Is a Dell Dim 8400 a good box for a NAS

[bigten333]

I'll be upgrading to a new home computer and will have a Dell Dim 8400 P4 3.0 MHz; 4GB RAM to find something to do with. I usually send it down stream to someone else in the family but there doesn't seem to be a need for it right now.

SO, since I've been thinking about buying a NAS for a long time, I thought I'd see if I could build one with the 8400. I have some older IDE's around and that is what the system takes, but I assume I'll need to add an SATA controller and drives as well. Its current OS is XP PRO, but I assume that it will need to have FreeNAS on it. I do not have a server license and don't want to buy one.

Before I start down this path I wanted to see if the 8400 was a possible platform. If it isn't strong enough, I'd rather find out now vs later. Oh, it does have a GB NIC and attaches to a GB switch. The switch hasn't been changed much and I assume yet once again that I'll want to begin using Jumbo Frames.

So, what do you think? Should I give this a go, or not?

 

[claykin]

It will work, or should work. Performance will be OK, but not great. Power consumption compared to a NAS appliance will be off the charts!

Make sure you check the Freenas compatibility list before purchasing a SATA controller. The Freenas OS can boot from a solid state device, so keep that in mind.

Don't forget a good UPS that can hopefully communicate with the OS for safe shutdown during extended outages.

Jumbo Frames is not necessary in 90% of applications. MTU of 1500 is capable of close to 900Mb/s which is probably more than your Gigabit NIC can sustain. Especially if your NIC is on the PCI bus, which it likely is.

Also look @ unRAID

 

[00Roush]

Well I looked up the specs for the Dell Dimension 8400 and it looks like it is not too bad off except that it will most likely use a bit of power. Especially if you happen to have a dual core cpu. According to the specs it has PCI-E slots and also SATA so for the most part you should be good to go. Not sure about the intergrated NIC though. I think it might be on the PCI-E bus which would mean it won't be a bottleneck. If that is the case you could see 80 MB/sec or better with fast SATA drives and a Vista SP1+ or Win 7 machine as a client.

As for the OS... XP PRO works just fine as a server provided you don't plan on serving to more than 10 users at a time. I used XP PRO on my server here at home for a couple of years. I have also tested FreeNAS and it works just fine too. Nice thing is you don't even have to install FreeNAS to test it. Just boot up from a CD and see how it works.

I say your Dell would work just fine.

00Roush

 

[claykin]

Dimension 8400 spec sheet: http://support.dell.com/support/sys...=en&s=bsd&~file=/systems/dim8400/sm/specs.htm

Support single core CPU's, some with HT. HT is not equal to dual core. HT provides a second virtual core capable of handling certain instructions in parallel. Typically provides a 30% performance improvement over non HT CPU. Not 2x improvement like dual core.

Can't tell if NIC is on PCI, CSA or PCI-e bus. You may want to consider a server NIC such as the Intel http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833106010

 

[bigten333]

I'm fairly certain that it was a single core CPU with HT. It isn't hooked up right now or I'd boot and find out.

It has the "regular integrated NIC", and I had added a 10/100/1000 card as well. I was thinking that the integrated wasn't gigabit capable, but after putting it in I think I found out the invoice was wrong and it was a 10/100/1000 card.

How can I test each connection to determine which is the best to use?

How does a server gigabit card differ from the Linksys that I picked up at a local computer store?

How much power are you talking about? Is it enough to offset the cost of a "real nas?" Which ones are considered the best for home use? I'd want gigabit and I'd like NTFS. It will only serve 5 other PCs.

Thanks for the responses.

 

[claykin]

Your Dimension 8400 likely draws 150-200W. A 4 bay NAS will be 60-80W. Some are even less than 60W. A lot depends on the disks used.

Based on $0.12 per KW/h 100W would be about $8/month if the device ran 24 hours.

If you want and absolutely need NTFS filesystem, you should look at Windows Home Server. Otherwise a Linux based NAS will serve you well, even though it uses EXT3/4 file system. It communicates with your PC using SMB/CIFS and is 100% seamless even though the filesystems differ.

To test your Gigabit NIC, the best is to do real world testing (copying files across) to a Gigabit destination and then read from the destination to compare read and write speeds. Some onboard LAN controllers provide decent performance, others are about 50% of true gigabit speed. A server NIC is typically higher performance, but make sure its PCIe. Stick with Intel at the lower end.

 

[bigten333]

Perhaps my concern with the filesystem is outdated: I wanted NTFS so that in the event of a NAS device failure, I could still access the data - from the PC - if necessary. Otherwise, I'm stuck with a backup / data that I cannot read until I replace the NAS itself.

Can you suggest freeware to help with the NIC testing?

Thanks again!

 

[Jesse B]

Perhaps my concern with the filesystem is outdated: I wanted NTFS so that in the event of a NAS device failure, I could still access the data - from the PC - if necessary. Otherwise, I'm stuck with a backup / data that I cannot read until I replace the NAS itself.

If this were the case, you'd be able to boot using an Ubuntu (or your choice of distro) Live CD without installing anything new on your Windoze rig, and be able to view/access those drives

 

[bigten333]

If this were the case, you'd be able to boot using an Ubuntu (or your choice of distro) Live CD without installing anything new on your Windoze rig, and be able to view/access those drives

OK, but how would I get the files into Windows? Would Ubuntu be able to access them in their native format, and then save them somewhere in a format that Windows could use?

Sorry to keep asking. I don't know anything about Ubuntu and I have nightmares about a Unix system 15 years ago!

 

[poutnik]

Yes, you'd be able to mount and access your windows NTFS partition and move/copy the files from the NAS disks there. Ubuntu has a driver to access NTFS partitions, as do most other (all recent?) Linux distributions.

 

[Jesse B]

Yes, you'd be able to mount and access your windows NTFS partition and move/copy the files from the NAS disks there. Ubuntu has a driver to access NTFS partitions, as do most other (all recent?) Linux distributions.

I'm fairly sure this was a feature implemented into the 2.6 kernel? I may be mistaken however. Anyways, any popular distro should be able to read the NTFS partition.

 

[00Roush]

I generally use Iperf to test network connections. I have found it to provide a good indication of what my maximum possible performance can be and a good way to find out if my network is working properly. Let me know if you need help on how to use it.

I still think if you already are running Win XP PRO you should start there. Also it sounds like you are already familiar with it so setup would be easier.

Based on some recent testing of power consumption of some older Dell's that I have been working on lately I do have to disagree that the 8400 consumes 160-200 watts. Maybe it would draw that much at full load with a discrete video card that draws a lot of power. For a point of reference I have a Dell Dimension 4600 with a 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 and integrated graphics that I am working on right now that draws about 65 watts at idle and about 90 watts at full load using prime95. My guess is that with a low end discrete PCIe video card in the 8400 power consumption at idle would be under 100 watts. But as was mentioned it does depend on what hard drives you are using as each drive can add 3-10 watts.

As for the server NIC versus a consumer NIC... I have not found too much of a difference in my network at home. All of the PCIe based integrated NICs I have here at home perform similar to the Intel PRO/1000 PT Dual Port Server NICs I have been using lately. I don't doubt under heavier loads and lots of clients I would see a large difference but with just a few clients I have not seen much of a difference in my testing. Now the key is they are all on the PCIe bus.

As for your Linksys NIC versus your intergrated NIC... I did some searching and could not find a Linksys NIC that was PCIe based so my guess is the one you bought is PCI based. Generally PCI based NICs are bottle-necked by the PCI bus. PCIe NICs are not bottle-necked and can provide full gigabit speeds. After a bit of searching it looks like the Dimension 8400's came with a Broadcom 5721 NIC which looks to be PCIe based and should give good performance.

00Roush