Advice for NAS

[Hailsham]

Hello guys. I work in my family's company as CNC Router programmer. Cad designer, I and our chief use same cad, autocad files while working. I want to create a nas and connect multiple computers to it. I bought a Samsung 860 EVO SATA SSD 1TB and shared it in homegroup but speeds are too low, laggy and unreliable. I want to get another 1TB SSD and run them in Raid, then i want all of that data to be backed up every night to a HDD. I will be happy if i can get some help. Thank you!

 

More details:

 

I want to connect 3 computers with ethernet cable around the building to the NAS, i guess i need network card for each computer and network switch. Also i want NAS to be connected to the wifi, so i can be connected to the NAS on my laptop while not plugged in. I dont really know how to achieve what i want, thanks for your advice!

[Faisal A]

Why speeds are you getting ? Try getting a faster network switch

[phoenixflower]

Something to really keep in mind is the underlying use case.  Conventional NVME NAND was not designed to be shared by multiple people.  Write Endurance is very key for SSDs (the amount you can write before they become read only).  You weren't terribly specific how you want to use the NAS.  If you just want it for backup then  just pick up cheap large capacity hard drives and put them in some form of RAID 6.  You'll find different solutions have different names for the same thing that boils down to 4 drives for usage, 2 drives for parity.

 

If you want to do live editing on the NAS (this starts itching towards SAN territory).  Then your requirements will be much higher.  For constant usage, it's not the Sequential Read and Write that really comes into play.  It is the amount of Instruction Operations Per Second (IOPS) that really matter.

 

You'll find in general that Windows will struggle with some of the more storage based solutions.

 

Having an offsite backup such as Backblaze would also be a really good idea.

 

UnRAID, FreeNAS, and my personal favorite Proxmox all provide a way to do this in an efficient manner.  If you only have one computer and you want it to be the NAS and the Workstation.  UnRAId and Proxmox both support PCI-E passthrough and storage solutions simultaneously.  If you want to get more into it, I would be happy to help.  

[Hailsham]

2 hours ago, Faisal A said:

Why speeds are you getting ? Try getting a faster network switch

@Faisal A I am getting 2mb to 10mb/s write, i dont know about the read. I dont use a network switch, i only have a modem for both internet and network use. Also computers are connected via wifi, no ethernet. I want the NAS just to store data, no proccessing at all. 

[Hailsham]

1 hour ago, phoenixflower said:

Something to really keep in mind is the underlying use case.  Conventional NVME NAND was not designed to be shared by multiple people.  Write Endurance is very key for SSDs (the amount you can write before they become read only).  You weren't terribly specific how you want to use the NAS.  If you just want it for backup then  just pick up cheap large capacity hard drives and put them in some form of RAID 6.  You'll find different solutions have different names for the same thing that boils down to 4 drives for usage, 2 drives for parity.

 

If you want to do live editing on the NAS (this starts itching towards SAN territory).  Then your requirements will be much higher.  For constant usage, it's not the Sequential Read and Write that really comes into play.  It is the amount of Instruction Operations Per Second (IOPS) that really matter.

 

You'll find in general that Windows will struggle with some of the more storage based solutions.

 

Having an offsite backup such as Backblaze would also be a really good idea.

 

UnRAID, FreeNAS, and my personal favorite Proxmox all provide a way to do this in an efficient manner.  If you only have one computer and you want it to be the NAS and the Workstation.  UnRAId and Proxmox both support PCI-E passthrough and storage solutions simultaneously.  If you want to get more into it, I would be happy to help.  

@phoenixflower I want to connect NAS to at least 3 computers and I want to store all the workflow inside. So if i make any changes, the workpiece that i changed is accessible from other computers at all time. Small file transfer, read and write and auto backup is all i ask. I have 1 ssd in hand, if i get a 4 slot unit, i am planning to get 2 more in the future and at forth slot i want to have a hard drive to backup everything. 

[phoenixflower]

Okay if you're not going to read/write to the same file from multiple computers then you can get away with Network Attached Storage (NAS), but if you want to read/write to the same file you will need a Storage Access Network (SAN).  If realize it may sound like a distinction without a difference, but it's a very different set of applications.

 

If you put something in a hardware/software RAID you will get what are called parity based copies.  Those will act as backups.  Hardware RAID 1 lets one drive die, while the other one will retain the information in a set of 2 Drives.  Hardware RAID 5 will allow for one drive failure in a set of up to 5 drives.  Hardware RAID 6 will allow for two drive failures in a set of up to 6 drives.  If you have any control over technologies I would recommend using either FreeNAS with ZFS or Proxmox with ZFS.  Remember for the same cost a 1 TB SSD you can buy 3-5 hard drives.  Take one NVME SSD and let is speed up the other 3-5 hard drives.  I would recommend getting 6 hard drives and putting in ZFS Z2 (ZFS equivalent of Hardware RAID 6).

 

You cannot under any circumstances read/write to the same file from two separate computers even using SMB or NFS.  This requires a cluster aware file system.  In other words you will need a file system that is will to be aware of two computers modifying the underlying data at the same time.  NTFS, HFS, APFS, and the ext family of  file systems assume one computer is modifying them.  If one were to do a little research, you would find that operating systems support file locking for this exact reason.  Most people in the development community (I've experienced this myself) agree that file locking does not work in most circumstances.

 

 

If you want your work to be only read only to the other two computers, then you can do that with SMB/NFS.  Otherwise you will have to all agree to never have the same file open on more than one computer at the same time, otherwise you might risk corruption.

 

FreeNAS is a great SMB/NFS share utility.  If you want a more user friendly experience and willing to give up a little bit of performance alongside extended community support. UnRaid is another great NAS solution.

 

 

I realize it seems tempting to slowly expand out a NAS one drive at a time.  It's not really possible to do that.  You'll either end up having stacks of drives or a system that is very difficult to manage.  You'll need at least 2 drives to start, and I would recommend starting with at least 4, preferably 6.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-BarraCuda-Internal-Drive-3-5-Inch/dp/B07D99KFPK/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=1tb+hdd&qid=1564514248&s=gateway&sr=8-4 is perfectly fine with ZFS

 

If you're paranoid you can get the NAS approved variant: https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-IronWolf-5900RPM-Internal-3-5-Inch/dp/B07H28PKLX/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=1+TB+NAS&qid=1564514294&s=gateway&sr=8-4

 

and then you can use an SSD to speed them up.

 

If you are looking at Synology/QNAP based solutions then you'll find they can be a little bit more forgiving about how a NAS can be setup.  They also recommend using NVME to speed your storage solution.  Buying all flash storage is better but usually unneeded and very expensive.

[Hailsham]

3 minutes ago, phoenixflower said:

Okay if you're not going to read/write to the same file from multiple computers then you can get away with Network Attached Storage (NAS), but if you want to read/write to the same file you will need a Storage Access Network (SAN).  If realize it may sound like a distinction without a difference, but it's a very different set of applications.

 

If you put something in a hardware/software RAID you will get what are called parity based copies.  Those will act as backups.  Hardware RAID 1 lets one drive die, while the other one will retain the information in a set of 2 Drives.  Hardware RAID 5 will allow for one drive failure in a set of up to 5 drives.  Hardware RAID 6 will allow for two drive failures in a set of up to 6 drives.  If you have any control over technologies I would recommend using either FreeNAS with ZFS or Proxmox with ZFS.  Remember for the same cost a 1 TB SSD you can buy 3-5 hard drives.  Take one NVME SSD and let is speed up the other 3-5 hard drives.  I would recommend getting 6 hard drives and putting in ZFS Z2 (ZFS equivalent of Hardware RAID 6).

 

You cannot under any circumstances read/write to the same file from two separate computers even using SMB or NFS.  This requires a cluster aware file system.  In other words you will need a file system that is will to be aware of two computers modifying the underlying data at the same time.  NTFS, HFS, APFS, and the ext family of  file systems assume one computer is modifying them.  If one were to do a little research, you would find that operating systems support file locking for this exact reason.  Most people in the development community (I've experienced this myself) agree that file locking does not work in most circumstances.

 

 

If you want your work to be only read only to the other two computers, then you can do that with SMB/NFS.  Otherwise you will have to all agree to never have the same file open on more than one computer at the same time, otherwise you might risk corruption.

 

FreeNAS is a great SMB/NFS share utility.  If you want a more user friendly experience and willing to give up a little bit of performance alongside extended community support. UnRaid is another great NAS solution.

 

 

I realize it seems tempting to slowly expand out a NAS one drive at a time.  It's not really possible to do that.  You'll either end up having stacks of drives or a system that is very difficult to manage.  You'll need at least 2 drives to start, and I would recommend starting with at least 4, preferably 6.

 

https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-BarraCuda-Internal-Drive-3-5-Inch/dp/B07D99KFPK/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=1tb+hdd&qid=1564514248&s=gateway&sr=8-4 is perfectly fine with ZFS

 

If you're paranoid you can get the NAS approved variant: https://www.amazon.com/Seagate-IronWolf-5900RPM-Internal-3-5-Inch/dp/B07H28PKLX/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=1+TB+NAS&qid=1564514294&s=gateway&sr=8-4

 

and then you can use an SSD to speed them up.

 

If you are looking at Synology/QNAP based solutions then you'll find they can be a little bit more forgiving about how a NAS can be setup.  They also recommend using NVME to speed your storage solution.  Buying all flash storage is better but usually unneeded and very expensive.

@phoenixflower Synology or QNAP based solutions are pretty good for my use case. Can you help me, how can I connect 3 computers with ethernet cable around the building to the NAS? I guess i need network card for each computer and network switch. Also i want NAS to be connected to the wifi, so i can be connected to the NAS on my laptop while not plugged in.

[phoenixflower]

If you want a reliable experience with a smooth experience alongside up to date security patches, I cannot stress enough that synology will be your best bet.  QNAP offers "better" hardware, but it usually runs into a serious bottleneck at some point.  So even though it technically has better hardware, you won't get the extra juice out of it, and usually suffers from a list of exploits.  This has put them at odds with Citrix.

 

If you plug your Synology device into your router, they make an application that will automatically find it from Mac OS X and Windows for you.

 

Just connect all three computers to same network and the Synology software stack will walk you through the rest.

[Hailsham]

2 minutes ago, phoenixflower said:

If you want a reliable experience with a smooth experience alongside up to date security patches, I cannot stress enough that synology will be your best bet.  QNAP offers "better" hardware, but it usually runs into a serious bottleneck at some point.  So even though it technically has better hardware, you won't get the extra juice out of it, and usually suffers from a list of exploits.  This has put them at odds with Citrix.

 

If you plug your Synology device into your router, they make an application that will automatically find it from Mac OS X and Windows for you.

 

Just connect all three computers to same network and the Synology software stack will walk you through the rest.

Thank you so much!