NAS For Work Use

[Jallerton00]

I work at a small (only 5 people working there max) engineering design company. We are currently hosting the server in a really shit way I wish we weren't (public folder on a work station).

 

I have now been asked to look at upgrading this keeping it cheap. The main thing it needs to be able to do is store all of the company files (less than 500gb) and for everyone to be able to work on a couple files at a time.

 

I would also like to implement some kind of redundancy.

 

I am currently thinking of either a DIY freeNAS/NAS4free server or a prebuilt. I'm not entirely sure what spec I should be looking at to achieve this, and haven't found any prebuilt NASes that fit these needs.

 

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

[Lord Nicoll]

18 minutes ago, Jallerton00 said:

I work at a small (only 5 people working there max) engineering design company. We are currently hosting the server in a really shit way I wish we weren't (public folder on a work station).

 

I have now been asked to look at upgrading this keeping it cheap. The main thing it needs to be able to do is store all of the company files (less than 500gb) and for everyone to be able to work on a couple files at a time.

 

I would also like to implement some kind of redundancy.

 

I am currently thinking of either a DIY freeNAS/NAS4free server or a prebuilt. I'm not entirely sure what spec I should be looking at to achieve this, and haven't found any prebuilt NASes that fit these needs.

 

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

I made a SANs for my house out of curiosity to see if it was hard or more useful than a NAS, it was a pain and ate a lot of time, however for you, I think a NAS would be enough.
What server do you have now? Do you want to keep the machine on your premises locally? If you want cheap, maybe don't bother with dual Xeon, sole NAS's don't really need it, and maybe a redundant RAID 6, maybe even RAID 60? What kind of workstations do you have and what kind of internal network? Can it support constant over the network workloads? Could you easily upgrade to 10GB/s if you don't already have it?

 

[that said, it's easier to justify a SAN for a company, and it has one or two advantages you might want to consider]

[Jallerton00]

46 minutes ago, Lord Nicoll said:

I made a SANs for my house out of curiosity to see if it was hard or more useful than a NAS, it was a pain and ate a lot of time, however for you, I think a NAS would be enough.
What server do you have now? Do you want to keep the machine on your premises locally? If you want cheap, maybe don't bother with dual Xeon, sole NAS's don't really need it, and maybe a redundant RAID 6, maybe even RAID 60? What kind of workstations do you have and what kind of internal network? Can it support constant over the network workloads? Could you easily upgrade to 10GB/s if you don't already have it?

 

[that said, it's easier to justify a SAN for a company, and it has one or two advantages you might want to consider]

The current server is literally just another one of the prebuilt i3 workstations we have, and is used at the same time as serving the files. (I did not set this up.)

The machine would definitely be local, the internet speed is so poor it doesn't make sense to go off site.

I'll have a further look at different types of RAID, especially the ones you mentioned.

It is currently gigabit, and I wouldn't be able to convince them they need 10 gigabit.

 

I don't really know much about SANs, so what advantages would they have over NASes?

[Lord Nicoll]

5 hours ago, Jallerton00 said:

The current server is literally just another one of the prebuilt i3 workstations we have, and is used at the same time as serving the files. (I did not set this up.)

The machine would definitely be local, the internet speed is so poor it doesn't make sense to go off site.

I'll have a further look at different types of RAID, especially the ones you mentioned.

It is currently gigabit, and I wouldn't be able to convince them they need 10 gigabit.

 

I don't really know much about SANs, so what advantages would they have over NASes?

Basically, a SANs shares the storage drives, while a NAS shares the storage files, a SANs is better for many many users (usually in the thousands) so you wouldn't need that much, but it is easily expandable to more users, however so is a NAS. I would personally suggest getting a HP ProLiant DL380 G7, I own one of these old dual Xeon 2U rack servers and I'm quite happy with it, by default it can hold 8 2.5" SFF SAS disks, I have 3 10K 146GB ones, in a RAID 5 for just under 300GB. You can also install the OS on a USB stick or SD card internally to the server, to save space. You can use normal SATA SSDs for a RAID 5 array with this server, however the drives will get nuked as this server's raid card doesn't support the trim command (I think that's why they die so fast at least)

However it might not be easy to justify a whole rack for a single server, HP also made some workstation versions, so they might be worth thinking about too. I made a video on my HP ProLiant DL380 G7 if you wanna look. I go over some of it's features.

 

[GDRRiley]

way overkill. 500gb for your os and fast files/cache and then a 18tb raid 6 array for the rest of you data.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Celeron G3900 2.8GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($38.99 @ OutletPC) 
Motherboard: ASRock - E3V5 WS ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($100.98 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Crucial - 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($93.49 @ Adorama) 
Memory: Crucial - 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($93.49 @ Adorama) 
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($149.99 @ B&H) 
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($149.99 @ B&H) 
Storage: Seagate - Constellation ES 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($99.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Seagate - Constellation ES 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($99.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Seagate - Constellation ES 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($99.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Seagate - Constellation ES 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($99.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Seagate - Constellation ES 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($99.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Seagate - Constellation ES 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($99.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Seagate - Constellation ES 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($99.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Seagate - Constellation ES 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($99.99 @ Amazon) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic - G 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($68.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Other: NORCO RPC-2008  ($190.00)
Other: supermicro raid card ($140.00)
Total: $1825.84
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-08-24 00:17 EDT-0400

[Pixel5]

honestly with that low requirements the easiest way would be to get a two bay synology, drop in some 3TB drives to future prove it and let them mirror each other.

 

additionally you want to have either USB drives to backup the synology or if you want to go the better route get a 2nd synology and let them mirror each other, possibly even have the 2nd one off site and replicate overnight.

 

far better than fiddling with a self build system unless you have an actual IT guy that sets it up properly.

 

since you only have 1 gigabit networking you could get a NAs with link aggregation support and maybe get them to buy a managed switch that supports it as well, this way you can atleast supply 1gbit to two users at a time.

[hal4253]

I wholeheartedly agree with Pixel5 that a Synology NAS or two is the way to go.  It is small enough to live on a desk or even in a closet and very reliable.  Slap in a couple of hard drives designed specifically for NAS and mirror them to make sure your data is backed up.   For additional backup, use a 4TB external USB 3.0 drive.

 

I did a quick pricing wish list on Newegg and the Synology DS716+II with two 4TB Seagate IronWolf NAS hard drives came up to $708.98 US.  I chose the Synology DS716+II with the Celeron and 2GB of RAM to address your concerns about multiple files in use at once.  It would still cost much less than a FreeNAS server. 

 

The reason I like Synology NAS systems so much is because I have an 8-bay Synology NAS with 4TB enterprise drives in RAID 5 for my house.  I bought it in early 2014 and have never had any problems with it.    It can handle streaming files to four different computers, as well as have multiple other files open all at once.

[ANNIHILATOR284]

3 hours ago, hal4253 said:

I wholeheartedly agree with Pixel5 that a Synology NAS or two is the way to go.  It is small enough to live on a desk or even in a closet and very reliable.  Slap in a couple of hard drives designed specifically for NAS and mirror them to make sure your data is backed up.   For additional backup, use a 4TB external USB 3.0 drive.

 

I did a quick pricing wish list on Newegg and the Synology DS716+II with two 4TB Seagate IronWolf NAS hard drives came up to $708.98 US.  I chose the Synology DS716+II with the Celeron and 2GB of RAM to address your concerns about multiple files in use at once.  It would still cost much less than a FreeNAS server. 

 

The reason I like Synology NAS systems so much is because I have an 8-bay Synology NAS with 4TB enterprise drives in RAID 5 for my house.  I bought it in early 2014 and have never had any problems with it.    It can handle streaming files to four different computers, as well as have multiple other files open all at once.

i guess along with all that a simple no fuss RAID solution in the NAS itself will hit the sweet spot just right

[Mikensan]

Without a budget it's hard to suggest much, but unless you're going to maintain and support the solution, i'd suggest something like a synology or qnap device. Even if you have to buy either used. Redundancy is nice to mitigate downtime, but if the budget is limited I'd refocus money on a backup instead. Disks die and fail so don't think that they never will (even in a RAID) just assume "when." 

 

Most the synologies and qnaps will let you plug in a USB disk, so buy an external and have it replicate nightly or something.

 

You could buy a used device and new disks, or refurb'd disks. Just make sure you backup. 500gb is tiny, you could back that up to google drive for free (encrypt and backup if scared of it being on the cloud).

[Dlog]

On 8/23/2017 at 2:11 PM, Jallerton00 said:

I work at a small (only 5 people working there max) engineering design company. We are currently hosting the server in a really shit way I wish we weren't (public folder on a work station).

 

I have now been asked to look at upgrading this keeping it cheap. The main thing it needs to be able to do is store all of the company files (less than 500gb) and for everyone to be able to work on a couple files at a time.

 

I would also like to implement some kind of redundancy.

 

I am currently thinking of either a DIY freeNAS/NAS4free server or a prebuilt. I'm not entirely sure what spec I should be looking at to achieve this, and haven't found any prebuilt NASes that fit these needs.

 

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

With your storage needs and desire for resiliency why not just slap 2 2tb drives in a computer and put raid 1 on it. You can do this with Freenas fairly easily or even with it's current setup.

 

If your internet situation ever gets better you could backing up to backblaze or something during off hours. This gives you local resiliency and an offsite backup. 

[Emmien]

Just use any old PC. Install UnRaid, add the disks, your done. Anything will run UnRaid or FreeNAS absolutely fine. You really want something with a gigabit LAN port and plenty of SATA ports, and preferably LGA775/AM2 or later, but you could use something ancient and it will be okay, perhaps less reliable.

If you have a spare workstation, that could work.

You don't need an i7 or even an i5. My NAS runs on a Pentium (Going to upgrade to a Xeon though, so I can run some VMs) and is great.

[dalekphalm]

On 23/08/2017 at 2:11 PM, Jallerton00 said:

I work at a small (only 5 people working there max) engineering design company. We are currently hosting the server in a really shit way I wish we weren't (public folder on a work station).

 

I have now been asked to look at upgrading this keeping it cheap. The main thing it needs to be able to do is store all of the company files (less than 500gb) and for everyone to be able to work on a couple files at a time.

 

I would also like to implement some kind of redundancy.

 

I am currently thinking of either a DIY freeNAS/NAS4free server or a prebuilt. I'm not entirely sure what spec I should be looking at to achieve this, and haven't found any prebuilt NASes that fit these needs.

 

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

I would also suggest the pre-built NAS suggestion (QNAP or Synology both great suggestions - we have both QNAP and Synology NAS's at work). You have warranty and software/configuration support from the manufacturer, and they're simple and easy to configure.

 

Create a network share (or several), do some basic user accounts and user management, and then just map the drives to each computer.

 

If you can afford it, I'd buy 2 identical NAS's, and have one mirror the other. If you're strapped for cash, just get one NAS and an external HDD big enough to make multiple backups. For the NAS itself, I'd recommend 2x drives in RAID1 (3TB HDD's has been mentioned - that's a perfectly reasonable drive size for the future, and 3TB drives are cheap). I would recommend NAS grade drives or better - so for WD that'd be either WD Red or WD Red Pro. For Seagate they have NAS branded drives too.

 

On 24/08/2017 at 5:18 AM, hal4253 said:

I wholeheartedly agree with Pixel5 that a Synology NAS or two is the way to go.  It is small enough to live on a desk or even in a closet and very reliable.  Slap in a couple of hard drives designed specifically for NAS and mirror them to make sure your data is backed up.   For additional backup, use a 4TB external USB 3.0 drive.

 

I did a quick pricing wish list on Newegg and the Synology DS716+II with two 4TB Seagate IronWolf NAS hard drives came up to $708.98 US.  I chose the Synology DS716+II with the Celeron and 2GB of RAM to address your concerns about multiple files in use at once.  It would still cost much less than a FreeNAS server. 

 

The reason I like Synology NAS systems so much is because I have an 8-bay Synology NAS with 4TB enterprise drives in RAID 5 for my house.  I bought it in early 2014 and have never had any problems with it.    It can handle streaming files to four different computers, as well as have multiple other files open all at once.

I actually have a pair of DS716+II's at work (One on-site, one at another location mirroring the primary) - they're very nice small machines. We're using them as long term archive drives, with simple file sharing.

[DrunkenPanda]

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/kdKhQV

$665.67

 

i3, 8GB RAM, 120GB M.2 SSD, RAID1 3TB... can expand to 4 drives giving you 6TB RAID1 storage

 

That's less than or right around the price you'll pay for a 4-bay QNAP or Synology prebuilt NAS after you buy the drives to go in them, with MUCH better specs... Install FreeNAS or Rockstor or whatever flavor of NAS software you like, set up your RAID config and you're off and running.

[seagate_surfer]

On 8/24/2017 at 3:18 AM, hal4253 said:

I wholeheartedly agree with Pixel5 that a Synology NAS or two is the way to go.  It is small enough to live on a desk or even in a closet and very reliable.  Slap in a couple of hard drives designed specifically for NAS and mirror them to make sure your data is backed up.   For additional backup, use a 4TB external USB 3.0 drive.

 

I did a quick pricing wish list on Newegg and the Synology DS716+II with two 4TB Seagate IronWolf NAS hard drives came up to $708.98 US.  I chose the Synology DS716+II with the Celeron and 2GB of RAM to address your concerns about multiple files in use at once.  It would still cost much less than a FreeNAS server. 

Good recommendation. Another thing that is nice about this setup is that particular model paired with IronWolf drives is compatible with IronWolf Health Management (IHM) to go beyond standard S.M.A.R.T monitoring.

[Jallerton00]

On 24/08/2017 at 9:06 AM, Pixel5 said:

honestly with that low requirements the easiest way would be to get a two bay synology, drop in some 3TB drives to future prove it and let them mirror each other.

 

additionally you want to have either USB drives to backup the synology or if you want to go the better route get a 2nd synology and let them mirror each other, possibly even have the 2nd one off site and replicate overnight.

My only worry is the fact 5 people will each be editing a few .DWG files (and sometimes Revit files) straight from it. I had heard that the CPU in one of those wouldn't be able to keep up, do you think this is the case? I certainly think off the shelf would be easier, but I'm not sure it'd be the most economically viable option, especially for this use (sure if it was just a media server or backup, it would be a no brainer).

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, Jallerton00 said:

My only worry is the fact 5 people will each be editing a few .DWG files (and sometimes Revit files) straight from it. I had heard that the CPU in one of those wouldn't be able to keep up, do you think this is the case? I certainly think off the shelf would be easier, but I'm not sure it'd be the most economically viable option, especially for this use (sure if it was just a media server or backup, it would be a no brainer).

You should be fine. Remember that when you open something like a DWG file, most of it is going to be loaded into local memory (RAM) on the client that is editing the file. Only when you save changes (or any auto-saving features Autodesk may have) is it going to actually hit the NAS.

 

And even then, you're literally just doing reads and writes.

 

If everyone is saving or loading at the same exact moment, it might be sluggish, but during actual editing, it should be fine.

 

Besides, the DS716+II that was mentioned above has a quad core Celeron CPU - sure it's not especially fast, but that should be plenty for 5 people working on files remotely.

[Jallerton00]

53 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

You should be fine. Remember that when you open something like a DWG file, most of it is going to be loaded into local memory (RAM) on the client that is editing the file. Only when you save changes (or any auto-saving features Autodesk may have) is it going to actually hit the NAS.

 

And even then, you're literally just doing reads and writes.

 

If everyone is saving or loading at the same exact moment, it might be sluggish, but during actual editing, it should be fine.

 

Besides, the DS716+II that was mentioned above has a quad core Celeron CPU - sure it's not especially fast, but that should be plenty for 5 people working on files remotely.

Ok, cheers. I'll check with my boss soon, and probably order one of those.

[dalekphalm]

6 minutes ago, Jallerton00 said:

Ok, cheers. I'll check with my boss soon, and probably order one of those.

Depending on where you order from, you may have a 30-day return window in which you can get a refund - this would allow you time to test the deployment to ensure it is a good fit.

[Jallerton00]

8 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Depending on where you order from, you may have a 30-day return window in which you can get a refund - this would allow you time to test the deployment to ensure it is a good fit.

Yup. We'll order through amazon, so will have plenty of time to fully test.

[Pixel5]

19 hours ago, Jallerton00 said:

Ok, cheers. I'll check with my boss soon, and probably order one of those.

just make sure you point out clearly that a NAS alone is not your backup solution, for the best results you want to have additional backups.

 

If you really want to do it right get two of them and set them up to mirror each other and act as a failsafe if one of them fails, all of this are build in functions that require minimal setup or server knowledge.