Planning NAS Build

[scottyseng]

In my current system, I have a LSI MegaRAID 9260-8i CV and four 4TB Western Digital Red drives in RAID 10.

 

I want to build a new separate NAS for my personal data.

 

My plan is the build the following:

Intel  i3-4160

ASRock C226WS+ ATX Server Motherboard

16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 ECC RAM

600-700W PSU

LSI MegaRAID 9260-8i CV (Moved from my current PC)

Eight 6TB Western Digital RED drives in RAID 10 with two more as global hot spares. (I might do ten 4TB though if price per GB is cheaper). Will be using 4TB Western Digital Se drives, probably 10 or more.

The four 4 TB drives will also move to this build.

Intel SAS Expander

Rosewill Throne case (Cheapest case I could find that would hold the amount of drives I wanted)

 

I'm trying to go for bang for the buck. I'm working on the numbers so I know how much to save.

 

My original plan was to just RAID 10 the new drives using the LSI card and installing Windows 8 on it. Then, I would just use Home group to share the NAS to my PC / my friend (We both are content creators).

 

But I've recently been hearing about how RAID is dead and how ZFS and BTRFS are superior formats (To counter bit rot). Should I just go ahead with my original plan using Windows and my LSI RAID card? Or should I try to use ZFS on FreeNAS?

 

Also, I've been hearing that I need a Xeon with ECC memory for ZFS / a NAS in general. I really don't see myself putting much load on this NAS at all (Probably will only be handling photos / my files). If I can get away using the 2500K, I would prefer to do so (I feel bad for it pretty much living on my floor for a year). It will be running 24/7 though unless I need to restart it for cleaning / updates.

 

I also see that Western Digital RED drives are rated for 8 bay enclosures. Would running so many in one case be a bad idea?

[Captain_WD]

In my current system, I have a LSI MegaRAID 9260-8i CV and four 4TB Western Digital Red drives in RAID 10.

 

I want to build a new separate NAS for my personal data.

 

My plan is the build the following:

Intel i5 2500K

ASRock Mini ITX motherboard

8GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM

600-700W PSU

LSI MegaRAID 9260-8i CV (Moved from my current PC)

Eight 6TB Western Digital RED drives in RAID 10 with two more as global hot spares. (I might do ten 4TB though if price per GB is cheaper).

The four 4 TB drives will also move to this build.

Intel SAS Expander card

Rosewill Throne case (Cheapest case I could find that would hold the amount of drives I wanted)

 

I'm trying to go for bang for the buck. I'm working on the numbers so I know how much to save.

 

My original plan was to just RAID 10 the new drives using the LSI card and installing Windows 8 on it. Then, I would just use Home group to share the NAS to my PC / my friend (We both are content creators).

 

But I've recently been hearing about how RAID is dead and how ZFS and BTRFS are superior formats (To counter bit rot). Should I just go ahead with my original plan using Windows and my LSI RAID card? Or should I try to use ZFS on FreeNAS?

 

Also, I've been hearing that I need a Xeon with ECC memory for ZFS / a NAS in general. I really don't see myself putting much load on this NAS at all (Probably will only be handling photos / my files). If I can get away using the 2500K, I would prefer to do so (I feel bad for it pretty much living on my floor for a year). It will be running 24/7 though unless I need to restart it for cleaning / updates.

 

I also see that Western Digital RED drives are rated for 8 bay enclosures. Would running so many in one case be a bad idea?

 

Hey scottyseng,

 

I would suggest to consider WD Red Pro drives as they are more optimized for larger drive pools (8-16). The regular WD Red drives work great, cool and quiet but are optimized for up to 8-bay NAS systems. they would work in larger ones, but the safer option would be WD Red Pro. Here's a link: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=13AF7e

Other than that your plan seems great. You can up the RAM a bit if you can for better performance, but you should be good like that too. Have you considered a Xeon CPU?

 

Captain_WD.

[scottyseng]

 

Hey scottyseng,

 

I would suggest to consider WD Red Pro drives as they are more optimized for larger drive pools (8-16). The regular WD Red drives work great, cool and quiet but are optimized for up to 8-bay NAS systems. they would work in larger ones, but the safer option would be WD Red Pro. Here's a link: http://products.wdc.com/support/kb.ashx?id=13AF7e

Other than that your plan seems great. You can up the RAM a bit if you can for better performance, but you should be good like that too. Have you considered a Xeon CPU?

 

Captain_WD.

 

 

Hello Captain,

 

Hmm, at that price point, I might as shoot for 4 TB Western Digital SE drives (They cost at the same as the Red Pros on Newegg). Would SE drives work for me too? I don't mind paying up more for enterprise / Red Pros, but I just want to make sure I know how much I need to save up to buy all of the drives.

 

I think after reading online, I will probably get a Xeon low end CPU or Xeon Avoton with 16 GB of ECC RAM. I guess I'll save the 2500k for a mini ITX build or something of that nature in the future.

[Eniqmatic]

Who says you need a Xeon for ZFS? I would go for ZFS, I assume you're going to use FreeNas? You know that I3 have ECC support don't you and will preform well for a low usage NAS. Even handle's some 1080p streams and mostly anything you want to do.

[scottyseng]

Who says you need a Xeon for ZFS? I would go for ZFS, I assume you're going to use FreeNas? You know that I3 have ECC support don't you and will preform well for a low usage NAS. Even handle's some 1080p streams and mostly anything you want to do.

 

Well, I'm debating between FreeNAS or Windows 8. I have a pretty solid hardware RAID card so if I can get away with using Windows with NTFS and just that, I would. All devices using this would be Windows so a Homegroup would be easier to set up for me. On the other hand though, ZFS is the better format.

 

I know some i3 CPUs and the newest pentiums do support ECC, but I'd rather have a Xeon with the ECC to match for server grade. That or get a Xeon Avoton. I'm still looking at pricing though.

[Eniqmatic]

Well, I'm debating between FreeNAS or Windows 8. I have a pretty solid hardware RAID card so if I can get away with using Windows with NTFS and just that, I would. All devices using this would be Windows so a Homegroup would be easier to set up for me. On the other hand though, ZFS is the better format.

 

I know some i3 CPUs and the newest pentiums do support ECC, but I'd rather have a Xeon with the ECC to match for server grade. That or get a Xeon Avoton. I'm still looking at pricing though.

 

You don't get a Xeon Avoton unless I'm mistaken, it's branded as an Atom. I would seriously consider an i3 though, there is nothing about it that should concern you. You'll find alot of people use them for FreeNas, and pretty much matches the Avoton chip in performance, it's extremely close between them. 

[scottyseng]

You don't get a Xeon Avoton unless I'm mistaken, it's branded as an Atom. I would seriously consider an i3 though, there is nothing about it that should concern you. You'll find alot of people use them for FreeNas, and pretty much matches the Avoton chip in performance, it's extremely close between them. 

 

Hmm, I'll consider it. If it works, it works. I really don't plan to use my NAS for anything more than passing off photos / documents to it.

[Eniqmatic]

Exactly, Xeon would be total overkill for that application. I understand your concern that you think the i3 isn't server grade, however it's not CPU that will protect your data, it's the ECC RAM and file-system that will. 

 

Even in the future if you decided you wanted to use Plex, Transmission, BT Sync or any other Jails it will handle them well too. It can handle a couple of 1080p transcoding streams simultaneously.

[Captain_WD]

Hello Captain,

 

Hmm, at that price point, I might as shoot for 4 TB Western Digital SE drives (They cost at the same as the Red Pros on Newegg). Would SE drives work for me too? I don't mind paying up more for enterprise / Red Pros, but I just want to make sure I know how much I need to save up to buy all of the drives.

 

I think after reading online, I will probably get a Xeon low end CPU or Xeon Avoton with 16 GB of ECC RAM. I guess I'll save the 2500k for a mini ITX build or something of that nature in the future.

 

Although WD Se drives are enterprise class ones, they should work just fine If the price is not an issue, they would be also a good match for your needs.

 

Captain_WD.

[scottyseng]

 

Although WD Se drives are enterprise class ones, they should work just fine If the price is not an issue, they would be also a good match for your needs.

 

Captain_WD.

 

 

Well, the SE drive actually costs less than the Red Pro Drive on Newegg.

 

There are no disadvantages to the SE drive compared to the Red Drive right?

[rtpb5642]

Well, I'm debating between FreeNAS or Windows 8. I have a pretty solid hardware RAID card so if I can get away with using Windows with NTFS and just that, I would. All devices using this would be Windows so a Homegroup would be easier to set up for me. On the other hand though, ZFS is the better format.

I know some i3 CPUs and the newest pentiums do support ECC, but I'd rather have a Xeon with the ECC to match for server grade. That or get a Xeon Avoton. I'm still looking at pricing though.

Not W8, Fedora or Centos linux is the best.

[asquirrel]

-snip-

Problems:

1. Mini-ITX only has one PCIe port, (one PCI-anything port, actually) and you are mentioning two PCIe cards to plug into it...bad! You can either have the LSI controller or the Intel expander, not both. You need mATX to have both.

If you enjoy learning new things, give freeNAS a try. ZFS is not as fast as the hardware RAID card would be, and running ZFS on top of a RAID provided by the card is counterproductive (I hope the card offers a JBOD mode if you go the ZFS route!). That said, samba is *normally* easy to setup and run, and ZFS natively integrates with it to provide CIFS shares to windows boxes. Unknown words removed: It should be fairly easy to share your freeNAS files with windows machines. They won't know it isn't windows on the backend.

[scottyseng]

Not W8, Fedora or Centos linux is the best.

 

I've only touched Linux a few times. Is FreeNAS related to those distros of Linux?

 

 

Problems:

1. Mini-ITX only has one PCIe port, (one PCI-anything port, actually) and you are mentioning two PCIe cards to plug into it...bad! You can either have the LSI controller or the Intel expander, not both. You need mATX to have both.

If you enjoy learning new things, give freeNAS a try. ZFS is not as fast as the hardware RAID card would be, and running ZFS on top of a RAID provided by the card is counterproductive (I hope the card offers a JBOD mode if you go the ZFS route!). That said, samba is *normally* easy to setup and run, and ZFS natively integrates with it to provide CIFS shares to windows boxes. Unknown words removed: It should be fairly easy to share your freeNAS files with windows machines. They won't know it isn't windows on the backend.

 

The Intel SAS expander card is a standalone card. It does not require a PCI express port, only 4-pin power and a SAS cable input.

 

Either way, I have decided to change the CPU and motherboard to be a i3 on a ATX server motherboard with ECC RAM.

 

Hmm, I don't mind learning new things, but I want to know how do I get ZFS to play with Windows easily. I just want a folder / drive on my Windows desktop that feeds back to the NAS. I don't want anything too complex because the other user of this NAS isn't as tech savvy as I am.

 

Yeah, I read that you should never run ZFS on a hardware RAID (ZFS needs to see each drive). I should check if the card has a JBOD mode though.

 

I guess I should look up CIFS sharing with Windows. What do you think about BTRFS?

 

I guess I'm lost because on one hand, I hear RAID is dead, on the other, I hear ZFS has been taken by Oracle and isn't "Open-source" or that it won't be for long. I guess there's pros and cons to each of the file systems.

[rtpb5642]

I've only touched Linux a few times. Is FreeNAS related to those distros of Linux?

Freenas is linux but its only a has with web management its easy to use and will do the job. I use Red Hat (basically fedora/centos) because i do a lot more than just have a NAS.

 

If you only want a NAS then go with freeness, i run a web server, minecraft server, NAS, firewall, and DHCP server all on the same machine.

Fedora/Centos/Red Hate have built in support for btrfs and zfs. I use Red hat with Webmin installed, within webmin i installed samba windows file sharing.

If you make a raid/btrfs array then set it to mount in lets say /var/Array1 you can make a file share in samba to point to that location.

 

 

Im going to be making a tutorial on this soon if you want more info let me know.

[scottyseng]

Freenas is linux but its only a has with web management its easy to use and will do the job. I use Red Hat (basically fedora/centos) because i do a lot more than just have a NAS.

 

If you only want a NAS then go with freeness, i run a web server, minecraft server, NAS, firewall, and DHCP server all on the same machine.

Fedora/Centos/Red Hate have built in support for btrfs and zfs. I use Red hat with Webmin installed, within webmin i installed samba windows file sharing.

If you make a raid/btrfs array then set it to mount in lets say /var/Array1 you can make a file share in samba to point to that location.

 

 

Im going to be making a tutorial on this soon if you want more info let me know.

 

Yeah, I only want a basic NAS. Although I have to say, it is pretty cool seeing all of the stuff you run off of one machine using Red Hat.

 

I look forward to seeing that tutorial. I think I'll be happy just being able to patch ZFS to Windows for my friend and I to use as a documents folder.

 

I'm kind of depressed since I had never heard of ZFS when I bought my LSI MegaRAID controller. I though hardware RAID would be the end all solution when I bought this card. I hope this card can do JBOD, otherwise I guess I'll have to go buy a LSI HBA card.

[rtpb5642]

Yeah, I only want a basic NAS. Although I have to say, it is pretty cool seeing all of the stuff you run off of one machine using Red Hat.

 

I look forward to seeing that tutorial. I think I'll be happy just being able to patch ZFS to Windows for my friend and I to use as a documents folder.

 

I'm kind of depressed since I had never heard of ZFS when I bought my LSI MegaRAID controller. I though hardware RAID would be the end all solution when I bought this card. I hope this card can do JBOD, otherwise I guess I'll have to go buy a LSI HBA card.

ZFS eats ram id suggest btrfs.

And thanks it is some cool stuff

You have a good RAID controller can you just use it for extra sata ports and use btrfs?

I just posted the tutorial 

[asquirrel]

What do you think about BTRFS?

 

I guess I'm lost because on one hand, I hear RAID is dead, on the other, I hear ZFS has been taken by Oracle and isn't "Open-source" or that it won't be for long. I guess there's pros and cons to each of the file systems.

I have no opinion on BTRFS. I am ignorant of everything about it.

 

Keep in mind you hear a lot of things that aren't relevant. People spout that Armageddon, the mark of the beast, running out of oil, and a dozen other world ending disasters are 'just around the corner' and have for the past millenium. You only need it to work for the next few years anyway. 10, 15? Also, RAID is not dead. I don't know of a single enterprise storage device (apart from those used for Object storage (hadoop, Openstack Swift, etc)) that do NOT use RAID in one iteration or another (some use ZFS, some use normal raid, some use their own iteration of the RAID idea). So...RAID is only dead to make hipsters get blawgpost hits.

[rtpb5642]

So...RAID is only dead to make hipsters get blawgpost hits.

You dont know what your talking about.

Businesses still use RAID because to switch from RAID to something new is a big job.

[asquirrel]

You dont know what your talking about.

Businesses still use RAID because to switch from RAID to something new is a big job.

You're right. My company sells brand new arrays to customers daily and I'm not privy to internal meetings on how those multi-million dollar arrays function. Nor is my RL job testing said arrays to break them in customer-type setups to ensure customers run into as few bugs in the feild as possible. Yep. I'm totally ignorant of what I'm talking about, yet humble enough to say I know nothing about BTRFS. Grow up.

[rtpb5642]

You're right. My company sells brand new arrays to customers daily and I'm not privy to internal meetings on how those multi-million dollar arrays function. Nor is my RL job testing said arrays to break them in customer-type setups to ensure customers run into as few bugs in the feild as possible. Yep. I'm totally ignorant of what I'm talking about, yet humble enough to say I know nothing about BTRFS. Grow up.

I want my data safe so i use btrfs and for people at home its the better choice.

[scottyseng]

I have no opinion on BTRFS. I am ignorant of everything about it.

 

Keep in mind you hear a lot of things that aren't relevant. People spout that Armageddon, the mark of the beast, running out of oil, and a dozen other world ending disasters are 'just around the corner' and have for the past millenium. You only need it to work for the next few years anyway. 10, 15? Also, RAID is not dead. I don't know of a single enterprise storage device (apart from those used for Object storage (hadoop, Openstack Swift, etc)) that do NOT use RAID in one iteration or another (some use ZFS, some use normal raid, some use their own iteration of the RAID idea). So...RAID is only dead to make hipsters get blawgpost hits.

 

I can vouch for you there. The engineering firm I used to be an intern used hardware RAID. Still was amazing to see a server room in real life.  

So would you say Hardware RAID with Windows is a viable option? I'm in that odd position where I can go BTRFS or NTFS since my RAID card is pretty capable.

 

Ideally I would hope that LSI or a RAID card manufacturer would add a checksum feature to their RAID cards.

 

 

ZFS eats ram id suggest btrfs.

And thanks it is some cool stuff

You have a good RAID controller can you just use it for extra sata ports and use btrfs?

I just posted the tutorial 

 

Yeah, looking into BTRFS. I read your tutorial. Would you say going for a full Linux distro is better than say using Rockstor (Pretty much the BTRFS version of FreeNAS).

I don't think I would easily afford the memory required for ZFS.

 

I'm learning a lot since joining the forums though.

[asquirrel]

So would you say Hardware RAID with Windows is a viable option? I'm in that odd position where I can go BTRFS or NTFS since my RAID card is pretty capable.

 

Ideally I would hope that LSI or a RAID card manufacturer would add a checksum feature to their RAID cards.

I use hardware raid for windows. RAID10 specifically. I'm not worried about bit rot though. The reason I use RAID10 is because I used to use two RAID1 sets (C/E drives) and when my backups ran it totally killed the performance of the drives. Now the RAID10 set is faster than the backup drive (by ~50MB/s) and so my backups don't murder my performance. Eventually I'll rebuild and just get an SSD, but for now...yeah.

 

Like I said in a previous post. RAID as a concept isn't going anywhere. The specific implementation of RAID where each disk is striped in a defined order, that is going away slowly. FIlesystems like ZFS and the native filesystems of various enterprise storage products, where storage is a 'giant pool' for you to use and the filesystem deals with where to put the bits, those are the way forward. Object storage will move away from RAID entirely and move to replicated pools (JBOD + replication, no striping or other RAID techniques, apart from possibly RAID0) because any form of parity calculation makes them too slow. As CPUs get faster and faster, and storage remains relatively slow, the cost of doing the check "Ok, how many drives can I spread this file over?" will become less and less, and eventually you will see filesystems which don't use anything like RAID at all, where only some drives contain stripes of a given file. But for now, the hardware is still too slow to make that a viable solution, and it will remain too slow for a while yet (decades).

[rtpb5642]

I can vouch for you there. The engineering firm I used to be an intern used hardware RAID. Still was amazing to see a server room in real life.

So would you say Hardware RAID with Windows is a viable option? I'm in that odd position where I can go BTRFS or NTFS since my RAID card is pretty capable.

Ideally I would hope that LSI or a RAID card manufacturer would add a checksum feature to their RAID cards.

Yeah, looking into BTRFS. I read your tutorial. Would you say going for a full Linux distro is better than say using Rockstor (Pretty much the BTRFS version of FreeNAS).

I don't think I would easily afford the memory required for ZFS.

I'm learning a lot since joining the forums though.

Id use a linux distro and btrfs as its supported right from install. Fedora is free too. I cant vouch for rockstor as ive never used it before.

[scottyseng]

Looking at my LSI MegaRAID card, it doesn't support JBOD, so trying to use that for BTRFS / ZFS is out. I would have to buy a HBA card to so.

 

I'm going to continue researching into the different file systems and more into hardware RAID. Also which is easier to set up with Windows on the user side. I wonder if its possible to have a protection system for a hardware RAID array.

 

I wouldn't mind running BTRFS on Linux, but seeing as how I have zero experience with Linux, I'm kind of scared of putting my data on a OS / file system I would not know how to troubleshoot on my own. I think I might build a smaller PC to run Linux and get better with BTRFS before putting it into a NAS.

 

For now though, I'm going to focus on saving up for the NAS build. Looking at $3-4k to build it. Thanks for the useful information and insight though.