Insane Compact NAS 2014 - 48TB Network-attached Storage

[Eruainur]

Question about this build:

 

there are different Sata controllers on there, right? how did you get it to RAID like that or is that a feature of FreeNas?

[mfitz50]

FreeNAS uses the ZFS filesystem. the Advantage to ZFS it is the only filesystem to support multiple indepentant drives, where other filesystem are designed only to support one so the use of raid controllers comes in to create one logical hdd. So in conversional terms its a software raid

[JacksonLee]

Sorry to bring up an old thread, but is he using the Motherboards RAID or a RAID Card? If so what card?

 

I am having troubling finding a reasonably priced RAID card to support my 4 x 6TB WD RED drives.. 

[unijab]

Neither.

 

The OS is implementing the raid functionality.

[Jeepman]

Sweet setup, just found the site and my Current system is 13TB so 48TB would be ideal for me as I have a very large Movie/TV collection...

 

I just missed out on a auction for an HP Data system with 130TB as that would have set me for life...

[centimuz]

Can anybody help please, doing this build but of course not to the extent. Though a downgraded system with 12TB and 32GB ram. I built the system, the problem is that the case is not powering on. Although, the motherboard is on and connected the front panel wires to the System Panel Header in the Asrock C2750D4I based on the configuration. Thinking that the board or the case was the problem, replaced both and built the way to be configured, still the problem persists? Is there something else I am missing? Could it be the power supply - but it's powering the motherboard?

[nighthawk454]

Hey centimuz, I had the same problem - it's the power supply. 

 

Assuming you're using the Silverstone 450W SFX Gold PSU, that actually won't work with this case. If you look at the website for the case, there's a reason they suggest either the 450W Bronze not the 450W Gold. When I ordered my parts, I figured the 450W Bronze and 450W Gold are like the same price, why not get the gold rated one? This is for a server after all. 

 

The reason is that the 5V rail doesn't carry enough current to power the drive cage backplane. If you look at the specs on Silverstone's website, the ST45SF-G carries only 14A on the +5V rail, whereas the ST45SF (bronze) carries 22A and the SX500-LG carries 20A. Based on estimates I've seen on forums, the backplane requires about 16A - just outside the range of the 450W Gold. 

 

When debugging my rig, I found that the machine boots fine with out power connected to the drive cage backplane, but as soon as you touch a power connector to the backplane it dies, as if it had shorted out. So I ended up testing with two power supplies, using the second just to power the backplane and the 450W Gold for the rest of the system, and everything worked fine. Furthermore, I tried 'juicing up' the backplane with the second PSU, then after a second or two of power, switched it over to the main 450W Gold and everything was still fine. So it seemed that only the initial current draw was the problem. 

 

Here's actually a comment on Newegg from the Silverstone RMA Department, confirming that the issue is the backplane requiring more current than the PSU can deliver:

 

 

 

To all who have had this issue, not booting when backplane connected to power.

We have found there is a compatibility issue with the ST45SF-G an d the DS380 case.  
The PCB board is fine.

The ST45SF-G only has only 14amps on the +5v rail and the PCB board requires more amps to power the hard drives.
We recommend you exchange your PSU for the SX600-G unit. 


Best regards,

SilverStone RMA Department

 

If you look around on Google, you'll see most people mention it's due to the power required by the hard drives (e.g. PCPartPicker forums). However, in my experience, it's not number of hard drives, but powering the backplane at all. I experienced this issue even with 0 drives installed. Looking at the board, there doesn't appear to be any switching logic to only enable circuits for bays that have drives installed, so all of those capacitors charge up regardless of how many drives you have installed (even with 0 drives). That initial current draw seems to be the problem, as once the caps charge up, you can connect the PSU without crashing the system. 

 

Weirdly, I had actually had the system up and running, and had rebooted it probably ~10 times before I started hitting this issue. Sort of makes the whole thing more scary because you could have this rig in production working fine for arbitrarily long between reboots, then any power failure or reboot may make it look like your system has died. Hopefully if the LMG guys are actually using this rig they have a good PSU! 

 

Anyway, yeah, I'd try getting a different PSU. I went with the 500W Gold version and it works fine, though a bit large at an SFX-L size. FWIW, Silverstone is now recommending either the 430W Bronze, 450W Bronze, or 600W Gold. 

[Cantanko]

The one time you decide to follow an LTT build suggestion:

 

That's my NAS with a time-to-live on it, then...

[gibbsy81]

On 11/13/2014 at 6:43 PM, UltraNeonGaming said:

48TB! DAMN!

Nah 1PB is where its at.