High Speed Drive Cloning

[Grommish]

I am looking to build a NAS, but have a couple of requirements that I need help planning for.

 

1) Vibration/Shock resistant

2) Doesn't take forever to boot

 

Here is my use case:

 

I need a storage solution that I can use for the rapid and temporary storage of a drive image/cloned image.  I'm not set on a solution and looking for ideas.  The system will be vehicle mounted, so I'm looking at SSD rather than mechanical, and using maybe iSCSI to connect over a point to point 10GBe link.  This is for temporary storage, so the only real exposure to data failure would be a short window (RAID spanning instead of data recovery) and then the data would be wiped anyway. 

 

Suggestions for hardware and software solutions for this?  Thank you!

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

SO you want a nas that will restore a image onto a drive from the network?

 

Why not just get something like a laptop with a hostswap usb to sata dock? What type of drives are you cloing?

 

Id just get a small diy nas that you can run scripts on that will restore images for you.

[Grommish]

2 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

SO you want a nas that will restore a image onto a drive from the network?

 

Why not just get something like a laptop with a hostswap usb to sata dock? What type of drives are you cloing?

 

Id just get a small diy nas that you can run scripts on that will restore images for you.

I need to create a clone image from an existing drive.  Ideally without having to remove the drive from the machine.

 

Example: Machine comes in, gets connected to the network, USB boot to clone software (Ghost, Hirems, etc), which can then dump the image file across the network segment to the NAS.

 

Restore might be needed, usually it won't be.  It's for temporary backup while I fix the issue in case something does go wrong.  It's why I'm not concerned with RAID backup protection, just disk spanning.  Need the space rather than the protection, and spanning 2 NMVe drives would still make the image storage a whole lot faster than a mechanical drive, no?

 

Also, since this will be a vehicle mounted rig, either the drives need to be solid state or the system needs to be fast booting since it'll need to survive shocks and jolts while on, or brought up while on site

Edited October 1, 2019 by Grommish
clarification

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Grommish said:

SB boot to clone software

Id look at network boot to.

1 minute ago, Grommish said:

and spanning 2 NMVe drives would still make the image storage a whole lot faster than a mechanical drive, no?

It would, but your probalby limited by the device your cloning from anyways.

 

Any PC should be able to do this. Id just get a nuc or mini pc here, then run some linux distro with a nfs/smb server on it and a few big ssds, and mount it and use it as the target for the files. You could script it to use pxe boot or usb to be automatically mount and image from bootup so you don't need to touch the device aswell if you want.

 

The nas its self isn't really special. Just get a small nas or use a mini pc with linux. What are you stuck on?

[mariushm]

GIGABYTE B450 I AORUS PRO WIFI AM4 AMD B450 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1  : https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813145086

 

140$ mini ITX format, small. 4 SATA 6gbps, 1 m.2 pci-e x4 or x2 (depending on cpu)

 

It's kind of expensive at 140$ (you could get A320 based boards for 90-100$) but this model has some perks:  it  has wifi ac up to 1.7gbps and also has 2 x usb 3.1 gen 2 (10gbps) on the back, which could be useful so you could use an external ssd/hdd with usb 3 gen 2 to connect drives to it without opening the case.

 

example: Vantec NexStar Gx USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C 2.5” SATA SSD/HDD Enclosure for 9.5mm & 7mm Height Drive; Comes with C to C and C to A Cable; Aluminum Casing; (NST-271C31-BK) :

https://www.amazon.com/Vantec-NexStar-Enclosure-Aluminum-NST-271C31-BK/dp/B072YLWP4Z/

 

An Athlon200ge would have more than enough power for your needs, and consumes around 20w. The low height stock cooler that comes with it is more than enough to keep it cool.

 

Get a low profile 10g ethernet card and shove it in the pci-e x16 slot.

For example the 100$ Asus XG-C100C comes with low profile bracket in the box:  https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-XG-C100C-Network-Adapter-Single/dp/B072N84DG6/

 

Shove it in a ITX case that comes with a power supply, like Antec ISK and you're done, you can power it from an inverter in the car, which will also power your monitor.

Antec ISK Series ISK 300-150 : https://www.newegg.com/black-antec-isk-series-mini-itx-desktop/p/N82E16811129080?Description=antec isk&cm_re=antec_isk-_-11-129-080-_-Product

Has 150w power supply, has 2 x 2.5" compartments, has 1x 5.25" bay in which you could insert one of those hot swap 3.5" bays

examples :

StarTech.com HSB100SATBK 5.25in Trayless Hot Swap Mobile Rack for 3.5in Hard Drive - Internal SATA Backplane Enclosure : https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16817998020

ORICO Tool Free 3.5 inch SATA to 5.25 Stainless Bracket HDD Frame Mobile Rack Internal HDD Case CD-ROM Space Internal Hard Driver Mounting Bracket Adapter -Black : https://www.newegg.com/orico-1106ss-v1-bk-1-x-3-5-drive-to-5-25-bay/p/0VE-000W-00018

Alternatively, there's 5.25" to 2x2.5" trays, so you could have up to 4 x 2.5" SSDs nicely mounted inside the case, but I think being able to easily connect a 3.5" mechanical drive to this system would be more useful to you (and you can tape 2 ssds to the insides of the case somewhere if needed, being solid state they don't need to be in some fancy position, screwed down etc)

 

I'm sure you can find place inside that case to hide 2 more sata SSDs... you could simply use some double sided adhesive tape to tape them to the metal case on the inside. There's room for them.