Old parts to NAS - Advice please

[The_Tango]

Been looking at buying a Nas but decided to try a build first. I have a bunch of OLD parts to try but am unsure which would be the best starting point. The main use is streaming BlueRay & music.

Motherboards:
EVGA - 112-ck-nf72-k1
http://www.evga.com/support/manuals/files/112-CK-NF77.pdf

Abit - IC-7 Max3
http://www.abit.com.tw/page/en/motherboard/motherboard_detail.php?pMODEL_NAME=IC7-MAX3

Dell PC - Dimension E521 - AMD 64 X2 4000+


If yhe Dell would work then I would gut this PC since I never use it (SLOW). The Abit looks the best to me.

Looking at getting a RAID card that supportd 5 to 8 drives & a 1000 lan card. I have 5 empty cases, 4 CD drives, ect.

But I want a good starting point - if none of these MB work then will reconsider plan.

TIA
MurrDog

 

[Jesse B]

Any of that hardware you've listed will be plenty powerful for this purpose. It doesn't take a whole lot of power. I know people using old PIII's with excellent results

If you've already got an assembled computer with the ability to expand, then may as well go for that. If you wanna hack something together with hardware you've got laying around, that'll work too! Whatever floats you boat

Processing power is not overly important, and pretty much any CPU will be able to handle the processes a NAS will throw at it. RAM is fairly important in an application like this; 2GB would be my recommended minimum, 4GB would be even better though

For the NIC, Intel makes some excellent cards; they're the most recommended NIC's I've seen, personally.

As for RAID cards, do you plan on running Windows, or *nix of some sort (including BSD) on this NAS? Suggestions will differ depending on the OS

Hopefully this has been helpful,


- Jesse

 

[The_Tango]

I think I will try the Dell (can always change to Abit). The only problem with the dell is the case its in has very little room for expansion. Will move to no-name case & the I/O panel on the dell won't work.

This PC only has a few card slots
1 - PCI Express x16 connector (SLOT1)
1 - PCI Express x1 connector (SLOT2)
2 - PCI connector (SLOT3 & 4)

Is this going to be a problem with raid card through put?

OS will be one of the free ones - FreeNas, Ubuntu ?

 

[Jesse B]

That shouldn't be an issue. While you can get PCI RAID cards, I would not recommend them, as the throughput isn't all that it could be.

The good thing with the PCI-e x16 slot is that

a) It will offer more throughput than any drive can offer to you
b) It allows for the use of any type of PCI-e card in it
ex.) PCI-e x1, PCI-e x4, PCI-e x8, and PCI-e x16 will all work in this slot.

If you plan on using one of the open-source OS's, 3ware and Areca make great cards that have *nix and often BSD native drivers. The downside however is that they will run you a few hundred dollars. The Highpoint cards (available on Newegg) claim to be compatible with Linux and BSD as well; these can still get fairly expensive however, but I don't think you'll be able to find a semi-decent RAID card that isn't a couple hundred dollars.

FreeNAS I have not had any experience with, but seems to be fairly user-friendly from what I've heard. FreeBSD would work excellent, and is one of the most-recommended OS's I've seen for server applications at this point in time. A buddy of mine is currently developing a web-interface for BSD, I'd check it out: www.submesa.com . Linux is great, and is probably a tad easier to use than BSD would be.

I'd suggest downloading VirutalBox, and testing out all of these options on a virtual machine. That way you can be somewhat familiar with all of the options before making a decision, and without needing to install anything.

Good luck

 

[The_Tango]

I had planned on spending $200-$300 on a raid card. Since I am unsure which OS I will end up using (haven't played with any of them yet), one of my concerns is that the card will support whichever OS I end up using.

Long term - looking to have support for 8 drives.

Make/Model suggestions?

 

[msl]

Personally I would just use Linux software RAID. Cheaper and without the compatibility worries of a RAID card, and works fine for my home NAS.

 

[Jesse B]

I looked at Newegg real quick, and these options seem to be pretty good:

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816151039&Tpk=raid controller
Wayy more than you wanted to spend, but just pointing it out. Very good card, compatible with Windows, Linux, BSD, Solaris, OSX, etc.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produc...&cm_re=raid_controller-_-16-115-026-_-Product
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produc...&cm_re=raid_controller-_-16-115-057-_-Product

Those two controllers probably won't give you as good performance, but they're much more affordable, and will perform just fine I figure. They claim to work with all the same OS's listed above, minus Solaris.

Hopefully I've been of some help. Again, I just looked quickly, so those are just suggestions, and I haven't done any real serious research like you should.

 

[The_Tango]

I have been looking at the Areca, Adaptec & LSI cards - Want it to support 2TB drives. I would like to get the drives now but still researching which card supports which drives.

I already have a couple of WD 2TB drives in a DLink 321 but they have data on them that I need to transfer to new DIY NAS before I can add them to the raid.

Kind of a horse / cart thing - Can't buy drives until I pick card / can't pick card until I know which drives.

 

[Jesse B]

I'm quite fond of Samsung and Hitachi for the high-storage drives. I've heard nothing but excellent things about them, and they're very affordable. They perform quite well on top of that.

Western Digital is great, but their 1.5 and 2 TB drives seem to have a bit of a history of premature failure. Seagate has been iffy over the past few years.

 

[The_Tango]

Read a lot of DOA on Samsung and Hitachi @ newegg.

But I have been testing several of the FWare OS - decided on FreeNAS running on a IDE/CF card.

Since the MB I was using only has 4 SATA ports - thinking about going with a SATA card to increase port count. The ATTO benchmark on a couple of old drives I was using showed a speed of a little over 70MB/s on Raid0 - so a RAID card is off the table.

 

[The_Tango]

Is the Hitachi HUA722020ALA330 Enterprise drive worth the double price or should I just go with the Desktop model?

Well after seeing that Freenas software does NOT allow expanding the Raid to include newly added drives - I'm back to a hardware card. Areca ARC-1222 PCIe x8 SATA / SAS or LSI.

 

[[OC]Pik4chu]

Just want to say while the Areca is a very nice card the cheaper Highpoint 2320 will work just fine for an every day NAS. I see lots of people using them as a cheaper solution for a RAID card. If however you want RAID 6 for some reason you will need to go with the Areca, or the more expensive Highpoint (4320 I think). Same goes for enterprise drives, in any of the DIY NAS/media servers Ive seen Ive never seen someone use the enterprise drives. I dont see them being worth the money for a home unit.

 

[The_Tango]

I looked at the Highpoint cards but the cheaper ones only support 4 devices. I ma looking at 6 devices minimum - more likely 8 devices. Card must support expanding raid.

Also tracking a few cards on ebay (I don't mind used)

 

[[OC]Pik4chu]

I looked at the Highpoint cards but the cheaper ones only support 4 devices. I ma looking at 6 devices minimum - more likely 8 devices. Card must support expanding raid.

Also tracking a few cards on ebay (I don't mind used)

the 2320 I mentioned does 8 drives and its only ~$250 and supports RAID 0/1/5/10/50/JBOD

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816115026&cm_re=2320-_-16-115-026-_-Product

its big brother the 4320 is out of stock at the moment though and it adds supports for RAID 6 and a few other features. and I think it was ~$450.

Then the next step ups are the 3530 and 3540 which are now SAS connectors and support 12 and 16 drives and costs $580 and $680 respectively. Though at that price range Id proly be looking at the Areca cards.

 

[The_Tango]

Well I just got a "LSI MegaRAID SAS SATA 84016E 16-port RAID Controller" off ebay.

UPS is suppose to deliver "SYBA SD-CF-IDE-DI IDE to Compact Flash Adapter" tomorrow (to run OS from).

Think I will go with Seagate 2TB drives - Just had a second WD 1.5TB drive fail in the last month. Will use a couple of old drives at first to see how things work, then order/add real drives.

 

[The_Tango]

Been looking at the "NORCO RPC-3216" - Anyone have a Norco case?

 

[[OC]Pik4chu]

Been looking at the "NORCO RPC-3216" - Anyone have a Norco case?

not yet but frankly if I was spending that kind of money id just skip the smaller one and go straight to the 4020 or 4220 series of norco cases. 1U larger, 4 and 8 more drives and the same or similar price.
(Id personally go with the 4020, the 20 drive version IMO)

 

[The_Tango]

The prices I am seeing are"
3216 - $280
4020 - $280 (but out of stock)
4220 - $350

Of course this is without shipping (around $35)

But you have a good point, thanks.

 

[The_Tango]

Just ordered a "NORCO RPC-4220 4U Rackmount Server Case" - MWave has them for $296

The pieces are coming together - My old MB works with the LSI SAS 84016E controller. Got an old server cabinet ($85) from an government auction site.

All that's left are the drives.