Looking to DIY- Scrap These Parts or Buy New?

[00Roush]

On the topic of DIY OSes...

Windows Home Server 2011 (basically Server 2008 R2) is probably going to be the overall easiest for someone to setup. (this also applies to just about any windows version) Especially if you are already familiar with windows. This setup will also most likely provide the lowest power consumption by default. About 5-10 watts difference is what I have noticed. At least in most of the testing I have done Windows was always able to get lower power consumption that any of the linux/unix, and freebsd OSes. One of the minuses though is there is no longer drive extender (not that it is that big of a deal) but instead just use standard RAID arrays.

FreeNAS in my book is quite simple to setup. Version .7.2 takes just a few minutes to boot and setup file shares via the web interface. Version .8 is a bit different but from what I recall it is still very simple to setup. Once setup there should be no reason at all to have to tinker with things. ZFS is supported and version .8 seems to have pretty good performance overall.

Ubuntu Server takes a bit more to setup but has good performance. Setting up a web interface (Webmin) takes a bit but make things easier after installed. The last time I used Webmin I found it fairly easy to use but not quite to the level of FreeNAS. The bonus is that due to its popularity you can find answers online for just about any question.

I could probably go on a bit more about these OSes and others but suffice to say all will work just fine once setup. The difference from my point of view between the DIY setup and the QNAP/Synology setup is the DIY OSes are just not quite as easy to setup. The pre built boxes have been streamlined and polished quite a bit for NAS tasks which is part of why they cost more. With that said my advise to anyone is to at least try out FreeNAS .7.2. It can be run right off a CD and there are lots of tutorials online to walk you through a quick setup.

00Roush

 

[GregN]

The pre built boxes have been streamlined and polished quite a bit for NAS tasks which is part of why they cost more. With that said my advise to anyone is to at least try out FreeNAS .7.2. It can be run right off a CD and there are lots of tutorials online to walk you through a quick setup.

00Roush

I'm in full agreement here, you know those small twin wire connectors that all motherboards have, you know, for the power switch, for the HDD activity LED? Getting the pins right, the size, the position, etc. a bit of a pain, requiring attention to detail and patience -- If you can do that, that set-up, then you can install any of the NAS specific distros.

If you look at the DIY process in two phases, a build phase, and a use phase. If you lump the setup, the OS install and Configuration into the build phase, where you get everything up and running the first time, then the Use phase is then equivalent to an off-the-shelf NAS.

The Build phase, the part selection, hardware assembly, OS install and configuration I feel, should be a little challenging, otherwise it ain't DIY.

I would argue that the build phase is also the fun part, if that part isn't fun for you, that you enjoy making something yours, the accomplishment, than you should consider off the shelf as a first choice.

 

[loyukfai]

@eyal8r: Would like to clarify that there's no Windows Server 2011. We've been talking about Windows Home Server 2011. The latest release for Windows Server is called 2008 and they're quite different, functionality speaking, AFAIK.

They did drop the Drive Extender but I heard Microsoft is going to implement an even better solution in Windows 8. Anyway, with multiple home PC ownership increasing and demand for home media/NAS servers rising, it doesn't seem logical to me that WHS is going to be dropped. Perhaps it could be integrated/expanded into other products though.

If I'm not mistaken, none of the OS we talked about here had, in my knowledge, showed any sign of being abandoned anytime soon.

Sir, with respect, what I think you should do, is to stop reading and posting here and start tinkering around, considering you have some existing parts, there are many things you can do without paying a dime, and come back for discussion after you got some hands-on experience. You should do it yesterday already.

Your other questions have been well addressed by the others as well.

Regarding ReadyNAS, I was asking out of curiosity. It's left me an impression of being more professional, at least before it was acquired by NETGEAR.

Cheers.

 

[eyal8r]

Guys-
Thanks a TON for all the time spent posting replies. It truly has been helpful. I have a couple last questions here- and maybe I need to start a new thread on it- but here goes...

1) With FreeNas, is the file structure such that I can drag/drop and the files are written to the drives exactly as they are with the originals? Or does it change it so that it's not the same while on the freenas box? Can I just open the Drive Folder and drag specific files back off those NAS drives? Or do I need to decode them in someway first? I hope that makes sense.

2) I'll probably start a new thread on this- but- I'm having trouble wrapping my head around this concept- and it determines a lot in the topics we've been discussing here...
I'm wanting to build an HTPC, a File/Media Server, AND/or a backup machine/system. Would that be only 2 machines, or 3?

Example 1 (2 machines)- HTPC stores files on its own drives. I also use the HTPC as my Media Server where the other 2 PCs in the house store movies/music/pics on it. That (as well as the other 2 PCs in the house) do scheduled backups to this NAS Box we've been discussing.

Example 2 (3 Machines)- HTPC stores files (recorded TV mainly) on it's own drives. The HTPC also accesses a drive on the Media Server for movies/music/pictures. The other 2 PCs store files on a file/media server (movies, music, pictures, as well as some personal docs). The 2 PCs, HTPC and Media Server all backup to a NAS Box/DIY Machine.

The pros I see for Example 2 are that the HTPC won't be affected by transfers/traffic hitting the file server by the other 2 PCs. There's less chance of missing recorded/live shows by a hickup with other tasks going on in the Media Server or system (reboot, slow/down internet/LAN, backups and transfers, etc).

HOWEVER- I see many suggesting to use a NAS as a Media/File Server and backup/nas as well. Let's say I do that- I have 1 machine for a media server and backup nas. The 2 PCs and HTPC would backup to the NAS. The Media Server portion is also stored on the NAS, but would still need to be backed up somewhere else, correct? ie- if I have 2 drives in the NAS- 1 is for backing up the OS Drives on the other 3 machines. The other drive would be where the media is stored. There's no backup or redundancy with the media files in that case- and I still need to configure that elsewhere- correct? This is where my confusion sets in.

Sorry for such a long post- but it'd really help me a ton to hear input on the best way to set this whole thing up, and/or examples on how YOU GUYS are doing it yourselves???

 

[eyal8r]

ok- I was just about sold on WHS 2011 as my solution- but been reading a ton about it. The big problem is that they've done away with Drive Extender. From what I understand, WHS 2011 now will only backup a max of 2TB of server data. Anything above 2TB you have to use an alternative method for backup (ie- nas, thin client software, USB Drive, etc).

If that's the case- why not combine the Media Server in with the HTPC machine? I mean, if I'm going to have to use a 3rd machine (NAS/USB External Drive, etc) to back it up ANYWAYS- why not just combine it into 1 and cut out the 'middle man'? I could take the resources I was going to put into building a WHS Machine and put it into building a pure BACKUP NAS (or similar). Then I only have an HTPC + NAS/Backup machine. No separate media server.

Initially I was wanting to avoid that route to insure that Live TV Recording would go uninterrupted during large file transfers, unfortunate crashes/problems related to transferring/storing other media on the system. Now, I'm not soo sure if that's worth the extra energy/money, etc. One solution is to keep live TV Recording on a single, separate drive- and ALL OTHER MEDIA goes onto a separate drive (could even be a drive on the network somewhere, doesn't have to be connected to the HTPC). I do have a Gigabit network, so don't have too many concerns about lag between devices over a network.

What are your thoughts? I appreciate it guys!

 

[00Roush]

Not sure if this will help or not but I should mention that the 2 TB limit in WHS 2011 looks to just be related to the maximum amount of data on a disk that can be backed up into a single .VHD (backup) file. So if you have client with a 3 TB drive that had more than 2 TB of actual data on it you will not be able to backup that disk to WHS using the built in WHS backup program. This limit also applies to backing up the data that is on the server to another location using the built in backup program. This limit does not affect how much data can be stored on the server or in a share on the server. http://social.technet.microsoft.com...ws-home-and-small-business-server-backup.aspx

By default it looks like if you use the WHS Dashboard to format and setup your disks they will get partitioned into 2 TB blocks. This can easily be bypassed by formatting your disks using the the storage manager instead. Once the disk has been assigned a drive letter you can then use it with the WHS interface. So for example if you have a hardware RAID-5 setup with 3 x 2 TB disks (4 TB array) WHS would by default break that into 2 x 2 TB partitions which would give you two drive letters to create your shares on. Now if you wanted to allocate the whole 4 TB array you would just need to format the array using the built in format function in Windows and it would show up as a single drive letter.

I think I understand what you are asking about the FreeNAS file structure... Whatever files you copy over to the FreeNAS machine will stay exactly as they were on your computer. Accessing them over the network would be the same as if they were saved on your computer. However if you happen to take the disk(s) out of a FreeNAS machine and attached them to a Windows machine you would not be able to just read the files off the disk(s). This is due to the default disk format in FreeNAS being UFS and Windows does not read UFS formatted disks.

Now onto your setup... Generally I say if your not going to be asking too much of your HTPC (encoding HD video using the CPU) there is no reason you couldn't make one computer be the HTPC/NAS/Media Server/Central storage box (Main NAS). Then you would have something else be setup as the backup unit. I should clarify in this scenario the "backup unit" is backing up the files that are on the Main NAS. The Main NAS would be the place that all of your files get stored from all your computers. All video, pictures, documents, and client backups would be stored here. The "backup unit" could be a complete mirror of all of these files or you could select only certain important files to be copied to the "backup unit". It all depends on which data you feel is most important to you and how much storage space (and money) you want to dedicate to redundancy and backups.

Now that I think about it... what hardware were you planning on running for the Main NAS? I skimmed the previous pages (lots of things I was thinking about commenting on but i think this is enough for now) and did not see a final decision.

00Roush

 

[eyal8r]

Hey guys-
Here's the specs I've got together- can you look this over and see if I've overlooked anything? What's your thoughts?
Thanks!

Antec EarthWatts Green EA-380D Green 380W Continuous power ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power ... $47.99


Rosewill R101-P-BK 120mm Fan MicroATX Mid Tower Computer Case

ASUS E35M1-M PRO Fusion AMD E-350 APU (1.6GHz, Dual-Core) AMD Hudson M1 Micro ATX Motherboard/CPU Combo

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1066 (PC3 8500) Desktop Memory Model F3-8500CL7S-4GBRL


Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARX 2TB SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Seagate Barracuda ST3160316AS 160GB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Microsoft Windows Home Server 2011 64-bit OEM System Builder - OEM

COOLER MASTER R4-L2S-122B-GP 120mm 4 Blue LED Case Fan 2 in 1 pack

All total it should be about $487.92. What do you guys think?

 

[loyukfai]

It seems that this mobo can drive the RAM at 1333MHz. Not sure. Perhaps you can take a look at that.

The price difference between 1066MHz and 1333MHz is kind of trivial. But probably so is the performance difference too.

Cheers.