Help with a NAS build.....can i use for small render farm?

[auze1]

Hey community. I have been reading a bit on the subject of building a NAS but its all new to me so I thought I would run by the current plan and questions i have.

current hardware list for a build (all flexible):

SUPERMICRO MBD-X7SPA-H-O Mini ITX Intel Atom D510 processor Server Motherboard - $195
CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Laptop Memory Model- $91
APEX AL-8250SFX 250W SFX12V Ver.3.1 Power Supply - $18.99
Rosewill R101-P-BK 120mm Fan MicroATX Mid Tower Computer Case - $30
ICY DOCK MB454SPF-B Mulit-Bay Backplane Module - $112

new egg total - $447.08

So heres what I need it for:
1)I have a 8-core mac and a 4-core i7 hackintosh. I do maya and after effects rendering. I would like this to act as a server so i could have a mini render farm. i was thinking of setting up a fast 1-2tb raid that would serve as the place for current project files to go. If it available works well i could add a few more 4-core machines to the farm in the future.

2)back up of project files. I have 2.5 TB of project files now. and I am trying g to get in the habit of taking all the jobs i work on off site home with me at the end. these files can get pretty big...

3)set up an FTP so i can have files when i am offsite.

4) media server consolidate all my movies/itunes library/and photo video stuff. i just got a DSRL camera that does awesome hd video (rebel t2i) so there could be a lot of video files to back up. currently the 4-core hackintosh works as a HTPC and a render node (although having no central file system has ment render jobs on this are a pain in the butt)

Thoughts/questions:

1)I originally looked at something like the qnap 459-pro or 859-pro. but they are kinda pricey and i like building stuff anyways (the hackintosh was fun. but maybe this is what i need and a lot simpler.....

2) OS. I was thinking original about freeNas and was pretty sure i was gonna go this route. however after reading about ZFS and submesa's thoughts on this and started thinking maybe freeBSD is the way to go. I haven't used either. However maybe FreeNAS would be ok for me without ZFS...not sure about the benefits of each although i am sure freeNAs would be a lot simpler to set-up. one reason i started looking into ZFS was speed......

3)speed....I would like to get this thing working as fast as the gig network can handle. anyone have experience using a NAS for serving files to a small render farm? am i dreaming here? will a NAS be quick enough? my guess from what i have read is yes, but i have no experience with this at all.

4)power consumption. Obviously a big deal with the power bill. That was the reason for the d510. however from what submesa has said in the past i was thinking maybe a i3....more speed and with a good PS probably not bad on power consumption....anyone use the SUPERMICRO MBD-X7SPA-H-O board in a NAS?

5) not sure what i am talking about here but........the supermicro board has dual NIC's. a friend at work mentioned something about the server at work using two ethernet ports, one for upstream and one for down stream. is this possible to set up..is there a speed benefit?

6)drives and raid. I was planning on getting a bunch of 2TB drives, maybe 4 to start with...I was thinking some kinda raid with 2 of the drives configured with some kinda speedy raid setup. is a ZFS raid super fast, i was under the impression that this is one of the main benfits of ZFS. this part would be setup for the render farm. The rest of the drives could be used for the backup and storage of files. this part of the NAS should have some redundancy but need not be super fast.

7) the icy dock. I like the idea of having easy access to the drives. I am thinking since i don't have a ton of sata ports with the super micro board (just 6) maybe i could fill some drives up with backups and then just remove them. that way i would have a fail safe incase of worst case events. however i guess this kinda of setup would work best if the drives were formatted in some type of easily readable format. that way i could pop them into any computer if i need to get the data back.....

Ok so there are my ideas/thought about building my NAS. The main thing is having a central location to serve files for render jobs and collect them. i would like to add some more cpu power to the farm in the future (max another 2 quad cores). Is my idea of using a NAS which has a small footprint feasible for this? anyways thats where i am at with what i have researched, but i possible have been on the wrong track. is something like a macmini server more what I need? of course its a lot more expensive.

anyways sorry for being all over the place here with my ideas...just thought i would post where I am at, in hopes somebody could confirm whether i am going down the right path.

thanks!!

 

[thiggins]

Where are you doing the rendering?

Link aggregation is the best way to use the dual NICs for increased bandwidth. You will also need a smart /managed switch that supports this (802.3ad).

 

[auze1]

Thanks thiggins,

this setup will be at my home office, thus the idea of having a lower power consumption. after reading a bit more, i have changed gear a bit. this is my new planned setup:

Rosewill R101-P-BK 120mm Fan MicroATX Mid Tower Computer Case $29.99
ECS H55H-M2 LGA 1156 Intel H55 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard $94.99
SeaSonic SS-300ES Bronze 300W ATX12V V2.3 80 PLUS BRONZE $39.99
Intel Core i3-530 Clarkdale 2.93GHz LGA 1156 73W Dual-Core Desktop $114.99
CORSAIR XMS3 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) $99.99

after reading about power consumption at ideal, this setup should be to far of the d510 pinetrail. of course at load its different, but i think i can deal given the extra room in terms of cpu power. I dropped the 5in3 HD cage for now...just gonna start slow.....

 

[thiggins]

I meant do you plan to do the rendering on the NAS? If so, you need to make sure the NAS OS supports your rendering program.

 

[auze1]

I meant do you plan to do the rendering on the NAS?

The NAS will only be serving files to the 2 other computers (more render nodes to come). the NAS itself will no do any rendering.

is this your question? or are you referring more to the render manager? I have not gone through the process of setting this up so I am a bit unsure how it works but My guess is that the render program (deadline, smedge or Qube!) will be setup on either of the two computers and and simply receive and send files to the NAS. I also have a macbook that i could set up to be the render manager if having the manager on one of the render nodes itself is a problem.

Actually with only two computers at the moment its not a huge issue. and for the moment i don't even need a render manager program. I can do comandline renders on After Effects, and just set-up multiple renders on both computers in Maya, however i need to have all the files they access in a central location. I had a job i rendered at home where the cache file for a fluid simulation was 4 gigs. transferring that to each computer and then collecting the rendered files at the end was a total pain, thus the need for my NAS/Server along with the other needs i previosly stated.

Hope i didnt miss your point/question on this......

 

[thiggins]

Just wanted to make sure that you were not going to be rendering the files on the NAS itself, which would be slower than doing them on a local drive.

Assuming your client machine, and especially its drive, is fast enough, you should definitely look at dual NICs for link aggregation. People seem to have best luck with Intel NICs. You will also need a "smart" / managed switch and dual NICs on you client system(s).