NAS / server hardware

[msl]

I'd better start with an apology for yet another thread asking for opinions on hardware! I am just curious if any of the wise heads here know of any obviously better options than the ones I am considering.

This machine will primarily act as an always-on NAS and Squeezebox server, with some other light server duties depending on what I'm playing with at the time. It will run Ubuntu Server. I am interested in:

1. Noise level.
2. End-to-end running costs (power consumption + purchase price).
3. Performance.

Here's my current shopping list:

• Intel Pentium Dual Core E5300.
• mATX G31 motherboard (PCIe Gb LAN, 4x SATAII).
• 2GB (2x1GB) PC2-6400 RAM.
• Antec Sonata Elite case.
• Be Quiet 350W PSU (80+ certified, 4x SATA).
• 500GB Western Digital Caviar Green (32MB cache, system drive).
• 2x 1.5TB Western Digital Caviar Green (Linux MD RAID10 far layout, data volume).

I would prefer a lower powered PSU for better efficiency at very low wattages but I don't see anything with enough connectivity at a price that would make it worthwhile.

Are there any alternatives I should be looking at that would be a significantly better fit to my needs?

 

[subq]

do you mean raid1? you can't do raid10 with 2 drives

 

[Jay_S]

Do you already have the CPU or the motherboard? If you already have the Intel CPU, know that there are plenty of G31 boards with 6 sata on-board. If you don't have the Intel CPU, are you opposed to AMD? Their motherboards tend to offer more features for the money than similarly-priced Intel boards. However, you sacrifice any chance for Intel on-board gig NIC. That's not a deal breaker for me (ubuntu 8.10 and 9.04 support my realtek 8111c NICs).

The 350W PSU will be OK for three drives. Check the peak current draw on those green drives - they're lower than most, but still spin-up current is surprisingly high (wd.com, pdf). This becomes an issue if/when you add more drives and approach ~75% of your PSU's 12V current rating (think of everything else powered from the 12V rail...).

Have you considered FreeNAS? One of the Slim/Squeeze community members has ported SqueezeCenter to FreeNAS: SlimNAS. Boots from USB, runs from RAM. One less spinning disk you have to buy, and the associated power consumption.

You can use the SrvrPowerCtrl SqueezeCenter plugin to power off your server using the Squeezebox's remote. No need for 24/7 unless you have other applications...

 

[msl]

do you mean raid1? you can't do raid10 with 2 drives

The Linux MD driver can do raid10 on any number of disks from two upwards (including odd numbers). It is effectively raid1 in a two-disk configuration, but allows different data layouts with better performance. See here:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-standard_RAID_levels#Linux_MD_RAID_10
• http://linux-raid.osdl.org/index.php/Performance

 

[msl]

Jay_S, many thanks for the helpful comments.

I am happy to consider AMD processors. I was looking at an Intel-based setup as reviews like this one (link) suggest that the Intel package (CPU + mobo) is more efficient -- this test was using a G45 motherboard so I'd expect the G31 to use less power. The AMD route (CPU + mobo) looks to be a little more expensive too. All the G31 boards I see available use various Realtek chipsets for their LAN port anyway, so Intel LAN is not the reason to pick a G31.

Extra SATA ports (particularly if it enabled me to use an eSATA connection) would be great, although not required. Looking at my usual local suppliers, I don't see any G31 boards with more than 4 SATA ports available.

I believe the PSU can handle over 200W (18A) on either of its 12V rails (300W combined), so a peak power draw of <20W per drive should not be an issue.

I was interested in Ubuntu as I want to have the flexibility to use the machine for more than just NAS duties (DB server, SCM server, long-running download/upload jobs etc.). It's also an excuse to maintain and improve my skills on Linux server admin. However, booting from a flash memory card would be fantastic if it can give me the same level of function without the spinny disk as the system drive. Any tips?

 

[Jay_S]

I am happy to consider AMD processors. I was looking at an Intel-based setup as reviews like this one (link) suggest that the Intel package (CPU + mobo) is more efficient -- this test was using a G45 motherboard so I'd expect the G31 to use less power.

They're going to be very close at idle, but Intel will be more power efficient under load (looks like those Tom's tests are load tests). Intel's C2D is easily the better-performing CPU no matter the metric, but AMD remains competitive on CPU & motherboard features. Whether those features are important to you or not will depend on your usage and applications.

Although Intel wins at load and in overall power efficiency (performance per watt), you'll have to determine what percentage of your 24/7 uptime the server will spend at idle. Because at idle (assuming both platforms' idle consumption is roughly equal), performance per watt is moot. This is important for most of us home NAS builders, because our servers are at idle the majority of the time (if not off or sleeping/suspended).

The AMD route (CPU + mobo) looks to be a little more expensive too.

Interesting ... the opposite holds in our market. Newegg's least expensive AMD board with 6 sata is ~$20 less than the least expensive Intel board with 6 sata. And a dual-core Athlon II X2 240 is $10 cheaper than the Intel E5300 you've picked. That's $30 to put toward ram.

Extra SATA ports (particularly if it enabled me to use an eSATA connection) would be great, although not required. Looking at my usual local suppliers, I don't see any G31 boards with more than 4 SATA ports available.

Yeah, neither do I - sorry for leading you in that direction. However, this Asrock mATX G43-based board is the least expensive Intel board I found with 6 sata. The G4x chipsets are a die-shrink from the G3x, and so should be more power-efficient than the G31.

I can never have too many sata ports! The more on-board, the more I can delay spending on a high-density sata controller. And any internal sata port can be made eSata with an inexpensive bracket.

I was interested in Ubuntu as I want to have the flexibility to use the machine for more than just NAS duties (DB server, SCM server, long-running download/upload jobs etc.). It's also an excuse to maintain and improve my skills on Linux server admin. However, booting from a flash memory card would be fantastic if it can give me the same level of function without the spinny disk as the system drive. Any tips?

Flexibility is a huge strength with a ful linux distro. I use unRAID for my media server, and while it truly offers the best combo of features for me, it's not flexible at all. I've used FreeNAS in the past, and I like it a lot. It's very user friendly and has a ton of great built-in features. But again, not flexible if you need features it doesn't have. I use ubuntu 9.04 server for my music server (an old pentium 3) because I need SqueezeCenter and am familiar with ubuntu. I just run the OS on the same drive as my music - the performance hit isn't a big deal considering the server's purpose. There are embedded versions of ubuntu that might work from a CF drive or USB flash drive, but I have no experience with them. The trick will be how to minimize all the constant little log writing to flash.

 

[msl]

In case it's of interest to other DIY builders, I thought I would report back now that I have my server running.

I briefly investigated the AMD and Intel G43/45 motherboard options as I would have liked to have AHCI and eSATA hot-plug capability, neither of which are supported by the ICH7 chipset on the G31 board. However, these alternatives all worked out a fair bit more expensive and I couldn't satisfy myself that power consumption would be as low as the G31 due to the higher powered integrated graphics on these more expensive boards. So I opted for the setup as described above.

The case (review) has an add-in exhaust blower in addition to the single case fan. I did not fit the blower, and instead taped over the blower exhaust vent to prevent air being drawn in there rather from the filtered intake vent feeding the hard-drive bay. The running system with the case fan set to low is actually quiter than my QNap TS-209.

It took me quite a while to figure out how to setup a USB flash drive as an Ubuntu server boot device. I'd only booted like this with Ubuntu desktop before, where setup of the USB device is easy using usb-creator. The instructions here work (once you find them!) and setup can be done from a Windows machine using the Windows version of syslinux.

I setup a MD raid10 array on the two 1.5TB drives using f2 layout and formatted ext4. I just used the default array chunk size (64K) and filesystem settings. Performance might have been better with a 256K array chunk size but I didn't think of that until after the overnight array build!

I tried a quick performance test by copying a 4GB file between my Windows 7 machine (SSD drive) and a samba share on the server raid array. By the end of the transfers the speeds reported by Windows file copy were just over 100MB/sec from server to Windows, and around 85MB/sec from Windows to server.

 

[msl]

I got around to measuring power draw at the socket for my DIY NAS, as described above. In case it's of interest to other DIY builders...

The first observation is that it appears to draw about 2W just being plugged in with the machine not powered on. So I guess this is innefficiency of the power supply plus whatever is being supplied to the motherboard before you even hit the power button.

During boot-up it peaks somewhere around 70W. After boot-up is complete it settles down to about 41.5W with all three drives spun up but idle.

I have it configured to put the two drives in the RAID array into standby after a period of inactivity, just leaving the system drive spun up. Once this spin down occurs the power usage settles down to a low of 35W.

It's certainly drawing more power than a NAS appliance, but then it's a considerably more powerful and flexible machine.

 

[Jay_S]

Those are great numbers, msl - both for transfer rates and power draw. Excellent work.