Building your own NAS?
Discussion
GJOB said:
jjlynn27 said:
more meaningful results would be gained from bonnie++ or similar. As for your 6TB WD box; if it's configured from 2x3tb drives, it's configured as r0 aka suicide raid. Failure of either drive will result in loss of all data.
This, it's a prosumer box, the older version of this http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/data-storage/hard-dr...It's RAID0 but it doesn't contain mission critical data at the moment, that's why I'm looking for some help - having checked the specs for what I thought I wanted I don't know if that will meet our needs and I don't want to keep sending stuff back...
...like someone said, chicken & egg ...
If we build something at least we can replace parts or re-purpose them if I spec something incorrectly - we ll that's the idea any way.
Based on limited info, I'd get one of synology boxes, preferably 8/16 drive one and configure it as R10, and keep that box as a backup unit. As Tony suggested bond available network ports.
I found the original video that got me thinking about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycbq_gTqT5M
jjlynn27 said:
That link says R1 and the box has 'mirror' in the name, which points to that you'll have 2x6TB drives and data is written to both of them, so if one fails you'll still have data. Performance wise it'll be like (given efficient controller) writing data to a single drive.
Based on limited info, I'd get one of synology boxes, preferably 8/16 drive one and configure it as R10, and keep that box as a backup unit. As Tony suggested bond available network ports.
Based on limited info, I'd get one of synology boxes, preferably 8/16 drive one and configure it as R10, and keep that box as a backup unit. As Tony suggested bond available network ports.
Personally I'd be going the FreeNAS route and add an SSD or 2 for L2ARC + ZIL but you're going to have to learn about ZFS (the benefits are worth it though)
https://blogs.oracle.com/brendan/entry/test
Don't bother with hardware RAID controller or fast CPU, just gets lots of RAM (must be ECC!) and also enable ZFS compression.
https://blogs.oracle.com/brendan/entry/test
Don't bother with hardware RAID controller or fast CPU, just gets lots of RAM (must be ECC!) and also enable ZFS compression.
I use SHR for mine, it's beginner friendly, decent performance and redundancy, and can easily be expanded. Super simple. Synology only.
https://www.synology.com/en-global/support/RAID_ca...
I have 2x 3TB at the moment for basically a mirror setup, but when I add a third I'll be adding pure storage. You can mix and match drives too. You are limited by the largest drive you have 2 of by what I can see. So if I was to add a 4TB drive to mine, I'd have 1Tb unused at the moment.
You can choose SHR or SHR-2, depending on how many drives you want redundancy against. You cannot however change once setup, so if you're going for a large amount of disks, choose SHR-2.
https://www.synology.com/en-global/support/RAID_ca...
I have 2x 3TB at the moment for basically a mirror setup, but when I add a third I'll be adding pure storage. You can mix and match drives too. You are limited by the largest drive you have 2 of by what I can see. So if I was to add a 4TB drive to mine, I'd have 1Tb unused at the moment.
You can choose SHR or SHR-2, depending on how many drives you want redundancy against. You cannot however change once setup, so if you're going for a large amount of disks, choose SHR-2.
Edited by Digitalize on Tuesday 10th March 13:01
RichwiththeS2000 said:
For home, I got a HP Microserver, filled it with 4x 4Tb SATA drives. Cost less than £300 for the lot IIRC. RAID 1 the disks for protection, install linux + Samba. Speeds are good (it will max out a 100/100 connection, and it has spare PCI slots if you want to add faster network cards.
Job done, and it only uses about 100W of power on full chat so its not going to cost much to leave on.
Avoid the NAS 'appliances' you can get, they typically have really s
tty CPUs and NICs which makes the speeds terrible.
I've got a Microserver with a bunch of disks (5x4TB in RAIDZ1) running FreeNAS and can get 80+ MB/s read / write with an Intel NIC & 16GB RAM.Job done, and it only uses about 100W of power on full chat so its not going to cost much to leave on.
Avoid the NAS 'appliances' you can get, they typically have really s
tty CPUs and NICs which makes the speeds terrible.It costs similar to an "off the shelf" solution but performs a LOT better for a little more configuration.
I've also put in an SSD as a cache drive which is a bit pointless.
Not sure I'd be using it (FreeNAS - not a Microserver) for proper business use, though.
Jakg said:
I've also put in an SSD as a cache drive which is a bit pointless.
Depends on whether or not you can max out your disks over the NIC. If you can't then agreed there isn't a whole lot of point.Jakg said:
Not sure I'd be using it (FreeNAS - not a Microserver) for proper business use, though.
Any particular reason why you wouldn't ?If you want support then get TrueNAS http://www.freenas.org/for-business/
I trust my data on ZFS far more than any other file system due to it's checksumming and ability to schedule regular scrubs to make sure the disks aren't silently corrupting data.
I trust my data on ZFS far more than any other file system due to it's checksumming and ability to schedule regular scrubs to make sure the disks aren't silently corrupting data.
cornet said:
I trust my data on ZFS far more than any other file system due to it's checksumming and ability to schedule regular scrubs to make sure the disks aren't silently corrupting data.
It's not ZFS I have an issue with - more that some businesses want more support than open source products usually come with - and it sounded like the OP was more than a couple of users in a shed.Jakg said:
cornet said:
I trust my data on ZFS far more than any other file system due to it's checksumming and ability to schedule regular scrubs to make sure the disks aren't silently corrupting data.
It's not ZFS I have an issue with - more that some businesses want more support than open source products usually come with - and it sounded like the OP was more than a couple of users in a shed.
).That said - see TrueNAS above (which is the paid-for supported version of FreeNAS)
With the greatest of respect to the OP, the fact that in his own words he's using some "WD 6TB thing" suggests to me that going out and buying a bunch of components and trying to put it all together, sort out the wonderful world of ZFS, and support the thing himself if there's an issue, might not be the best thing for the business.
In his position he should just buy something off the shelf that's a) up to the job and b) commercially supported and move on with more important things.
In his position he should just buy something off the shelf that's a) up to the job and b) commercially supported and move on with more important things.
bhstewie said:
hstewie said: With the greatest of respect to the OP, the fact that in his own words he's using some "WD 6TB thing" suggests to me that going out and buying a bunch of components and trying to put it all together, sort out the wonderful world of ZFS, and support the thing himself if there's an issue, might not be the best thing for the business.
In his position he should just buy something off the shelf that's a) up to the job and b) commercially supported and move on with more important things.
^^ sound advice.In his position he should just buy something off the shelf that's a) up to the job and b) commercially supported and move on with more important things.
bhstewie said:
hstewie said: With the greatest of respect to the OP, the fact that in his own words he's using some "WD 6TB thing" suggests to me that going out and buying a bunch of components and trying to put it all together, sort out the wonderful world of ZFS, and support the thing himself if there's an issue, might not be the best thing for the business.
In his position he should just buy something off the shelf that's a) up to the job and b) commercially supported and move on with more important things.
While I kind of agree with this sentiment commercial support doesn't get you a free pass to it "just working". Considering how this could affect the OP's core business my advice would be either hire someone that knows what they are doing or pay a reputable 3rd party to come and spec + install it for you and provide a good support contract.In his position he should just buy something off the shelf that's a) up to the job and b) commercially supported and move on with more important things.
cornet said:
bhstewie said:
hstewie said: With the greatest of respect to the OP, the fact that in his own words he's using some "WD 6TB thing" suggests to me that going out and buying a bunch of components and trying to put it all together, sort out the wonderful world of ZFS, and support the thing himself if there's an issue, might not be the best thing for the business.
In his position he should just buy something off the shelf that's a) up to the job and b) commercially supported and move on with more important things.
While I kind of agree with this sentiment commercial support doesn't get you a free pass to it "just working". Considering how this could affect the OP's core business my advice would be either hire someone that knows what they are doing or pay a reputable 3rd party to come and spec + install it for you and provide a good support contract.In his position he should just buy something off the shelf that's a) up to the job and b) commercially supported and move on with more important things.
).jjlynn27 said:
That link says R1 and the box has 'mirror' in the name, which points to that you'll have 2x6TB drives and data is written to both of them, so if one fails you'll still have data. Performance wise it'll be like (given efficient controller) writing data to a single drive.
Based on limited info, I'd get one of synology boxes, preferably 8/16 drive one and configure it as R10, and keep that box as a backup unit. As Tony suggested bond available network ports.
Based on limited info, I'd get one of synology boxes, preferably 8/16 drive one and configure it as R10, and keep that box as a backup unit. As Tony suggested bond available network ports.
TonyRPH said:
He can back it up to his "WD 6TB thing from PCWorld"
But seriously, I'm not the guy looking after this day to day, I just bought the MyCloud when there were guys looking to share the same data that had been delivered to us on a HDD. Our needs have evolved and now we're ready for the next step. A few more people and we'll likely need someone at least part time to look after the hardware, network, backups etc.
If anyone fancies a part-time job in MK let me know
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