Another N00b NAS box build

[taladas]

Hi all,

My IcyBox IB-NAS4220-B failed recently (data is safe but drives are gone--being replaced under warranty) and I don't want to use it anymore. After doing a lot of research, I decided that building my own NAS box is the way to go. This is for a home server used to store all my media (movies, music, tv shows, etc.) which I stream around the house to various devices; I am also going to use it as a downloader box. I am very comfortable building PCs but I never built anything this "small".

I decided to go with the following hardware:

- Asus AT5NM10T-I m0b0/CPU combo (Intel Atom D525, 4 x SATA2 ports, etc.)
- 4GB of RAM
- 380W PSU (which I know is about as overkill as I can get for this build, but I NEVER skimp on my PSUs and this is the smallest 80PLUS-certified I could find from a reputable manufacturer--Thermaltake)
- the hard drives are irrelevant for my questions, so I won't mention them

Now, I'm a bit of a cooling freak, so the first question I have concerns cooling the CPU: considering that the box is going to be up 24/7, is the passive cooler enough?

I was thinking of putting all this into either an Antec Mini P180 or an Antec P183 case, leaning towards the Mini. The problem with this case though is that it doesn't feature active cooling on the HDDs--a front (intake) fan can't be mounted except if the hard drive cage is removed. (Does anyone know if it's possible to jig that up somehow though?) How big of a problem will this be?

I looked and looked, but could not find another case that would suit me.. and I'm afraid to get the Mini P180 because I don't want my drives to burn up like the ones in the IcyBox did.. Does anyone have any suggestions here? I don't need hot-swapping capabilities or anything else.


Thanks a lot,

Dany

 

[GregN]

Welcome.

The Asus board is fine, I personally prefer the Supermicro D525 board (Intel Dual NIC), but one of the builders here recently posted a compelling argument for a Sandy Bridge board, with a low power i3 or Celeron. The all in one Atom boards are not upgradable, whereas it would be nice to be able to grow the machine.

Have you considered a 100W wall wart style PSU, it is what I use for my D525 router build, easy to replace, and not a threat to components. They are often packaged with the mini-itx cases.

How many drives are you thinking of supporting? Software or Hardware Raid? (to address the cooling and case issue....)

 

[loyukfai]

Couples of points...

- Don't consider Thermaltake a reputable (PSU) manufacturer myself. It seems to be more of a marketing company than R&D. You know there are local companies here in Hong Kong and China which register a shell company in Japan, pay some $$$ to hire some people to do the branding and packaging, and then pretend to be a reputable Japanese brand. Now, Thermaltake maybe better than that, and some of its products seem to be indeed of good quality, but make sure you research about the particular model you're looking at in advance. (and don't put too much emphasis on 80PLUS, see HardOCP's editorial about it).

- Where are you going to put your OS of choice...? The mobo you mentioned has 4 SATA ports and you may or may not need them all for your data. Personally I think it's a better idea to put the OS on another drive, a flash or spindling media on SATA/PATA/USB/whatever boots. If you can't spare any SATA port then you'll have to make use of PATA (doesn't exist on this board), an additional SATA controller on the PCIe slot (no more expansion via PCIe) or USB (stick or DOM). If you use a USB stick, keep in mind that they're generally not designed for usage like this, and log writing can wear them down quickly if not properly controlled. There are industrial DOM (Disk-On-Module) which uses SLC instead of MLC and has a much higher write endurance, but they're costly. The SuperMicro board, if Greg is talking about this, has 6 SATA ports (and dual Intel NIC, which is nice).

- Regarding your chassis, suggest you to head over SPRC's forums and ask. If it's going to the bomb shelter (somewhere rarely see daylight) I would suggest picking up a cheap used case, and cooling of the Atom CPU is probably not going to be your main concern, but the spindling drives (the chassis you mentioned has many bays and I suppose you're going to make use of them). These components are designed to run in a certain temperature range and while there's a certain correlation between heat and life, the difference may not be as significant as you've thought. Google has a study about HDD failure and the conclusion is quite interesting. Of course it also depends on the weather of the place you live. I leave mine in a carton box but it's still winter here.

- If all these are too much to handle, a Synology or QNAP box may not be a bad choice afterall - You pay for a little more but have most of the troubles handled by someone else.

Cheers.

 

[taladas]

Thank you, answers and more questions (of course

Hi guys,

Thanks for writing back! I guess I was a bit tired last night, and missed to mention a few important things. So to answer your questions, in order:

- I need to use four hard drives for now, two 1TB in RAID1 and two (500GB and 1TB) by themselves; RAID will be software, so in case the box goes belly-up completely (like my IcyBox did), I have an easier time recovering the files). This is essentially replicating the setup I had with the IcyBox, where the two "standalone" drives were connected via USB (they are SATA2 drives sitting in USB enclosures). I don't know how much sense all this makes (I am still thinking about it) but I can't afford more drive space for the time being -- damn floods! -- and I need the 3.5TB capacity. (Currently, the 1TB of data --from the two dead drives is stored on a friend's drive.) In the future, I will likely add more drives, via a PCIe SATA controller.

- I'm really not worried about the Thermaltake PSU that I chose: if it ends up being a waste for this system -- I'll measure power draw once the system is up and running, etc. -- I'm going to build me a new HTPC soon anyway, and I can probably use it there.

- I was planning to install the OS on a USB stick, since for now I don't have space for another hard drive. I hadn't thought of the wear-and-tear issues mentioned, but I'm hoping the stick I chose (and already purchased) will hold up at least for some time: it is an OCZ Rally2, which is one of the better-rated units out there. I am also planning on buying a second stick of the same capacity & specs (but maybe different manufacturer), to which I will back up the first stick -- for obvious reasons.

- The box is actually going to be sitting in my living room, so as I said noise is a concern, but cooling is a bigger concern. I'll check out the forums you suggested, but based on what I wrote above, I think you're going to tell me that it would be best to go with the P183V3 case, for active cooling on the drives. (Incidentally, what is the preferred active cooling method for drives in such configuration, intake or exhaust?)

Finally, I am a bit undecided about the OS.. so far I've considered Windows Home Server 2011, plain old Windows 7 Pro and FreeNAS. I think Home Server is out because of the way it handles hard drives. 7 is a logical choice because all my other computers are Windows-based, so if something goes wrong with the NAS box, I can just pull the drives, stick them into USB enclosures, and connect them to my workstation, laptop, whatever. I don't know all that much about FreeNAS, but (again after what happened with my IcyBox) I am a little hesitant to use it because the filesystem it uses (what is it anyway, EXT2/3/4?) may not be so easy to access under Windows; again though, I say all this after having read very little about it.. maybe someone here will provide some compelling arguments AGAINST using Windows, and then I'll look into FreeNAS some more.

Oh, one very last thing... I'm also planning to use the box as a download station for torrents from time to time. (I don't download a lot though... maybe 5-10 torrents a month.)


Thank you SO MUCH again for reading all this and for your replies guys!

Dany

 

[Hydaral]

If you really want to keep the heat generation to a minimum, consider a PicoPSU: http://www.mini-box.com/s.nl/sc.8/category.13/.f This moves the voltage conversion electronics outside the case, and the PSU itself is tiny and very efficient. They make them up to 160 Watt.

I bought an 80 Watter, I haven't got round to installing it yet though.

 

[stevech]

Finally, I am a bit undecided about the OS.. so far I've considered Windows Home Server 2011, plain old Windows 7 Pro and FreeNAS.
Dany

If you really choose to DIY (costs more, I say), consider too unRAID. Somewhat easier to use than FreeNAS, IMO.

 

[taladas]

Thanks Hydaral! Unforunately, I already purchased my PSU, so I'll stick with it for now.

Did a bit more research, and I'm still looking for reasons NOT to simply use Win 7 Pro for the OS.

Also, I think I found a dream case for the box: the Fractal Design Arc Mini. Great reviews, price similar to the Antec 180P Mini, active cooling for the drive bays.. This may just be what I end up with. Any other thoughts on this, given my intended use?


D.

 

[taladas]

If you really choose to DIY (costs more, I say), consider too unRAID. Somewhat easier to use than FreeNAS, IMO.

So just use each drive standalone, and reserve one for manual/scheduled backups? Hmm... you may be onto something here, Steve! I COULD, technically, keep a USB drive connected, but not powered up, at all times, and then just remember to turn it on for a scheduled backup, then off once that's done.

This would also free up a SATA port for an OS drive, so I don't have to worry about USB sticks dying. (Incidentally, is there a way to turn off all Windows logging functionality, so I don't run into such problems if I DO end up using a USB stick for the OS?)

Thanks!

D.


P.S. Regarding FreeNAS though, it won't FORCE me to RAID if I don't want to, right?

 

[GregN]

P.S. Regarding FreeNAS though, it won't FORCE me to RAID if I don't want to, right?

No it will not, without RAID it is just a bunch of disks (JBOD).

I disagree with Stevech assessment, you can and given your list of parts, probably will, save money over a consumer NAS.

 

[loyukfai]

- Don't think you'll get much useful comments about chassis choice here. We have a lot of opinions on the OS and other technicalities about NAS, but chassis choice doesn't seem to be one of them. : ) Again, try the SPRC forums. (if anybody knows a better place, please chime in.)

- Which part of the earth are you living in...? High temperature all year round...? You may really not have to worry about cooling too much. The Atoms and Brazos are not some Netburst-based Pentiums or Opterons sets drawing 100W at idle and 200W at load. Just setup the rig, monitor the temperature for a week or so, and if it goes higher than your liking, then start thinking about adding fans, fan ducts, moving parts around, etc... Keep in mind that more fans <> cooler environment, and AFAIK there's no universal rule about sucking in or out. You may find that the single fan on the PSU is sufficient after all.

FWIW, I've seen poorly maintained systems running after many years, and new parts failing after a few days or weeks. But this is all anecdotal experience so take it with a grain of salt. The Google HDD study is, AFAIK, the first large-scale study about HDD failures, and the conclusion... Just google it yourself...

- Considering about recovering from OS failure is good forward thinking. Granted NTFS is easier to handle if all your other boxes are running Windows. But it doesn't seem that recovering from EXT2/3/4 and Linux software RAID is very difficult either - Just make use of a LiveCD. No idea about ZFS and UFS though (used by FreeBSD/NAS). If your OS drive failed or the OS install somehow goes south, you gotta spend some time setting up your box anyway. But if you're in a hurry I would say yes, NTFS will save you the time from downloading and booting a LiveCD, that's, if it's your OS install go wrong instead of the data drives.

Cheers.

 

[taladas]

Thanks again everyone!

Well, I settled on the Fractal Design Define Mini case, which seems to be quite...well, perfect for what I need.

@loyukfai: I live in Toronto, Canada, where the weather could be anything, really. You are right wrt just building the thing and monitoring it for a week or two, then deciding if I need more cooling.

For the OS, I'm thinking more and more that Windows makes the most sense. However, it may be harder than I thought to actually install 7 on a USB stick, so I may drop back to XP Pro 64bit.

Regardless though, if I do go with Windows, I AM worried about wear and tear on the USB stick, so I am wondering how easy it is to disable all logging here... there doesn't seem to be much info online--maybe it's not possible? Also, is there anything else in Windows that requires constant access to the OS drive?


Your continued input and advice is much appreciated,

Dany

 

[loyukfai]

Found some information about installing Windows 7 onto a USB disk, see if they help...

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/136401-how-to-install-windows-7-on-external-usb-hard-disk/
http://reboot.pro/6851/
http://reboot.pro/10126/
http://reboot.pro/12737/page__view__findpost__p__111286

Regarding the wearing of the flash, some people mentioned about turning off the pagefile, or move it to a spinning disk. Besides, I read that when a USB disk is dying of wearing, it will begin to write much slower, and then finally stop accepting any write. So the data on the disk can still be recovered (easily).

Cheers.