTTP/RTP.

I guess my definition of streaming is more narrow, the client reading the file isn't what I think of as streaming.

But you are right, there is nothing to stop file playing via the network, other than not sharing that file.

You can, as I suggest, set up bandwidth limits using a managed switch, QOS could throttle access via DLNA.

 

[GregN]

You might want to take a look at Nodezilla, which appears to do peer-to-peer/Grid video on demand, it works with VLC and is open source.

There is a java client that lists available streams ( titles ), which you then can select and play via VLC. The cool thing is that it appears to share with other machines on the network that are viewing the same stream, meaning your NAS would not source all video. It also handles caching, making it more network bandwidth friendly.

The downside is that it does not appear to be turn-key, requiring some work to get it up and running, and obviously if no one else has viewed the stream it would be completely sourced by the NAS ( though cached ). So if that one guy loves Jerry Lewis movies.....

By using a local P2P VOD system you wouldn't share the actual files, and there wouldn't be a single source for a movie someone wanted to watch.

Sounds cool, just don't know how much work it is....and it might be a hassle for end users.

 

[teknojnky]

I don't think you should worry about 'streaming' from the nas unless it actually becomes an issue.

In reality the likely worst that happens if/when too many people are 'streaming' is that they will simply start buffering when the aggragate usage exceeds the capabilities of the nas.

Setting session time limits also seems arbitrary and unneeded, especially if your fellow soldiers are 'buying' into the network, they should be able to access it at any time and for any amount of time they able to.

but that's just me.

internet access/streaming from the internet, well that may be a different story, especially if your going to be paying for ongoing access.

in that case you may want to look into specialty/business routers which will let you manage the ingoing/outgoing wan usage on per client/mac address basis.

 

[GregN]

Have you considered running a private bittorrent tracker contained , limited to the NAS subnet?

On the NAS create a shared directory, containing torrents for each title, you could even organize them by type and genre. The media files would not be shared except through torrents.

Each torrent would be seeded at least once, from the NAS.

To get a media file to watch or listen to, the user would grab the torrent from the shared directory, and download the title to watch locally using a torrent client.

There is nothing inherently illicit about bittorrent sharing, and the technology would be ideal for this situation, if a title is popular it would be on multiple machines, and no one user could monopolize the media file.

User education would be the biggest issue, and probably the least politically correct part of this scheme.