Tips for building professional NAS

[James Fin]

Hey y'all

 

I'm currently building a NAS for a friend of mine who owns a design studio. He is currently expanding and has hired three new designers. Up until this point he has been using roughly 4 terabytes of cloud storage per designer and it's getting really expensive. On my recommendation, he has decided to build his own NAS for long term storage. He now wants me to build that NAS for him. Now I've got a couple of questions, as there are a couple of things I have never worked with.

 

I already have an idea for a barebone, the Fantec SRC-2012X07 (whose device page apparently is only available in german ¯\_(ツ)_/¯), as he owns a compatible rack already. Now this question might be stupid, but do I really need a server motherboard to connect the mini sas connector or can I also manage this over individual SATA connectors with a much cheaper board as well? Or is there a cheapish PCIe card that I could use to connect the SAS connectors of the backplane? (never worked with such a backplane before and can't seem to find helpful documentation, sorry)

 

He also has an internal 40 GBit/s connection, which is why I will add a network card that will work for him. Is there a way un-bottleneck his harddrives? I will probably be using Unraid, but I have heard that caching isn't as good as it could be, especially for writing purposes. Any recommendations?

 

Sorry if these questions are incredibly stupid, I just wanna build something that works well for him. Thanks for all your help!

[Windows7ge]

Have to be blunt if this server is important and if it going down causes serious time loss he's better off with a pre-build from the likes of Dell, HPE, IBM, etc. They offer support services to get the server back online when it goes down.

 

If he can afford downtime until he or you can fix it then custom is an option. For the backplane look into the LSI-9207-8i. It's a great SAS/SATA HBA. You'll need two or one + a SAS expander.

 

For networking I would look into either 2x dual port SFP+ or something like the Intel X540-T2. Configuring all the ports in a Link Aggregation group would create a 40Gbit pipe to the editors.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Really, just buy a system here, don't built one, esp with that case, doesn't seem great. A used server is simmilara in price and built much better.

 

What 40gbe standard is he using for networking? 

 

Unraid is gonna be slow, id go freenas, roll your own linux, or windows here(works well if your have a ad setup).

 

3 hours ago, James Fin said:

Or is there a cheapish PCIe card that I could use to connect the SAS connectors of the backplane?

There are sas hba and raid cards that willw ork here and are cheap.

[charlie_root]

I'd strongly recommend getting a prebuilt server for this instead of building one. Personally, I am a big fan of IBM's System x series for something affordable and quiet. They are very high quality and older ones can be found on eBay in good condition for little money. Or, you could go with something brand new and get a warranty with it.

 

For long term business critical use, you need to think about things like the quality of the PCBs themselves, power supply quality (redundant power supplies would be better), the reliability of the cooling components, the ease with which you can replace parts (hard drives, fans, DIMMs, and backplanes), BIOS software QC, and the remote management options. Consumer items are often sorely lacking in those areas.

 

Plug it into a sine wave, surge protected UPS too. This will protect the server against surges and brownouts, and will let it shut down gracefully in the event of a power outage.

[the gamer that is bad]

16 hours ago, James Fin said:

Hey y'all

 

I'm currently building a NAS for a friend of mine who owns a design studio. He is currently expanding and has hired three new designers. Up until this point he has been using roughly 4 terabytes of cloud storage per designer and it's getting really expensive. On my recommendation, he has decided to build his own NAS for long term storage. He now wants me to build that NAS for him. Now I've got a couple of questions, as there are a couple of things I have never worked with.

 

I already have an idea for a barebone, the Fantec SRC-2012X07 (whose device page apparently is only available in german ¯\_(ツ)_/¯), as he owns a compatible rack already. Now this question might be stupid, but do I really need a server motherboard to connect the mini sas connector or can I also manage this over individual SATA connectors with a much cheaper board as well? Or is there a cheapish PCIe card that I could use to connect the SAS connectors of the backplane? (never worked with such a backplane before and can't seem to find helpful documentation, sorry)

 

He also has an internal 40 GBit/s connection, which is why I will add a network card that will work for him. Is there a way un-bottleneck his harddrives? I will probably be using Unraid, but I have heard that caching isn't as good as it could be, especially for writing purposes. Any recommendations?

 

Sorry if these questions are incredibly stupid, I just wanna build something that works well for him. Thanks for all your help!

how much is this box

[OrdinaryPhil]

I know you are trying to help your friend, but this seems to me like a business critical setup that should be protected by the rule of 3, and warrantied. Building your friend a NAS isn't going to save him any money in the long run if (when) something goes wrong.

Dell's PowerEdge servers are cheap nowadays for the types of capacities you are suggesting (4 designers @ 4TB each is almost nothing in storage terms for a good server). You can spec out a brand new R340 without drives for well under $1000 with an extended warranty and all the essentials like remote management and dual redundant PSUs. You can get all the storage he'll need and still come in well under $2,000, which is basically nothing for a design studio with 4+ employees.

 

The best thing you can do for your friend is give him honest advice and set him on a path something like this...

 

[PeterVBelgium]

On 12/7/2020 at 11:47 PM, James Fin said:

Hey y'all

 

I'm currently building a NAS for a friend of mine who owns a design studio. He is currently expanding and has hired three new designers. Up until this point he has been using roughly 4 terabytes of cloud storage per designer and it's getting really expensive. On my recommendation, he has decided to build his own NAS for long term storage. He now wants me to build that NAS for him. Now I've got a couple of questions, as there are a couple of things I have never worked with.

 

I already have an idea for a barebone, the Fantec SRC-2012X07 (whose device page apparently is only available in german ¯\_(ツ)_/¯), as he owns a compatible rack already. Now this question might be stupid, but do I really need a server motherboard to connect the mini sas connector or can I also manage this over individual SATA connectors with a much cheaper board as well? Or is there a cheapish PCIe card that I could use to connect the SAS connectors of the backplane? (never worked with such a backplane before and can't seem to find helpful documentation, sorry)

 

He also has an internal 40 GBit/s connection, which is why I will add a network card that will work for him. Is there a way un-bottleneck his harddrives? I will probably be using Unraid, but I have heard that caching isn't as good as it could be, especially for writing purposes. Any recommendations?

 

Sorry if these questions are incredibly stupid, I just wanna build something that works well for him. Thanks for all your help!

you can either build a system and select a MB with the most SATA connections

but honestly if it's professional i'd go for a pre build NAS, for that amount of storage it will actually be cheaper in the EU