Research NAS server

[commanderhypnos]

Budget (including currency): R$ 40,000.00 (BRL)

Country: Brazil

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: See other details.

Other details (existing parts lists, whether any peripherals are needed, what you're upgrading from, when you're going to buy, what resolution and refresh rate you want to play at, etc): 

 

Hello,

 

Firstly, sorry if this post does not follow all the rules and "online social conventions," as this is my first post in a forum, let alone this forum. Secondly, sorry for any grammatical errors, as English is not my first language.

I am a medical researcher at a university in Brazil, and we are looking for a server, basically a NAS. The work we do involves the analysis of medical images (more specifically, DICOM images), and we do most of our processing using MATLAB on multiple machines. Currently, we move each image from one machine to another using external hard drives, but we plan to do that processing directly from the NAS.

Besides that, the main load on the server will be compressing and decompressing ZIP files generated by the imaging machines, and due to the nature of the images, they are highly compressed. We might also use it for hosting one or two web servers, but nothing too processing-heavy, mostly a Planka server or something similar.

Due to the protocols of our grant, it would preferably be a general list of components, with similar options and alternatives to a specific component, as we will need to get quotations from three different sellers to buy the server. Any advice is also welcome.

 

PS: Despite the value of the budget, unfortunately, research is not highly valued in Brazil, so our grant is very limited. Therefore, the lower the cost that suits our needs, the better. The only reason we have a grant this high (by Brazilian standards) is that our project is related to COVID and post-COVID syndrome.

 

PS2: The main requirement for the server is 64TB of storage using 4 HDDs, configured in RAID 5. Ideally, we would like a 10GbE port, but we can manage with two 1GbE ports if necessary

[Electronics Wizardy]

6 minutes ago, commanderhypnos said:

I am a researcher at a university in Brazil, and we are looking for a server, basically a NAS.

Are you in a university building? Have you talked to IT about this?

 

7 minutes ago, commanderhypnos said:

Besides that, the main load on the server will be compressing and decompressing ZIP files generated by the imaging machines, and due to the nature of the images, they are highly compressed. We might also use it for hosting one or two web servers, but nothing too processing-heavy, mostly a Planka server or something similar.

Due to the protocols of our grant, it would preferably be a general list of components, with similar options and alternatives to a specific component, as we will need to get quotations from three different sellers to buy the server. Any advice is also welcome.

How much storage do you need? What network speeds do you have?

 

Rack mount or tower?

 

I'd be tempted to get a premade nas to keep it simple if you haven't built/managed servers much.

 

 

[commanderhypnos]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Are you in a university building? Have you talked to IT about this?

 

How much storage do you need? What network speeds do you have?

 

Rack mount or tower?

 

I'd be tempted to get a premade nas to keep it simple if you haven't built/managed servers much.

 

 

Regarding storage needs, we initially require around 64 TB configured in RAID 5. There is no need for a specific mount. We have people in the lab with experience in assembling computers and small-scale servers, though none are specifically from IT. That said, we do have an IT department at the hospital to which my lab is attached. They can assist with certain tasks, but their help may be limited as they need to prioritize maintaining other systems that the hospital relies on. We are also in talks with companies that sell 'assembled' servers, but we need to provide them with the specifications.

[Electronics Wizardy]

14 minutes ago, commanderhypnos said:

Regarding storage needs, we initially require around 64 TB configured in RAID 5. There is no need for a specific mount. We have people in the lab with experience in assembling computers and small-scale servers, though none are specifically from IT. That said, we do have an IT department at the hospital to which my lab is attached. They can assist with certain tasks, but their help may be limited as they need to prioritize maintaining other systems that the hospital relies on. We are also in talks with companies that sell 'assembled' servers, but we need to provide them with the specifications.

Do that IT manage the network? I'd talk to them to see the network speeds and connections you'll be using and make sure it will work with the network.

 

Do you have a rack you want to put the system in? 

 

A lot of the time the companies will help you spec a system depending on your needs. 

 

I'd be tempted to get something like a RS2423+ and fill it with big drives if you want the simple solution. 

 

What OS do you want?

[commanderhypnos]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Do that IT manage the network? I'd talk to them to see the network speeds and connections you'll be using and make sure it will work with the network.

 

Do you have a rack you want to put the system in? 

 

A lot of the time the companies will help you spec a system depending on your needs. 

 

I'd be tempted to get something like a RS2423+ and fill it with big drives if you want the simple solution. 

 

What OS do you want?

Yes, they do manage the network. We talked to them, and, a priori, there is no issue. The switch it will be attached to is capable of 10 GbE, and the network should handle it well, though some configurations will be necessary. However, according to them, this won't be a problem.

 

We do have a rack, but there is limited space in it, so that might be a consideration.

 

We spoke with several companies, but they almost always pushed for overspecified products.

 

I checked the RS2423+, but here it costs R$ 53,000.00, which is well above our budget.

 

I'm considering FreeNAS as the OS, but I'm open to other suggestions.

[ToboRobot]

41 minutes ago, commanderhypnos said:

I am a medical researcher at a university in Brazil, and we are looking for a server, basically a NAS. The work we do involves the analysis of medical images (more specifically, DICOM images), and we do most of our processing using MATLAB on multiple machines. Currently, we move each image from one machine to another using external hard drives, but we plan to do that processing directly from the NAS.

Besides that, the main load on the server will be compressing and decompressing ZIP files generated by the imaging machines, and due to the nature of the images, they are highly compressed. We might also use it for hosting one or two web servers, but nothing too processing-heavy, mostly a Planka server or something similar.

Due to the protocols of our grant, it would preferably be a general list of components, with similar options and alternatives to a specific component, as we will need to get quotations from three different sellers to buy the server. Any advice is also welcome.

 

PS: Despite the value of the budget, unfortunately, research is not highly valued in Brazil, so our grant is very limited. Therefore, the lower the cost that suits our needs, the better. The only reason we have a grant this high (by Brazilian standards) is that our project is related to COVID and post-COVID syndrome.

 

PS2: The main requirement for the server is 64TB of storage using 4 HDDs, configured in RAID 5. Ideally, we would like a 10GbE port, but we can manage with two 1GbE ports if necessary

Why are you planning to process things on the server?  Presumably your workstations can already do this task, if you offload that process to the NAS, you increase the power and cost of the machine.

I think you need 5 18TB HDDs in RAID 5 to get 64TB of storage.

Get a synology and don't waste your time and energy fiddling with DIY, your doing work and don't want to have to troubleshoot or be responsible for the data disappearing. 

[commanderhypnos]

23 minutes ago, ToboRobot said:

Why are you planning to process things on the server?  Presumably your workstations can already do this task, if you offload that process to the NAS, you increase the power and cost of the machine.

I think you need 5 18TB HDDs in RAID 5 to get 64TB of storage.

Get a synology and don't waste your time and energy fiddling with DIY, your doing work and don't want to have to troubleshoot or be responsible for the data disappearing. 

It's not so much about 'it will be done at' as it is about 'it needs to be able to do it in a minimally decent way.'

 

As far as I remember, the formula for RAID 5 calculation is Total Capacity=(N−1)×Lowest Disk Capacity,

48=(N-1)x16; N = 4;

Is the formula incorrect or I am confusing things?

 

It's not exactly DIY; I will pass the specifications to a company that will assemble it, and we will receive the finished product. I am open to using a Synology, but I'm not sure which model has the capacity to meet our needs. I do have some experience with computers (assembling, programming, etc., including a home-lab), but the formal training I have is a few years old (before I went into medicine) and mainly related to electronics and basic electrical engineering.

 

And also, as far as I know, here in Brazil, Synology is quite expensive compared to simply assembling components with similar capacity, even when factoring in that you will be paying a company to do the assembly.

[Electronics Wizardy]

26 minutes ago, commanderhypnos said:

Yes, they do manage the network. We talked to them, and, a priori, there is no issue. The switch it will be attached to is capable of 10 GbE, and the network should handle it well, though some configurations will be necessary. However, according to them, this won't be a problem.

 

We do have a rack, but there is limited space in it, so that might be a consideration.

 

We spoke with several companies, but they almost always pushed for overspecified products.

 

I checked the RS2423+, but here it costs R$ 53,000.00, which is well above our budget.

 

I'm considering FreeNAS as the OS, but I'm open to other suggestions.

Do you have a store with local prices I can look at to see how far 40,000 goes there?

 

If you have a rack, check the depth and U available. I'm generally a fan of put it in a rack i fyou can.

 

TrueNAS Scale has replaced freenas, and still a good option.

 

Just checing, do you have a backup plan for this?

Do you need to add more storage later on?

 

Just now, commanderhypnos said:

It's not so much about 'it will be done at' as it is about 'it needs to be able to do it in a minimally decent way.'

 

As far as I remember, the formula for RAID 5 calculation is Total Capacity=(N−1)×Lowest Disk Capacity,

48=(N-1)x16; N = 4;

Is the formula incorrect or I am confusing things?

 

It's not exactly DIY; I will pass the specifications to a company that will assemble it, and we will receive the finished product. I am open to using a Synology, but I'm not sure which model has the capacity to meet our needs. I do have some experience with computers (assembling, programming, etc., including a home-lab), but the formal training I have is a few years old (before I went into medicine) and mainly related to electronics and basic electrical engineering.

Yup that's right for raid 5

 

Without knowing prices there its hard to make a hard recommendation. But I'd probably price out something like 5x16tb drives to see how much of the budget that uses.

 

For board + CPU + RAM, I'd try to get ecc if you can.  I'm a fan of the asrock rack and similar boards using AM4/AM5, but IDK the pricing there.

[ToboRobot]

10 minutes ago, commanderhypnos said:

It's not so much about 'it will be done at' as it is about 'it needs to be able to do it in a minimally decent way.'

 

As far as I remember, the formula for RAID 5 calculation is Total Capacity=(N−1)×Lowest Disk Capacity,

48=(N-1)x16; N = 4;

Is the formula incorrect or I am confusing things?

 

It's not exactly DIY; I will pass the specifications to a company that will assemble it, and we will receive the finished product. I am open to using a Synology, but I'm not sure which model has the capacity to meet our needs. I do have some experience with computers (assembling, programming, etc., including a home-lab), but the formal training I have is a few years old (before I went into medicine) and mainly related to electronics and basic electrical engineering.

But why does the storage need to do any processing, when you have workstations that can already do it.  When you add requirements to a project, you add complexity and cost. 

https://www.synology.com/en-ca/support/RAID_calculator
 

16 x 4 = 64.  No parity drive.   Did you need 64 of usable storage space?  Sorry if that was confusing

When you have a problem what is your plan?  Post on the LTT forums?  call IT?  call the vendor that put the parts together?  call the company that makes the OS?  do you have a support contract with any or all of them?  What happens when you are on vacation and something doesn't work?  Do they call you?  Do you have to come in on your day off?  Is your time considered at all?

Or do you want to call 1 company and say, "fix it", and the overnight you a part and walk you through it?

https://loja.storageja.com.br/ds1621-plus-synology

and a few of these

https://loja.storageja.com.br/hd-interno-nas-16tb-toshiba-n300-hdwg31gxzsta-7200-rpm-sata
 

and stuff a 10Gig networking card in it.  I think that should be around your budget. 

[commanderhypnos]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Do you have a store with local prices I can look at to see how far 40,000 goes there?

 

If you have a rack, check the depth and U available. I'm generally a fan of put it in a rack i fyou can.

 

TrueNAS Scale has replaced freenas, and still a good option.

 

Just checing, do you have a backup plan for this?

Do you need to add more storage later on?

 

Yup that's right for raid 5

 

Without knowing prices there its hard to make a hard recommendation. But I'd probably price out something like 5x16tb drives to see how much of the budget that uses.

 

For board + CPU + RAM, I'd try to get ecc if you can.  I'm a fan of the asrock rack and similar boards using AM4/AM5, but IDK the pricing there.

Yes. I do not know if links is allowed here, but here it is. If its not allowed, I will edit to have only the name of the store, but i think that it will be harder to find: (Obs.: The sites are in Portuguese)

Synology | A FourServ é revenda oficial no Brasil

Synology - Storage Já - 1ª Loja especializada em Armazenamento de dados do Brasil (storageja.com.br)

 

Sorry, backup plan as in for the data? Or for the server?

 

We might need to add more storage, but we will probably replace the drives. However, it would be nice to have extra bays.

 

For comparison, each Seagate IronWolf PRO 16 TB costs about R$ 3,000.00.

 

Attached is a quotation from a company. The components plus assembly cost about R$ 37,500.00.

[commanderhypnos]

18 minutes ago, ToboRobot said:

But why does the storage need to do any processing, when you have workstations that can already do it.  When you add requirements to a project, you add complexity and cost. 

https://www.synology.com/en-ca/support/RAID_calculator
 

16 x 4 = 64.  No parity drive. 

When you have a problem what is your plan?  Post on the LTT forums?  call IT?  call the vendor that put the parts together?  call the company that makes the OS?  do you have a support contract with any or all of them?  What happens when you are on vacation and something doesn't work?  Do they call you?  Do you have to come in on your day off?  Is your time considered at all?

Or do you want to call 1 company and say, "fix it", and the overnight you a part and walk you through it?

 

It's not strictly necessary. But sometimes, all our workstations will be doing data processing, which is quite CPU and GPU dependent, so introducing a new task like decompressing is not really recommended. It would be nice if, while the workstation is processing, we could prepare the next batch of data to be processed. However, if it increases the cost too much, it's fine if we don't meet that requirement.

 

The plan would be 3 x 16 = 48 TB + 1 x 16 for parity. I forgot to mention, but we will need another 16 TB drive for a cold spare.

 

It's a very relevant question. We do have IT staff for network problems and other people besides me who can do basic maintenance. It would be nice to have one company handle everything, but the cost for a ready-made server from Synology or others is quite above the price of components plus assembly, and we do have budget limitations, as our grant is quite restricted.

[Electronics Wizardy]

9 minutes ago, commanderhypnos said:

Sorry, backup plan as in for the data? Or for the server?

 

For the data. Just want to make sure you have a plan if the server was to die along with all its data.

 

10 minutes ago, commanderhypnos said:

Yes. I do not know if links is allowed here, but here it is. If its not allowed, I will edit to have only the name of the store, but i think that it will be harder to find: (Obs.: The sites are in Portuguese)

Synology | A FourServ é revenda oficial no Brasil

Synology - Storage Já - 1ª Loja especializada em Armazenamento de dados do Brasil (storageja.com.br)

 

Sorry, backup plan as in for the data? Or for the server?

 

We might need to add more storage, but we will probably replace the drives. However, it would be nice to have extra bays.

 

For comparison, each Seagate IronWolf PRO 16 TB costs about R$ 3,000.00.

 

Attached is a quotation from a company. The components plus assembly cost about R$ 37,500.00.

Overall that config looks fine and should meet your needs here. If you want a preconfigured server from the big brands its probably hard to beat(IDK about local price here). I don't see a 10gbe nice, but I might be missing it. Also make sure the 10gbe nic is the correct type(sfp+ or rj45).

 

I'd be tempted to get more ram, but thats probably way cheaper doing it your self than order the server with more ram.

 

Check the rack can handle the depth of the server. 

 

I'd turn off all the onboard sata raid, that would all be done via ZFS in TrueNAS.

 

Make sure you have some boot drive for the OS. I think there is a m.2 option for dual m.2 drives that can be mirrored for boot in TrueNAS.

 

 

[commanderhypnos]

7 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

For the data. Just want to make sure you have a plan if the server was to die along with all its data.

 

Overall that config looks fine and should meet your needs here. If you want a preconfigured server from the big brands its probably hard to beat(IDK about local price here). I don't see a 10gbe nice, but I might be missing it. Also make sure the 10gbe nic is the correct type(sfp+ or rj45).

 

I'd be tempted to get more ram, but thats probably way cheaper doing it your self than order the server with more ram.

 

Check the rack can handle the depth of the server. 

 

I'd turn off all the onboard sata raid, that would all be done via ZFS in TrueNAS.

 

Make sure you have some boot drive for the OS. I think there is a m.2 option for dual m.2 drives that can be mirrored for boot in TrueNAS.

 

 

For the data, each researcher will have an external hard drive on which they will have their respective research backups. Also, the original images will be stored on another server; this one will be more for images that are processed or in the middle of processing. So, in the worst-case scenario, we would only lose some time to reprocess, not the entire data.

 

For these configurations, do you think there is anything we can change to reduce the cost? The more we have remaining, the more we can use for other needs in the lab (such as updating older machines).

 

Also, it comes with XClarity Pro software. Are you familiar with it? Do you think it's worth switching to TrueNAS, or should we just keep it for ease of maintenance?

[Electronics Wizardy]

27 minutes ago, commanderhypnos said:

For these configurations, do you think there is anything we can change to reduce the cost? The more we have remaining, the more we can use for other needs in the lab (such as updating older machines).

For that current model of server it pretty low end already. I'd try seeing if buying your own drives will be cheaper than buying the system with drives.

 

If you want premade, see if there are tower options with 8drives. Should be rack mountable as 4 or 5 u, and often cheaper than the higher end rack server here.

 

Also see what the diy price IDk. IDK the parts pricing in your area, but might be worth considering.

 

34 minutes ago, commanderhypnos said:

Also, it comes with XClarity Pro software. Are you familiar with it? Do you think it's worth switching to TrueNAS, or should we just keep it for ease of maintenance?

I think its just a management software, and won't replace truenas. I'd skip it if it costs extra.