NAS EXPANSION in RAID

[hameedabdul1]

Hi, so, I'm thinking of building a NAS with at least 40 terabytes worth of drive (Storage of footage). I plan on using freenas or openmediavault, with a pentium, a super micro motherboard, 64 gb of ram, and a 240 gb boot drive in raid 0/1.

 

I am not sure on how it would format if I decided to add drives, so can someone please explain to me the process? That would be greatly appreciated.

[Electronics Wizardy]

If you go freenas, use zfs, thats what its made for. ZFS isn't the best at adding drives though.

 

Id probably go unraid, Its made for easy expansion of mixed drive sizes

 

 

What network speeds?

 

64gb of ram is probably overkill, esp for a 1gb network.

[hameedabdul1]

5 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

If you go freenas, use zfs, thats what its made for. ZFS isn't the best at adding drives though.

 

Id probably go unraid, Its made for easy expansion of mixed drive sizes

 

 

What network speeds?

 

64gb of ram is probably overkill, esp for a 1gb network.

We are at 1 gb, however, I was told that you should have at least 1 gb of ram per TB

[Jarsky]

19 minutes ago, hameedabdul1 said:

We are at 1 gb, however, I was told that you should have at least 1 gb of ram per TB

This seems to keep getting perpetuated. It is correct, but only up to a certain point. The main reason for the '1gb/TB' of ram is for dedup and arc cache allocation.

These are both optional features and completely unnecessary for most home users who just want reliable storage. You can also offset the amount of ARC by allocating a cache for L2ARC, and dedup you probably wouldnt have too much use for in a home environment as you're far less likely to duplicate your data. 

[hameedabdul1]

4 hours ago, Jarsky said:

This seems to keep getting perpetuated. It is correct, but only up to a certain point. The main reason for the '1gb/TB' of ram is for dedup and arc cache allocation.

These are both optional features and completely unnecessary for most home users who just want reliable storage. You can also offset the amount of ARC by allocating a cache for L2ARC, and dedup you probably wouldnt have too much use for in a home environment as you're far less likely to duplicate your data. 

So, how much would you suggest for a nas with 40 tb, that will most likely be expanded to 80?

[Jarsky]

9 minutes ago, hameedabdul1 said:

So, how much would you suggest for a nas with 40 tb, that will most likely be expanded to 80?

You could easily go with 16GB if you're not doing dedup. And then get an SSD for a L2ARC cache which will be considerably larger, good for those large footage transfers. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

7 minutes ago, Jarsky said:

You could easily go with 16GB if you're not doing dedup. And then get an SSD for a L2ARC cache which will be considerably larger, good for those large footage transfers. 

I wouldn't bother with a l2arc for a 1gb network. The hard drives will easily fill the network speed, so no reason to deal with the overhead. Also the l2arc really doesn't help with sequential file transfers like copying video.

 

Agreed with the 16gb of ram, but id get a single 16gb stick so more cna be added later

[hameedabdul1]

3 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

I wouldn't bother with a l2arc for a 1gb network. The hard drives will easily fill the network speed, so no reason to deal with the overhead. Also the l2arc really doesn't help with sequential file transfers like copying video.

 

Agreed with the 16gb of ram, but id get a single 16gb stick so more cna be added later

So,  I wouldn't need dual channel?

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, hameedabdul1 said:

So,  I wouldn't need dual channel?

with a 1 gigabit network, you will be network limited basically all the time. Things like ram speed, amount, cpu speed, cpu cores, and disk setup really won't mtater.

 

If you want to do 10gbe, then you need to start optimizing for the best performance.

[hameedabdul1]

14 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

with a 1 gigabit network, you will be network limited basically all the time. Things like ram speed, amount, cpu speed, cpu cores, and disk setup really won't mtater.

 

If you want to do 10gbe, then you need to start optimizing for the best performance.

And, since I have multiple computers on windows 10, how exactly do I copy and paste from/to drives? Just map a network drive, correct? And, if I have those 4 drives, would it be considered one on windows or multiple?

[Jarsky]

1 hour ago, hameedabdul1 said:

And, since I have multiple computers on windows 10, how exactly do I copy and paste from/to drives? Just map a network drive, correct? And, if I have those 4 drives, would it be considered one on windows or multiple?

 

You're best to create a RAIDZ Pool, that way the disks will be combined together to create a single storage array. You can then create a dataset which is a logical partition, and you can share that partition via SMB. Your Windows computers will then be able to see the share on the network, and you can just map it and copy/paste to it like any other network drive. 

[paddy-stone]

2 hours ago, Jarsky said:

 

You're best to create a RAIDZ Pool, that way the disks will be combined together to create a single storage array. You can then create a dataset which is a logical partition, and you can share that partition via SMB. Your Windows computers will then be able to see the share on the network, and you can just map it and copy/paste to it like any other network drive. 

This is how most people have it, me included. Very easy to use.

 

One thing you didn't mention OP is backups. Make sure you have backups of any data you want to keep, this is true no matter if you have Raidz1/2 or whatever.

In my use case I have my main server as my primary storage, my backup server literally backs up everything on the main server, then I have a couple of USB drives to backup important data only, 1 of which is kept off-site. It might seem overkill, but better that than losing TBs of data.

[Electronics Wizardy]

5 hours ago, hameedabdul1 said:

And, since I have multiple computers on windows 10, how exactly do I copy and paste from/to drives? Just map a network drive, correct? And, if I have those 4 drives, would it be considered one on windows or multiple?

you probably want raid here, so it aapperas s one drive.

 

Ye, map a network drive. that will make it work like any other local windows drive.

[hameedabdul1]

On 1/17/2020 at 12:52 PM, Electronics Wizardy said:

you probably want raid here, so it aapperas s one drive.

 

Ye, map a network drive. that will make it work like any other local windows drive.

Thanks! So, for ram, do I use ecc buffered or unbuffered or just any ram?

[Electronics Wizardy]

16 minutes ago, hameedabdul1 said:

Thanks! So, for ram, do I use ecc buffered or unbuffered or just any ram?

What full specs are you using again?

 

Id use ecc if supported on your platform.

 

Normally use registered if supported, as its cheaper and supports bigger sizes, but some platforms are unbuffered only(like am4/115x)

[hameedabdul1]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

What full specs are you using again?

 

Id use ecc if supported on your platform.

 

Normally use registered if supported, as its cheaper and supports bigger sizes, but some platforms are unbuffered only(like am4/115x)

Well, right now, I'm thinking of going with an I3-9100F, just bc I have one, but, I'm not sure what mobo to get, but, one with preferably 6 or more sata inputs

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, hameedabdul1 said:

Well, right now, I'm thinking of going with an I3-9100F, just bc I have one, but, I'm not sure what mobo to get, but, one with preferably 6 or more sata inputs

Id stay away from the f, cause a igpu is really nice to have here for basic video?

 

Do you want ecc?

 

Id get a c246 board, then  you get ecc support.

 

Id get a board like this https://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-C246-WU4-Express-10xSATA3-Motherboard/dp/B07MDBQQM2/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2488HCCBAXCC0&keywords=c246+motherboard&qid=1579476668&sprefix=c246+%2Caps%2C195&sr=8-3

 

Then you get ecc(nice to have, not that much more), and 10gbe(really nice for big file tranfers).

 

Or get this board with impi so you don't need a igpu at all, and can do remote out of band management https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/X11SCH-LN4F

 

[hameedabdul1]

8 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id stay away from the f, cause a igpu is really nice to have here for basic video?

 

Do you want ecc?

 

Id get a c246 board, then  you get ecc support.

 

Id get a board like this https://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-C246-WU4-Express-10xSATA3-Motherboard/dp/B07MDBQQM2/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2488HCCBAXCC0&keywords=c246+motherboard&qid=1579476668&sprefix=c246+%2Caps%2C195&sr=8-3

 

Then you get ecc(nice to have, not that much more), and 10gbe(really nice for big file tranfers).

 

Or get this board with impi so you don't need a igpu at all, and can do remote out of band management https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/X11SCH-LN4F

 

I should have also mentioned, we're using a micro atx case... the supermicro mobo is nice, but i would like some choices. And, what cpu would you suggest, because we might just use the 9100f in something else?

[Electronics Wizardy]

28 minutes ago, hameedabdul1 said:

I should have also mentioned, we're using a micro atx case... the supermicro mobo is nice, but i would like some choices. And, what cpu would you suggest, because we might just use the 9100f in something else?

THe 9100f and a the supermicro boards is a good combo, pretty cheap, low power, ecc support, impi

 

If you don't go with the supermicro id go 9100 non f, then anouther c246 board.

 

If you want cheaper, go pentium and a b360 board, no ecc, but should be much cheaper.

[hameedabdul1]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

THe 9100f and a the supermicro boards is a good combo, pretty cheap, low power, ecc support, impi

 

If you don't go with the supermicro id go 9100 non f, then anouther c246 board.

 

If you want cheaper, go pentium and a b360 board, no ecc, but should be much cheaper.

That supermicro and 9100 not f sounds good. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, hameedabdul1 said:

That supermicro and 9100 not f sounds good. 

With the supermicro You might as well get the f sku if its cheaper. You won't use the igpu anyways as you have the impi for basic graphics

[hameedabdul1]

52 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

With the supermicro You might as well get the f sku if its cheaper. You won't use the igpu anyways as you have the impi for basic graphics

Ok, do you think this 4-Pk of drives is good?

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1509456-REG/wd_10tb_red_pro_7200.html 

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, hameedabdul1 said:

Ok, do you think this 4-Pk of drives is good?

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1509456-REG/wd_10tb_red_pro_7200.html 

How much do you care about what you spend?

 

Getting these externals is a much better value.

 

https://www.amazon.com/10TB-Elements-Desktop-Drive-WDBWLG0100HBK-NESN/dp/B07G3QMPB5/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=10tb+external+hard+drive&qid=1579482932&sr=8-3

 

Then remove from casing and they work in any server

 

I don't see a reason to get red pros, performance won't really matter, and you don't have many drives, Id save the money if it was me.

[hameedabdul1]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

How much do you care about what you spend?

 

Getting these externals is a much better value.

 

https://www.amazon.com/10TB-Elements-Desktop-Drive-WDBWLG0100HBK-NESN/dp/B07G3QMPB5/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=10tb+external+hard+drive&qid=1579482932&sr=8-3

 

Then remove from casing and they work in any server

 

I don't see a reason to get red pros, performance won't really matter, and you don't have many drives, Id save the money if it was me.

I'm planning on that expansion to 8 later on, possibly next year, or just doing it all at once. They were in a 4 pack, and I was using b & h, so, that was what I was thinking of going with. But, you have a much better idea. 

[hameedabdul1]

Also, should I be using an ssd for a cache? and another for boot?