Building NAS, need advices

[iposminus]

I'm building "starter" DIY NAS and I need some advices or directions. For now I'll have only three WD Green 2TB HDDs, probably more if need arises (and of course I'll have enough money ).

I was thinking about buying this motherboard and this controller.
I'm going to have RAID5 for redundancy. On this network I'll have one Windows 7 system, one Windows XP and very likely HTPC (probably running Windows 7).

Which software should I use? I'm leaning toward FreeNAS, but I don't have experience with none of them. If you need any other details, just ask.

Please advise.

Thank you in advance.

This was original message in Sticky Building High Performance NAS / HTPC, but 00Roush suggested to open a new thread and I did.

First thanks both, 00Roush and GregN for replies.

I asked seller how much postage costs for that motherboard to my country and it's almost same value as the motherboard. :S
But I've found this one (2 x dual XEON 2.8Ghz, X5DP8, 2GB ,SCSI 36GB hot swap, 2HU 19" with rails) near me and I'm trying to contact the seller, but no luck.

The controller is already ordered. For the HDDs I've decided to use Samsung F4. Is there a big difference between 7200rpm and 5400rpm?

PSU is going to be one of the Corsairs, don't know exactly yet, but SINGLE-RAIL is a must. When checking PSU if it's single-rail or not, does it say on manufacturers site or where/how do you check?

For the gigabit network I'll use HP ProCurve 1410-8G and a WRT54GL for wireless. I doesn't have N support, so HD streaming probably won't work, but for now I don't intend to stream HD over wireless.


And last, but not least important question...

If you are going hardware RAID I recommend FreeNAS.

I'm a little confused by this statement. Isn't FreeNAS software raid? Or am I missing something?


This is it for now, please point out anything that could be wrong with this setup, any suggestion or whatever, I'll be glad to read it, respond and ask.

 

[GregN]

Follow-up

FreeNAS is either. you don't have to configure software raid. Though some argue that it can be faster than hardware raid.

To set up hardware raid you would at bootup, then go into the 3ware bios and configure a unit ( a unit is a number of like disks, for raid 5 you need 3 or more disks )

This 3ware RAID 5 unit is then presented to the operating system as a single disk of (number of disks-1) * size of disk.

Or You can have the controller card present your disks as JBOD (just a bunch of disks ) and configure RAID using the operating system. The choice is yours. In this case your raid controller is really just a SATA HBA.

If you are going to use the RAID of the 3ware card, then FreeNAS is a good choice. If you are going to use software raid you get more flexibility from NexentaStor, their Raidz has fewer restrictions than software or hardware raid under FreeNAS or Openfiler. (IMHO)

There are quite a few ins & outs to this, and once you decide it is often difficult to change your mind - so you should definitely do your research before committing to a configuration.

Are you comfortable working at the unix command line? Are you going to be growing it or is it fixed in size? How big to you ultimately think you want your NAS to be? Media set-up or just network storage?

All of these questions should be answered before you commit.

What I was saying before:

Openfiler - compelling for iSCSI/FC
FreeNAS - Good for the strictures of Hardware NAS, good general sol'n
NexentaStor CE - flexible, best GUI of the bunch, limited to 18Gig

You can also look at WHS or other windows OS's using hardware raid.

 

[iposminus]

Thank you for your explanation.

I don't mind working in unix command line, I have some ground there. For now it's going to be fixed size, probably 4x2TB. Max size is probably something from 20TB-24TB (10x2TB, maybe even 12x2TB). Although HDD sizes are probably going to get higher further on, I don't think they're going to improve much.
I'm gonna use hardware RAID, because for what I've read it's just better.
If I make HW RAID array of 4 HDD now, I can't add them later, right?
Is it possible to make two or three arrays on same controller?

It's going to be used for main storage and media streaming. I'm going to get rid of all HDDs in my computer, except for WD Black 640GB. All music, movies etc. is going to be moved on the server. HTPC is probably gonna have only 40GB SSD in it, everything else will be streamed. Also I'm going to use it for P2P. I think it's stupid to download on my computer and than move all the files to server.


EDIT: So as I stated before motherboard at which I was looking first has to pricey shipping to my country and for the other one the seller is not answering the phone for three days. So, again I did some searching on our local "eBays" and found HP ProLiant DL360 G3:
2x Xeon 3,2 GHz (4 cores)
2 GB DDR RAM-a
2x 36 GB U320-SCSI 10000rpm (Raid 0 or 1)
CD-ROM
FDD
2x GB-LAN
USB

Please take a look and tell me if everything will be compatible. According to this everything should be fine, but I might have missed something.

Auction is on, but I'm thinking about contacting the seller if he's prepared to sell it right away for a reasonable price. Current price is 54EUR (~78$)
I'm going to disassemble this server and put it in Chieftec DX-01WD, it's going for 30EUR (~43$). Is it possible to plug this motherboard to a normal PSU? Are all connectors compatible?

 

[GregN]

Thank you for your explanation.

I don't mind working in unix command line, I have some ground there. For now it's going to be fixed size, probably 4x2TB. Max size is probably something from 20TB-24TB (10x2TB, maybe even 12x2TB). Although HDD sizes are probably going to get higher further on, I don't think they're going to improve much.
I'm gonna use hardware RAID, because for what I've read it's just better.
If I make HW RAID array of 4 HDD now, I can't add them later, right?
Is it possible to make two or three arrays on same controller?

It's going to be used for main storage and media streaming. I'm going to get rid of all HDDs in my computer, except for WD Black 640GB. All music, movies etc. is going to be moved on the server. HTPC is probably gonna have only 40GB SSD in it, everything else will be streamed. Also I'm going to use it for P2P. I think it's stupid to download on my computer and than move all the files to server.


EDIT: So as I stated before motherboard at which I was looking first has to pricey shipping to my country and for the other one the seller is not answering the phone for three days. So, again I did some searching on our local "eBays" and found HP ProLiant DL360 G3:
2x Xeon 3,2 GHz (4 cores)
2 GB DDR RAM-a
2x 36 GB U320-SCSI 10000rpm (Raid 0 or 1)
CD-ROM
FDD
2x GB-LAN
USB

Please take a look and tell me if everything will be compatible. According to this everything should be fine, but I might have missed something.

Auction is on, but I'm thinking about contacting the seller if he's prepared to sell it right away for a reasonable price. Current price is 54EUR (~78$)
I'm going to disassemble this server and put it in Chieftec DX-01WD, it's going for 30EUR (~43$). Is it possible to plug this motherboard to a normal PSU? Are all connectors compatible?

The ServerWorks chipset at one time was considered the best, so that is very cool.

I think you nailed the only issue I can see ( and sorry can't answer ), have to find someone else to answer, and that is the degree that the MB connections are propriety. HP/Compaq stuff was quite good, but PSU and case interfaces ( power on/reset/lights) were not guaranteed to be standard. They often wanted to force you through their parts and service channel.

The good news are that the parts tend to be plentiful, but switching to another case/psu may be an issue.

I'd recommend tracking down a service manual if you can.

On your other questions, you can run multiple units on the 3ware card, and also run units and run JBOD for un-unitized disks. Max Flexibility on that. You can expand, but that tends to be a little tricky, you can expand to a another unit, so it can be tough with the 12 port card to go from a 4 disk unit to 12 disk unit, going from 4 disk unit to 5 thru 8 disks is possible provided that have 5 thru 8 disks unassigned. There is no add a disk to an existing unit.

When I mentioned that nexentastor was flexible, this is what I meant, not all your disks have to be the same size, and you can add disks to a Raid-z array ( from what I understand).

 

[iposminus]

Ok, after all I've read I decided to try FreeNAS. Just one more question about it: do I need separate system HDD or can I have FreeNAS on USB?

Next: Hardware
I've been looking (again) at this motherboard and one thing still bothers me:

• Dual EIDE channels support up to four UDMA IDE devices
• Supports UDMA Mode 5, PIO Mode 4, and ATA/100

What is EIDE? Is it compatible with IDE HDDs? It's first time I've heard of EIDE, so please enlighten me as I can't find any good explanation on the web.


PSU
Is there anything else to be careful about when choosing PSU, except for single-rail? I've been looking at this one. Tell me if I overlooked something.

HDDs
Which to choose?
Pick one Pick two.

Or is it better to stick with 7200rpm HDDs?

 

[GregN]

EIDE is the same as PATA , and is generally compatible with any IDE drive.

Again you might want to find a PCI-X riser card (which will expand the number of PCI-X slots), but will require a case that offers lateral mounting of cards, common on 1/2U cases.

It is always better to go with as fast a drive that you can afford, but doesn't make a dramatic difference. Number of spindles (More 1TB drives to the same size) will offer better performance than 5400 vs 7200. Given the 3ware 12port card you might want to look at that.

There has been a backlash again the Seagate drives after there was some quality issues awhile back, Samsung is generally held in higher regard.

The supermicro MB will probably require three connections from a PSU (mine did) 4 pin, 8-pin and 20/24 pin, looking at the specs for the board you listed this might not be the case for you. The Corsairs have a great warranty.

Depending on your case you might need active heat sinks for the CPUs....

Hope that helps

 

[iposminus]

Why do you think I'll need more PCI-X slots? Because everything will be packed in a big tower case.

The case is very big and it came with two fans in front and two in the back, so I think the heat shouldn't be a problem. If need arises, I have some fans laying around so I'm gonna add them.

Nice to hear that EIDE is compatible with IDE. I have one 160GB disc with IDE connector which is going to server as system HDD.

From the PSU specs I think those motherboard connectors already come with it, so that shouldn't be a problem?
Also is this PSU gonna do it, as they don't have CX600 in stock?

 

[GregN]

You have a total of two slots, no PCIe or PCI. With a riser card you can expand that. You may want to a SATA card (for eSATA) or another 3Ware card ( or both ). No further expansion possible ( meaning no fc, or other hbas )

Take a look at the recommended chassis for the MB, both are 1U with lateral mounting.

500W may limit the number of drives you can push, but 4x2TB Green, you should be fine, remember to set the 3ware for staggered spin up, at start-up is when you'll be pulling the most power.

Have you considered more spindles for better performance?

 

[iposminus]

Is it possible to add riser card later and plug 3ware controller + whatever I'd add or does that mean that all the arrays that 3ware would be running at that time wouldn't work anymore?

Staggered spin-up is set in controllers BIOS?

I'm in a big dilemma about HDDs and which to choose. If I take the ones I posted in previous replay and take 4 of those, it costs ~300€. If I take four 7200rpm HDDs the cost is ~400€ (with WD Green only ~300€, but I must avoid those). I'm getting short on budget I can spend on server right now.

 

[GregN]

Is it possible to add riser card later and plug 3ware controller + whatever I'd add or does that mean that all the arrays that 3ware would be running at that time wouldn't work anymore?

Staggered spin-up is set in controllers BIOS?

I'm in a big dilemma about HDDs and which to choose. If I take the ones I posted in previous replay and take 4 of those, it costs ~300€. If I take four 7200rpm HDDs the cost is ~400€ (with WD Green only ~300€, but I must avoid those).

With the riser card the orientation of the slots change, from vertical to horizontal - meaning the previous case won't work anymore. Your 3ware card will be fine.

Again more spindles will offer better performance over 5400 vs 7200, but buy the best disks you can....



Yes in the bios there is a setting for staggered spin up.