I'm building a NAS and have a couple questions

[nzstubbies]

I'm building a NAS and would like to get some input on which raid to use and also how many watts my psu needs to be.

I'm wanting to to have a redundancy drive(s) and the array will be a max of 8 drives but will probably start with just 2-3 and more as i need them

 

What would your recommendation be for raid in order to try and maximize the storage available yet having redundancies in place?

 

What wattage should the power supply be if i ever end up using 8 drives?

 

Thanks in advance

[jjar35]

I would personally go with a raid 1 config. if you are using higher end HDDs like WD black or red. That will give you a single redundant drive. If you are really worried about loosing drives go with a raid 5 config. which will give you 2 redundant drives. However if you are limited to 8 drives than basically you cannot do 3x raid 5 configs. Personally I would get WD blacks (more of a personal choice for me as they are slightly better optimized for video) though reds will do just fine, and go with a Raid 1 which would theoretically give you up two 24 TBs of storage (using 8x 6 TB HDDs).

[nzstubbies]

I would personally go with a raid 1 config. if you are using higher end HDDs like WD black or red. That will give you a single redundant drive. If you are really worried about loosing drives go with a raid 5 config. which will give you 2 redundant drives. However if you are limited to 8 drives than basically you cannot do 3x raid 5 configs. Personally I would get WD blacks (more of a personal choice for me as they are slightly better optimized for video) though reds will do just fine, and go with a Raid 1 which would theoretically give you up two 24 TBs of storage (using 8x 6 TB HDDs).

ok, so your viewpoint would be to have complete double ups in order to eliminate loss of data, because i could max it with 8 drives what would your opinion be on a raid 10 option. as from my understanding it is the same as raid 1 but will allow increased performance but instead the chance of 1 drive failing i would have 2 drives failing, yes?

[Blake]

ok, so your viewpoint would be to have complete double ups in order to eliminate loss of data, because i could max it with 8 drives what would your opinion be on a raid 10 option. as from my understanding it is the same as raid 1 but will allow increased performance but instead the chance of 1 drive failing i would have 2 drives failing, yes?

RAID10 would give you the ability to loose 1 disk from each RAID 1 set, but if both disks where from the same set you'd loose everything. What RAID card do you have/Plan on getting? A lot of RAID cards support migrating the RAID type. so while you might start with RAID 1, you could migrate over to RAID6 if needed.

 

What are you storing on the system, primarily? you can go with RAID 1/10 if you want but it might not be the best 'fit'.

 

For example ,my NAS is primarily for streaming large files, so space + read speeds where my primary need, so I setup a RAID 5 (1gbps/20mbps R/W). In this config/example, I wouldn't be storing any VHDs or Virtual Machines on it as the write speeds would tank the system, where as if I had gone with a RAID10 setup, My reads wouldn't be as high, but my writes would be orders of magnitude higher (as no need to perform parity calculations on every write), however I would be sacrificing 50% of disk space.

[nzstubbies]

RAID10 would give you the ability to loose 1 disk from each RAID 1 set, but if both disks where from the same set you'd loose everything. What RAID card do you have/Plan on getting? A lot of RAID cards support migrating the RAID type. so while you might start with RAID 1, you could migrate over to RAID6 if needed.

 

What are you storing on the system, primarily? you can go with RAID 1/10 if you want but it might not be the best 'fit'.

 

For example ,my NAS is primarily for streaming large files, so space + read speeds where my primary need, so I setup a RAID 5 (1gbps/20mbps R/W). In this config/example, I wouldn't be storing any VHDs or Virtual Machines on it as the write speeds would tank the system, where as if I had gone with a RAID10 setup, My reads wouldn't be as high, but my writes would be orders of magnitude higher (as no need to perform parity calculations on every write), however I would be sacrificing 50% of disk space.

Hi thanks for you feedback, it will mostly for storing videos, music and my steam library so its basically just going to be a huge file server. I'm wanting good redundancy as i cannot afford to have a backup nas for this one so i want to protect against drive failure as much as possible. 

 

http://www.alphacity.co.nz/index.php?z=p&p=147152&qr=pricespy - this is the raid card im looking at right now. still not set though.

 

it looks like either raid 1 or 5 would be best.

 

How big of a power supply would you recommend as i cant seem to find any straight forward answer for it. As stated in the start the psu would need to able to handle 8 drives for storage and one for 2.5 drive for freenas

[Captain_WD]

I'm building a NAS and would like to get some input on which raid to use and also how many watts my psu needs to be.

I'm wanting to to have a redundancy drive(s) and the array will be a max of 8 drives but will probably start with just 2-3 and more as i need them

 

What would your recommendation be for raid in order to try and maximize the storage available yet having redundancies in place?

 

What wattage should the power supply be if i ever end up using 8 drives?

 

Thanks in advance

 

Hey there nzstubbies,

 

You should first decide if you want to do hardware or software RAID. Also, I would strongly recommend using NAS/RAID-class drives for this as they have important additional features in the hardware and firmware of the drives that enable them to work much safer and smoother in these environments. Using such drives decreases the chances of data corruption and drive dropouts. WD Red is such a drive that should serve you well: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=Z1eOk4

 

For up to 8 drives I could recommend using either RAID6 or RAID10 (depending on how much useful storage space you'd need). Both offer good redundancy and speed boost. 

 

Check Linus's videos on the different types of RAID arrays:

 

Feel free to ask if you happen to have questions

 

Captain_WD.

[nzstubbies]

 

Hey there nzstubbies,

 

You should first decide if you want to do hardware or software RAID. Also, I would strongly recommend using NAS/RAID-class drives for this as they have important additional features in the hardware and firmware of the drives that enable them to work much safer and smoother in these environments. Using such drives decreases the chances of data corruption and drive dropouts. WD Red is such a drive that should serve you well: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=Z1eOk4

 

For up to 8 drives I could recommend using either RAID6 or RAID10 (depending on how much useful storage space you'd need). Both offer good redundancy and speed boost. 

 

Check Linus's videos on the different types of RAID arrays:

 

Feel free to ask if you happen to have questions

 

Captain_WD.

 

Hi Captain_WD

 

Thanks for your input

 

I have already decided on using WD reds in the build and as for those videos i have watched them so many times that i have ended up changing my mind back and forth.

For me its differcult to decide on a software or hardware raid as the cost of motherboard for me to do a software raid is quite expensive for just a build like mine but then getting a cheaper motherboard and then getting a good raid card that will support 8 drives is $100 more expensive than a proper mobo. (I live in NZ so I do not have many options available in the way of products). In total before the purchase of drives it will cost me just under $1000NZD for a software raid or just over for a hardware raid and im not sure if its really worth it or not right now for me.

 

Whats your opinion on software vs hardware for raid?

[EmeraldFlame]

I'm building a NAS and would like to get some input on which raid to use and also how many watts my psu needs to be.

I'm wanting to to have a redundancy drive(s) and the array will be a max of 8 drives but will probably start with just 2-3 and more as i need them

 

What would your recommendation be for raid in order to try and maximize the storage available yet having redundancies in place?

 

What wattage should the power supply be if i ever end up using 8 drives?

 

Thanks in advance

Depends on how many drives you end up going with and whether you get a good raid card or not. If you start at just 2 drives, RAID 1 is really the only thing you can run that offers redundancy.

At 3 drives you can move to RAID 5, but I typically don't recommend this unless you have a decent dedicated RAID card. The parity calculation can run pretty slow on software RAIDs.

At 8 drives, I personally would use RAID 6 for the double redundancy on that many drives, once again, I would recommend a dedicated RAID card though.

I know some of the NAS specific OS's like FreeNAS have some software raids with nice features now, but I am not all that familiar with them since I run Windows Server.

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

 

Well, software RAID would be managed by the hardware of the PC and thus might have some small impact on performance and might be easier to rebuild in case something fails. Hardware RAID is considered much more stable and safe, but heavily depends on the RAID card. It's controlled by the card and if it fails, you would need to find the exact same card in order to get your data back. I'd do some research and see which option would better fit your needs.

 

Captain_WD.

[scottyseng]

Hi Captain_WD

 

Thanks for your input

 

I have already decided on using WD reds in the build and as for those videos i have watched them so many times that i have ended up changing my mind back and forth.

For me its differcult to decide on a software or hardware raid as the cost of motherboard for me to do a software raid is quite expensive for just a build like mine but then getting a cheaper motherboard and then getting a good raid card that will support 8 drives is $100 more expensive than a proper mobo. (I live in NZ so I do not have many options available in the way of products). In total before the purchase of drives it will cost me just under $1000NZD for a software raid or just over for a hardware raid and im not sure if its really worth it or not right now for me.

 

Whats your opinion on software vs hardware for raid?

 

Reds are a good choice. Software RAID should be cheaper though. If you're short of SATA ports, you can buy a used SAS HBA card (I got a used Dell on for $50) that will give you more SATA ports. That or buy a SATA PCIe card.

 

Hardware RAID (the decent controllers) start at the $500-700 mark with the battery back up units. But as stated above, if the RAID card dies (it probably won't...these things are made for enterprise use...I think mine just laughs at my consumer NAS load...), you have to replace it. Also, please consider buying a back up unit for your NAS if you go software RAID, so you don't lose any data when the power goes out (My RAID card's in built battery back up saved me several times when the power went out / the Corsair AX860i went defective). Also, you need to have a fan blowing on the RAID card as they are meant to be in servers with high RPM fans and they do run really hot.

 

What OS are you planning to use? What OS is on the PCs acessing the NAS? If you go FreeNAS, the hardware requirements are different than if you use Windows or Windows Server.

 

I would recommend RAID1 for max redundancy, but if you have 4 drives, then RAID 10. The performance boost is quite noticeable. However, keep in mind you usually cannot expand RAID0, 1, or 10. You have to have the drives upfront (At least for my LSI MegaRAID card, that is the case).

 

I have six WD 4TB Reds in RAID10 and they get around 500MB/s Seq Read. Four of them gets 350MB/s Seq Red.

[nzstubbies]

Reds are a good choice. Software RAID should be cheaper though. If you're short of SATA ports, you can buy a used SAS HBA card (I got a used Dell on for $50) that will give you more SATA ports. That or buy a SATA PCIe card.

 

Hardware RAID (the decent controllers) start at the $500-700 mark with the battery back up units. But as stated above, if the RAID card dies (it probably won't...these things are made for enterprise use...I think mine just laughs at my consumer NAS load...), you have to replace it. Also, please consider buying a back up unit for your NAS if you go software RAID, so you don't lose any data when the power goes out (My RAID card's in built battery back up saved me several times when the power went out / the Corsair AX860i went defective). Also, you need to have a fan blowing on the RAID card as they are meant to be in servers with high RPM fans and they do run really hot.

 

What OS are you planning to use? What OS is on the PCs acessing the NAS? If you go FreeNAS, the hardware requirements are different than if you use Windows or Windows Server.

 

I would recommend RAID1 for max redundancy, but if you have 4 drives, then RAID 10. The performance boost is quite noticeable. However, keep in mind you usually cannot expand RAID0, 1, or 10. You have to have the drives upfront (At least for my LSI MegaRAID card, that is the case).

 

I have six WD 4TB Reds in RAID10 and they get around 500MB/s Seq Read. Four of them gets 350MB/s Seq Red.

I'm running windows 8.1 and will be using the lastest version of freeNAS

[nzstubbies]

Thanks for the help guys, I have decided to do a 6 drive array using 3tb WD Red drives (better price/tb ratio). It will be a software raid set up through FreeNAS and I believe it will met all of my needs. I decided to get 6 drives straight away instead of adding as i need them as it will just be easier in the long run.

 

Again thanks for all your help, I greatly appreciate it 

[scottyseng]

Thanks for the help guys, I have decided to do a 6 drive array using 3tb WD Red drives (better price/tb ratio). It will be a software raid set up through FreeNAS and I believe it will met all of my needs. I decided to get 6 drives straight away instead of adding as i need them as it will just be easier in the long run.

 

Again thanks for all your help, I greatly appreciate it 

 

Good luck with the build and I hope it goes well. Make sure to test all of the drives first (I usually run the extended test using WD's Lifeguard Diagnostics tool) to make sure you don't have any DOA drives (It happens to me from time to time) before building the array.

[nzstubbies]

Good luck with the build and I hope it goes well. Make sure to test all of the drives first (I usually run the extended test using WD's Lifeguard Diagnostics tool) to make sure you don't have any DOA drives (It happens to me from time to time) before building the array.

Thanks for that, I forgot about making sure to test all my drive before trying to use them.

[nzstubbies]

Good luck with the build and I hope it goes well. Make sure to test all of the drives first (I usually run the extended test using WD's Lifeguard Diagnostics tool) to make sure you don't have any DOA drives (It happens to me from time to time) before building the array.

One last thing will a 450w PSU supply enough power for 6 drives?

[Blake]

One last thing will a 450w PSU supply enough power for 6 drives?

yes. lets be generous and say the drives use 20w at spin-up (which is about double what they actually will) 20x6=120w+rest of system. so you should be fine unless the rest of the system is x-fire R9 290 and a  overclocked AMD FX-9590 or something (which if it is, we need to talk about what a file server does).

[scottyseng]

One last thing will a 450w PSU supply enough power for 6 drives?

 

If it's a good quality one, then yes. hard drives don't really pull that much wattage unless you have a lot of them (like over 16)