Making NAS

[sapsa]

Dear BBT Community,

Long Version:

(click to show/hide)

Like always you helped me a lot i pass few months.
I learned here a lot of things - and I could see a lot of your home setups/nas/seedboxs
I finally get a full time job, not the best one but its good for start in IT, before it wasn't really related with IT (sadly)

Now I can buy things I normally wouldn't buy - like case, mobo, raid controllers for my Home NAS.

I was looking for dedicated NAS, but there are like 200$ with only 2 slots for HDDs, and thats not what I aiming. Currently, i got 5 hdd's in my desktop build which is a little overkill.
I would like to move 4 and in future more, hdd's into dedicated case for NAS. I'm thinking about buying some kind of case that have a lot of hdd slots (3.5') but it seams I can't find any cheap
Any recommendations for case/mobo/raid controller? (maybe atom cpu (low power usage))

I know I could buy USB enclosure for them, but I like to have all in once place, without problems like "omg, hdd doesn't work after unplugging USB" drama.

I saw a 3x 5.25' enclosure for 4 x 3.5 drivers with swaps for case, it was pretty nice (like the swaps in servers) but it's overkill too - I wont need to replace drivers so often (only if one of them broke)

Short version:

I want to buy case + guts for Home NAS - what you think about, and what you recommends.

[Lupin]

Unraid's forum's have several builds which may useful as a reference: http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=7998.0 The cpu/mobo combinations on that thread are pretty old though.

An atom cpu will work assuming it will do nothing but make files available on the network. I do think you're better off with a AMD E350 (compared to an atom)

[halfelite]

How many drives are you looking to run. are you looking at software raid or hardware raid?

You can see one of my builds here http://forums.bakabt.me/index.php?topic=27595.msg4547214#msg4547214 which is overkill for most people so i doubt you want to go that big.

[kitamesume]

cheapest option:
if you got an old pc(not an ancient imho) like a core2duo or maybe a celeron, you could salvage them and turn them into a NAS, buy some PCI-to-Sata cards or even better, raid cards.

not so cheap solution:
an athlon II X2 is currently the cheapest possible rig you could make, a little bit cheaper than the atoms, correct this if its wrong.

common solution:
atoms, AMD-E350 and i3-2100T are a good candidates for a NAS.

bigshot solution:
go get a Xeon or Opteron.

[datora]

.

cheapest option:
if you got an old pc(not an ancient imho) like a core2duo or maybe a celeron, you could salvage them and turn them into a NAS, buy some PCI-to-Sata cards or even better, raid cards.

Agreed ... the cheapest way to go, as in you might be able to pick up such a system for free that someone doesn't see the use for anymore.

BUT.

Be aware that PCI will limit you to SATA 150 (the original SATA I) specification.  It would still be a solid NAS solution for pure storage, but you'll start running into hardware legacy and obsolescence issues even if the speed doesn't concern you.  Like, try finding a PCI SATA 150 or RAID card ... you can, but you'll have to dig around a bit only to find they aren't entirely cheap.  And, then you need to make sure your new SATA 6.0 GB/sec drives will configure with a SATA 150 controller ... not something to take as granted.

Meaning, if you want to utilize SATA 3.0 or 6.0 GB/sec speeds/ modern hardware compatibility, you'll want to look for a mobo with PCIe slots, and they need to be x4 speed or higher; x1 PCIe slots won't be the best solution.  For example, if the NAS is constructed with such a mobo and doesn't have eSATA ports, or is limited to USB 2.0 (as is likely), one of the PCIe slots is going to be needed for a USB 3.0 &/or eSATA card (if the eSATA port isn't included on one of the other card options).


[ EDIT: BTW, these SAMSUNG F4 HD204UI 2TB 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s drives will auto-detect and run on SATA 150 controllers just fine; I've plugged several of these into several older mobos w/ that spec and they just plug 'n' play under WinXP Home & Pro, no worries.  If you're looking for drives, newegg puts these on special for $69.99 delivered pretty regularly these days. ]

[kitamesume]

there are some not too expensive SLI LGA775 motherboards, instead of filling them with GPUs just fill them up with PCIe Sata cards. good option imho.

[90$] EVGA 113-YW-E115-RX LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 730i HDMI ATX - 8SATAII 3.0Gb/s with Raid support.
[120$] ASUS P5N-D LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i SLI ATX - 2xPCIe-16, 4SATAII 3.0Gb/s with Raid support.

2nd hand sets are waaay more cheaper

@datora
how do you search PCIe x4, or above, sata cards on newegg? i could only find PCIe x1 cards.

[bork]

On using older equipment, I would recommend to not use a system boards based on PCI.  What I am running into is that PCI SATA cards are having problems with the larger drive and you will spend time moving the PCI cards around trying to make things happy.  Certain combinations of PCI SATA result in POST freezes and improper drive detection.  Could be my crappy hardware.  Most any PCI card will need to have their flash undated for use with drives over 1.5TB, a lot of them been sitting on the selves for a few years now because of low demand for them.

I am going to look for a i3 system to replace it; Been seeing prices for MB's for about $50 on sale and processors at about the same.

[datora]

.

@datora
how do you search PCIe x4, or above, sata cards on newegg? i could only find PCIe x1 cards.

Honestly, I don't know.  I based my statements on memory (which, quite possibly is not accurate).  What I understand is that the throughput speeds of the x4 PCIe slots are able to use all of the potential data transfer rates that modern SATA drives are capable of.  The x1 slots can bottleneck the speed ... which might not be noticeable on a single drive, but in a performance RAID could be an issue.

Now that you've made me think on it more carefully, I think I've got that "info"/"impression" from the SSD-on-a-PCIe card solution, such as:

 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227521

These are basically SSD chips arranged in a RAID on a PCIe card ... and it is usually recommended that they be placed into x4 or x8 slots.

So, for a more normal NAS solution ... maybe the x1 slots are adequate.  I don't have time to research it just now and attack my doubts.

[kitamesume]

hoh, yea, though those SSD over PCIe are insanely expensive

well, now a days its easy to find a 2nd hand LGA775 for under 200$ so thats one option to get.

i3+decent mobo with lots of PCIe slots will be a plus too. specially the i3-2100T, good low power processor.

does atom rig and/or AMD E350 rig have enough slots to host a ton of HDDs? i get the fact that its the most adequate setup but using only USB for HDD isn't really that good either.

for the case, pretty much anything would work, but the HDD will be housed outside, AKA hard drive rack. its pretty easy to build an aluminum box with holes in it, plus you could cut out some bigger holes to put some fans on it.
note: the width of the external box should be a fit for the HDD's width, each HDDs should have a spacing of half an inch or more when stacking upwards, you can build the box as high as you want, cut out slots at the front and place in fans too if you want.

something like this: http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=475428

though this uses angular bars.

now this is funny.

(click to show/hide)

[Lupin]

Honestly, I don't know.  I based my statements on memory (which, quite possibly is not accurate).  What I understand is that the throughput speeds of the x4 PCIe slots are able to use all of the potential data transfer rates that modern SATA drives are capable of.  The x1 slots can bottleneck the speed ... which might not be noticeable on a single drive, but in a performance RAID could be an issue.

Anything lower than x4 will cause bottlenecks for the gigabit ethernet. So while a x4 might bottleneck the data transfer from harddrives, It's more than enough for network transfers which is the mainpoint of a NAS anyways.

[Freedom Kira]

An atom cpu will work assuming it will do nothing but make files available on the network. I do think you're better off with a AMD E350 (compared to an atom)

You oughta give the Atom more credit. Mine's got 4 1.5TB drives in mdadm RAID 5, Ubuntu 10.04, been running my torrents almost constantly for the past nearly two years, and I can still watch 720p stuff directly from it from another computer without having to create a local copy, though I think 1080p stuff gets laggy. It's got Deluge and KTorrent running simultaneously, for completed file moving purposes. It's also available as an SFTP server. On top of that, it handles remote desktop via VNC pretty well.

I do intend to upgrade to a real server soon though. Or, at least, a server made of desktop parts, not nettop.

[Lupin]

You oughta give the Atom more credit. Mine's got 4 1.5TB drives in mdadm RAID 5, Ubuntu 10.04, been running my torrents almost constantly for the past nearly two years, and I can still watch 720p stuff directly from it from another computer without having to create a local copy, though I think 1080p stuff gets laggy. It's got Deluge and KTorrent running simultaneously, for completed file moving purposes. It's also available as an SFTP server. On top of that, it handles remote desktop via VNC pretty well.

why should I? between atom and bobcat, bobcat provides more bang for the buck. torrenting is a very light load (unless you count hashing the files). the rest of the tasks you listed is just what I posted: make files available on the network. while it looks like the atom can handle the task, try increasing the number of simultaneous users. it will choke faster than bobcat does.

nettop parts pale in comparison to desktop or server parts. that's a given. but if you know what you want, nettop parts is just as good as desktop ones.

[kitamesume]

T> Sempron140 for a E350 yea seriously but meh, consider it a joke instead.

[Freedom Kira]

why should I? between atom and bobcat, bobcat provides more bang for the buck. torrenting is a very light load (unless you count hashing the files). the rest of the tasks you listed is just what I posted: make files available on the network. while it looks like the atom can handle the task, try increasing the number of simultaneous users. it will choke faster than bobcat does.

nettop parts pale in comparison to desktop or server parts. that's a given. but if you know what you want, nettop parts is just as good as desktop ones.

It's got about 50 torrents on Deluge and 250 on KTorrent, and it's slowly starting to choke. I don't really have anything to compare to, other than my P4 lagging intensely when running about 100-150 torrents with Vuze, though that was ages ago.

Bobcat is a more recent development, no? Released earlier this year? I would expect it to perform roughly similar to what I have from my Atom, which is a couple years old. What are prices on Bobcat like? I can't find anything on Newegg. My Atom + board cost $90 CAD when I got it.

I'm pretty much the only person who uses it. I make it available for friends to SFTP files to/from, but no one really uses it.

[sapsa]

Lupin, thanks for the info about Bobcat CPU (didn't heard of them till now) - will look into it and thanks for link - there is ALOT of builds with all things needed. To bad I can't get more than half of those items in my local/country wide stores - but I like to check them.

Freedom Kira, i know that atoms have a lot of credit I really don't need my NAS to play 720p thought - the problem with them is there is alot of atoms with 2 SATAs less with 4 SATAs and almost none with more. Vuze ain't lightweight. And there was a news some time ago about releasing new ATOMs CPUs in near future - would need to look into it

kitamesume, i like the idea of that frame and PCIe Sata cards - but i would prefer to have few SATAs on board at start . I will definitely go for 2nd hand . You call core2duo old ? What about still working Celeron 333Mhz ?. athlon II X2 - I dont think it's ECO Energy compatible the lower power consume the better - so Atom or Bobcat. Sandy Bridge is a little overpriced - mobo + cpu, but probably the good choose for future NAS.

datora, nice thing you found there - the SSD in RAID on PCI-e, little to much but the speed need to be amazing, 3 sec boot ?(joking, 5 ). You gave me alot of really useful info there, and I'm thanking you. About SAMSUNG F4 HD204UI, they are nice hdd's but some time ago I posted topic about having problem with them on two different setups - I think it's all depends on SATA controller.

bork, all of my old mobo's are PCI without SATA one ;P - thanks for tip

I read your replays before at work but didn't have time to post them. Thanks a lot, if you have more great ideas please post, I will be happy to read them.

I will look into those page's you recommended me and those cpu's / sata cards you posted guys.

Thanks, Mike

Edit: s@#t I just fallen in love with Rack cases for HDDs - damn you, damn you all

Edit 2: are there RACK Cases for HDDs that ain't SCSI ? Not really right? racks are for servers, servers use scsi... // few of them are event for SAS ~ and SATA ~ darn you... but sooo sexy..

Edit 3: I "like" how I see the price at NewEgg, then, at my story, then on newegg, then at my store and I see twice much at my store, It would be cheaper to buy it from newegg and ship it here, but they dont ship here...

[Freedom Kira]

Freedom Kira, i know that atoms have a lot of credit I really don't need my NAS to play 720p thought - the problem with them is there is alot of atoms with 2 SATAs less with 4 SATAs and almost none with more. Vuze ain't lightweight. And there was a news some time ago about releasing new ATOMs CPUs in near future - would need to look into it

Invest in a cheap PCI RAID card - by cheap I mean cheap. Mine cost $20. It's not for the performance (it's actually relatively slow), but just to connect more drives. My board has 2 SATA - I use one for the boot drive, and then I just connect the four drives via the RAID card.

No, Vuze isn't light at all, it's pretty much the exact opposite. It might even be heavier than running two clients at once, even when one of them is as heavy as KTorrent. Doesn't help that it's now 7 years old and has been running XP since the beginning with just basic maintenance (defrag, McAfee antivirus, and whatnot). Needless to say I'll be building a new computer soon after building the new server.

Edit 3: I "like" how I see the price at NewEgg, then, at my story, then on newegg, then at my store and I see twice much at my store, It would be cheaper to buy it from newegg and ship it here, but they dont ship here...

Was that an attempt at mimicking the Old Spice guy?

[sapsa]

Freedom Kira, but buying CHEAP really CHEAP Raid Card may give problems with hdd's ?! Like I wrote before - I had problem with hdd's on my Raid controller.
and yes, that was failed attempt, sorry sir

Edit: I found something new for me, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816116097
How dose it work, what it need to work ?! Is that pluged in SAS slot, so SAS slot = 4 SATA's ?

[bork]

...
Edit: I found something new for me, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816116097
How dose it work, what it need to work ?! Is that pluged in SAS slot, so SAS slot = 4 SATA's ?

Plugs into something like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=3ware+9650se

[halfelite]

You oughta give the Atom more credit. Mine's got 4 1.5TB drives in mdadm RAID 5, Ubuntu 10.04, been running my torrents almost constantly for the past nearly two years, and I can still watch 720p stuff directly from it from another computer without having to create a local copy, though I think 1080p stuff gets laggy. It's got Deluge and KTorrent running simultaneously, for completed file moving purposes. It's also available as an SFTP server. On top of that, it handles remote desktop via VNC pretty well.

why should I? between atom and bobcat, bobcat provides more bang for the buck. torrenting is a very light load (unless you count hashing the files). the rest of the tasks you listed is just what I posted: make files available on the network. while it looks like the atom can handle the task, try increasing the number of simultaneous users. it will choke faster than bobcat does.

nettop parts pale in comparison to desktop or server parts. that's a given. but if you know what you want, nettop parts is just as good as desktop ones.

Although I agree with you on the subject of atom vs amd-e There is one slight fault while the amd-e is better at video processing it actually takes a hit on disc access speed. Doing baseline rar unrar benchmarks the atom will come out on top. If you were building in htpc or something to watch videos and mild gaming I would say go with the AMD-E as thats what its good at. If you are building a file server I would lean more towards the atom. Now granted the benchmark difference is not huge its still a difference.  I have actually been eyeing the ASUS E35M1-I running the AMD E-350 for my next pc build

[Freedom Kira]

Freedom Kira, but buying CHEAP really CHEAP Raid Card may give problems with hdd's ?! Like I wrote before - I had problem with hdd's on my Raid controller.
and yes, that was failed attempt, sorry sir

I think you might have just gotten unlucky, or I just got lucky.

In any case, though, I got the card in a local store, and it's difficult to say what brand/model it is. So I probably can't point you at the one I got anyway.