Simple NAS for daily Veeam Backups

[arvenyon]

Hey folks,

 

I am currently planning to try out something, just out of personal interest. My mainboard, which is currently the "msi Z270 SLI PLUS", contains a feature named "M.2 Genie", which is basically nothing more, than a "one-click-RAID0" feature. With a single click in the bios, you can activate RAID0 for the two m.2 (nvme) SSDs on your mainboard, which increases the write/read speed by 70% (msi's statement!). Despite the fact that this could be a wrong information or simply wouldn't work... I just wanna try it out, since I finally have more time for myself.

 

But with RAID0 comes great risk... normally. Therefore, I wanna make daily veeam backups on an external storage device. Searching for a good, low-price but also RAID compatible external case, I stumbled upon this one here (Link).

It's an Icy Box IB-RD3621U3, made for a 2x3.5" HDD/SSD constellation and RAID0 / RAID1 compatible. I will use it in RAID1 Mode. Speed-wise it is limited by 5GBit/s by the USB 3.0 connection.

 

As always with computer stuff, low-price devices with big promises should raise a red flag or at least some doubts. I mean... the Raid config can be changed through switching f*cking jumpers in the back of the case.

But that's why I am here. Would this be enough for personal use?

I am specifically asking the guys, who have dealt with those external cases or similar ones - I'm a qualified system enigneer, therefore I can "assume" stuff myself.

 

Sorry for my broken english, greetz from Switzerland!

arvenyon

 

 

 

[leadeater]

20 minutes ago, arvenyon said:

It's an Icy Box IB-RD3621U3, made for a 2x3.5" HDD/SSD constellation and RAID0 / RAID1 compatible. I will use it in RAID1 Mode. Speed-wise it is limited by 5GB/s by the USB 3.0 connection.

Connection speed won't matter, nothing you can put in there can really saturate the USB 3.0 interface. Also it's 5 Gbps not 5 GB/s (8 times the difference).

 

RAID itself is more what is being oversold, what MSI is saying is technically true but is limited to only certain use cases but for everything else it'll actually be slower. RAID introduces (small for RAID0, but matters for NVMe) overhead so loading the OS, touching small files like loading a game etc will be slower. Reading and writing a 10GB file will be faster but that really is about it.

 

Basically you're going to net zero performance increase while introducing a data resiliency weakness, are you happy to do that? If you think RAID0 will fit what you want then sure go ahead, just make sure you do those backups. Seems like an unnecessary spend of money though, save it for the next generation of CPUs, GPUs or SSDs.

[leadeater]

Also is there no room in the case itself to add 2 HDDs and do the backup over SATA instead? You can use Windows Storage Spaces to mirror the disks or mdadm/btrfs etc in Linux.

[arvenyon]

3 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Connection speed won't matter, nothing you can put in there can really saturate the USB 3.0 interface. Also it's 5 Gbps not 5 GB/s (8 times the difference).

 

RAID itself is more what is being oversold, what MSI is saying is technically true but is limited to only certain use cases but for everything else it'll actually be slower. RAID introduces overhead so loading the OS, touching small files like loading a game etc will be slower. Reading and writing a 10GB file will be faster but that really is about it.

 

Basically you're going to net zero performance increase while introducing a data resiliency weakness, are you happy to do that? If you think RAID0 will fit what you want then sure go ahead, just make sure you do those backups. Seems like an unnecessary spend of money though, save it for the next generation of CPUs, GPUs or SSDs.

Sry, wrote that wrong... 5Gbit/s sure...

 

I am aware, that I won't get the increase that msi promises, It's all about the experience. Also it's not meant for gaming in first place.

 

Thanks for your reply!

[leadeater]

7 minutes ago, arvenyon said:

I am aware, that I won't get the increase that msi promises, It's all about the experience. Also it's not meant for gaming in first place.

Cool, lot of people get suckered in by RAID so it's like the default do you actually want/need it quiz . Single larger volumes does make it slightly nicer to use.

 

I know some of the Icy Box stuff is fine, I've never seen one with those dip switches on the back though. Orico, Drobo and StarTech are others I know of that make these external RAID enclosures of PCs. QNAP also has some cheaper units with USB and Thunderbolt connectivity, same for Synology.

[arvenyon]

4 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Cool, lot of people get suckered in by RAID so it's like the default do you actually want/need it quiz . Single larger volumes does make it slightly nicer to use.

 

I know some of the Icy Box stuff is fine, I've never seen one with those dip switches on the back though. Orico, Drobo and StarTech are others I know of that make these external RAID enclosures of PCs. QNAP also has some cheaper units with USB and Thunderbolt connectivity, same for Synology.

Sure, there are a few well known manufacturers.. like QNAP, Synology .. the list goes on... which provide quite cheap NAS Systems. But thats the point... i dont need the whole feature-package coming with a nas station... I dont need Hyper Backup, Virtualization Station, separate Data management... thats just too much, and over the top for my scope.

[leadeater]

11 minutes ago, arvenyon said:

Sure, there are a few well known manufacturers.. like QNAP, Synology .. the list goes on... which provide quite cheap NAS Systems. But thats the point... i dont need the whole feature-package coming with a nas station... I dont need Hyper Backup, Virtualization Station, separate Data management... thats just too much, and over the top for my scope.

The Icy Box and StarTech ones are just straight external RAID encs, sometimes they aren't that well priced though but that one you're looking at is like wayy cheap. Also it's OEM/ODM so you can get it with a different brand on the box.

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LFSPQLS/ref=sxbs_sxwds-stppvp_1?pf_rd_p=82218735-2b20-4c14-b8b7-9b4d6b044350&pd_rd_wg=Ry481&pf_rd_r=CW0Q3TPP34EVQ9ZGW3TD&pd_rd_i=B01LFSPQLS&pd_rd_w=gsHaQ&pd_rd_r=cec02b35-7b1c-4fcc-abc4-900127d3ac5a&ie=UTF8&qid=1550224089&sr=1

 

Equiv from StarTech:

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-External-Dual-Drive-Enclosure/dp/B07116PMPD/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1550224058&sr=8-5&keywords=StarTech+RAID

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-eSATA-Drive-External-Enclosure/dp/B00PY3QTTO/ref=sr_1_23?ie=UTF8&qid=1550224089&sr=8-23&keywords=StarTech+RAID

[myselfolli]

Like  @leadeater said, there's basically no point in using a RAID 0 in your case. Why not take the money you'll invest in a backup solution to grab/build a cheap machine and tinker with that?

[arvenyon]

2 minutes ago, myselfolli said:

Like  @leadeater said, there's basically no point in using a RAID 0 in your case. Why not take the money you'll invest in a backup solution to grab/build a cheap machine and tinker with that?

Maybe I haven't made myself clear enough... I don't want to invest in other hardware or save money and do anything else. it's about the experience and the possibility. Just do stuff, see how it works, advantages or disadvantages, scope of application.. whatever. 

[myselfolli]

Just now, arvenyon said:

Maybe I haven't made myself clear enough... I don't want to invest in other hardware or save money and do anything else. it's about the experience and the possibility. Just do stuff, see how it works, advantages or disadvantages, scope of application.. whatever. 

And you can do all of that - just without putting the data on your main machine at risk and actually hurting your own performance.

 

I'm all for just trying stuff to see what happens, I'd just advise everybody to get a dedicated machine for that