[Confused] DIY NAS - Windows Server, FreeNAS, Unraid for me?

[Joshndroid]

Hey Guys,

 

[This might be a long-ish post, i just want to give as much info as possible]

 

I am stuck in a bit of a dilemma at this present time.

I am trying to work out what kind of NAS OS, is going to be the best fit for me. I have been googling and reading forums for each for the past week or so. I just can't decide on what is going to be the best solution for me and now after reviewing Linus's Gaming NAS video I'm even more stuck.

 

I'll firstly start out by defining my use case right now.

At the moment, we are not living in our own house, so unfortunately nas will need to be Wireless, there is literally no room in the kitchen (where the most stable telephone/ADSL port is, to put a pc AND the location of such and not owning the house prevents from running metres of ethernet cable around to secure the best connections. What i do have tho is a TP-Link 1750 Dual Band router with dual band card for the PC, so while not great, that's the best i got). Next, is for our room, where the NAS will be located, I need a PC connected to the TV, due to streaming services not running natively/locally on the TV (I got my 55inch TV just before the whole smart TV really took off, but im not buying a new TV right now). This means I would 'like' to have the NAS also be able to atleast run a streaming service program and plug into the TV as well. At the moment I have a tablet essentially hardwired (as i had it just laying around) doing these duties but I think I am getting interference over the 2.4Ghz band (its not dual band) from the sheer amount of devices we have in the house total. The parts i am re-purposing for the NAS were on TV duties but to have these bits just to stream a couple of windows programs to the TV i thought was a complete waste. Then if i go the whole hog and run gaming NAS style, i wont necessarily get to play games much because it is going to then be used as primary use for TV duties.

So to sum up;

- Wireless is a must

- No ethernet for foreseeable future

- Would very much 'like' to have NAS & windows program support at same time.

 

Now Move on to basic NAS use case.

- NAS will be used as a server of files to multiple devices on the local network. I can count atleast 5 i would use myself.

- NAS will not be required to transcode media. I used Kodi on all devices so realistically i just need the file served to me.

- NAS will be used as a central backup of important files also, not just media file service.

- NAS OS must support atleast single parity (while not foolproof, better than nothing). I will be implementing a strategy for external backup of important files, not off-site, but external none-the-less).

- NAS will need to be able to let me increase storage without breaking absolutely everything and starting it all from scratch (tough ask by the looks of it, but i hope someone has more info for me).

 

Now lets move on to the hardware I have right now.

Case - Antex P100 (very suprised by it)

Motherboard - Gigabyte Z97-D3H M-ATX

CPU - Intel Pentium G3258

Ram - 8GB Patriot Dual Chanel 4GB sticks (non-ECC)

Storage - 2 x Seagate 3Tb Desktop grade 7200rpm drives

               - 2 x 3Tb Hitachi Desktop NAS 7200rpm drives (will be getting more in the future to both replace other drives and increase NAS storage size).

Network - TP-Link Dual band something (CBF getting model right now).

 

Gaming NAS styled would encompass the Gaming PC i have listed in my sig, SSD's, Storage, Z97 Gaming 5, 4790K, etc, etc, with the addition, essentially, of the storage above.

 

I dont really want to purchase another (more powerful) haswell CPU or to purchase to much more hardware other than drives. Haswell is the older generation now and I dont want to buy low end Skylake, It will end up being a completed refresh of my Gaming PC only and that will mean a fair bit of cash I dont really want to spend. I have the hardware outlined above already on top of, gaming PC, build PC and laptop.

 

I initially was looking at FreeNAS, mainly due to the dual parity, once i started reading the forums and having a look at the UI and features, I think this is far to complex and unnecessary for my needs. It also would seem to prevent me from dual purposing with TV related duties.

 

I then looked at UnRAID - Looks good, forum seems helpful, potential to run NAS alone but also run with dual purpose with virtualised windows for TV duties. My issue at present with this setup is my hardware i have (CPU) will probably note be enough to run dual NAS, TV duties as its only dual core. Sure its enough for NAS duties but not much else, certainly nothing too intensive anyway (plus i am almost certain it does not support virtualisation).

 

Today, I have been looking at Windows Server - Now i am only going by what I have read so far, but this can do everything I need it to do? It can run windows programs (TV duties - check) & run software RAID with even dual parity.

 

Any help would be appreciated before i jump the gun and give them a go. I don't really want to spend hours and hours setting something up only for it not to work and then need to go through the whole formatting/set-up once again.

 

Any further questions I am happy to advise.

Thanks

[MeshFile]

Windows server and use its File and storage service as you won't do virtualization on that dual core.

[lowlyf]

FreeBSD with ZFS filesystem. Remember it's not advisable to run ZFS without ECC RAM, but you'll probably have no problems. Grab a small SSD for ZFS cache and you'll have a powerful NAS. As far as connecting it to a TV, there are plenty of apps you can use, and just output like a monitor.

 

[Joshndroid]

7 minutes ago, lowlyf said:

FreeBSD with ZFS filesystem. Remember it's not advisable to run ZFS without ECC RAM, but you'll probably have no problems. Grab a small SSD for ZFS cache and you'll have a powerful NAS. As far as connecting it to a TV, there are plenty of apps you can use, and just output like a monitor.

 

can you specifically run windows app in a container? the program required does not have a linux variant, only windows or mac

[lowlyf]

12 minutes ago, Joshndroid said:

can you specifically run windows app in a container? the program required does not have a linux variant, only windows or mac

Which app? And are you connecting PC to TV with HDMI or networking it to the TV?

[Joshndroid]

4 minutes ago, lowlyf said:

Which app? And are you connecting PC to TV with HDMI or networking it to the TV?

hdmi to TV and its foxtel go here in Aus.

 

i may have to end up going back to just running windows 10, running a software raid 2x2 drives and run some software to backup files as well as run windows shares/smb shares in the meantime

[lowlyf]

3 minutes ago, Joshndroid said:

hdmi to TV and its foxtel go here in Aus.

 

i may have to end up going back to just running windows 10, running a software raid 2x2 drives and run some software to backup files as well as run windows shares/smb shares in the meantime

Do you need to run that windows app for a particular reason? There's tons of great other apps to play movies especially in a unix based machine. But if you like Windows stick with Windows. I wouldn't backup anything to software RAID, let alone keep my files there. One unexpected shutdown while you're writing to the array and POOF, sad computer guy. But that's just me. Fire up a FreeBSD and check out how much lighter it is than Windows, how well it handles data (especially in ZFS with error correction on a JBOD controller), and how easy it would be to play videos on your separate screen. You might be surprised.

[Joshndroid]

39 minutes ago, lowlyf said:

Do you need to run that windows app for a particular reason? There's tons of great other apps to play movies especially in a unix based machine. But if you like Windows stick with Windows. I wouldn't backup anything to software RAID, let alone keep my files there. One unexpected shutdown while you're writing to the array and POOF, sad computer guy. But that's just me. Fire up a FreeBSD and check out how much lighter it is than Windows, how well it handles data (especially in ZFS with error correction on a JBOD controller), and how easy it would be to play videos on your separate screen. You might be surprised.

We pay for the service, satellite TV, only way to get streaming of sports, live TV, etc into this room, so yeah I do need it. Its internet based not local. i would be covered otherwise.

 

i've been researching software/bios/hardware raid and while i can and do understand the merits to hardware raid, its still no better because you still need to ensure a further external backup anyway, and i cant see why paying another 200+ for a somewhat decent raid controller is going to do in the event that I have a power surge or fire or something else frying my board or components. In any case, I would still be relying on another, external, backup to ensure my data is 'safe.' It may be worth my while just going down the Gaming NAS route, to ensure i have quality hardware now and the OS is in a virtual machine so if it crashes it wont hopefully take my NAS down (if setup on different drives). Running 2 x Raid 0 arrays are probably quite sketchy as I appreciate, I could just run 2 x Raid1 OR format and run them as usual drives and use backup software to back One desktop drive to a NAS drive and the other desktop drive to the other NAS drive and forgo raid altogether.

 

It's really beginning to sound like unless you have a box of specific hardware that can sit next to your router/switch whatever, none of these solutions are any good yet (for what I want anyway). While they can and will work, i can see why people just go screw it and buy a dedicated NAS solution.

[lowlyf]

Hope you find what you're looking for. The SAN I work on doesn't run conventional RAID anymore, and for a reason. Check out the vid below on RAID solutions, and why error correction on the platter is great. Also those ZFS and BTRFS features are soooo cool. Wendell makes some really accurate points. (Tek Syndicate vid on LMG site, suck on that lol)

 

[d3sl91]

1 hour ago, Joshndroid said:

Hey Guys,

Any further questions I am happy to advise.

Thanks

First question, are you familiar with Linux?

Second question, since you are not sure about that APP working in a non-windows OS, are you willing to spend hours/days screwing with it to get it to work?

 

I have plain ole Windows 10 Pro on my NAS. Has had zero problems. Prior to that I had a 7 Pro NAS that ran for....3+ years with not a single problem. By all means, spend the time using a NAS Linux distro if you have the time/knowledge/need of a feature. Otherwise... I'm sure Windows server will work fine... even a non-server version will likely work. 

[Joshndroid]

34 minutes ago, lowlyf said:

Hope you find what you're looking for. The SAN I work on doesn't run conventional RAID anymore, and for a reason. Check out the vid below on RAID solutions, and why error correction on the platter is great. Also those ZFS and BTRFS features are soooo cool. Wendell makes some really accurate points. (Tek Syndicate vid on LMG site, suck on that lol)

 

Good Video, quite informative. Even ZFS really is no good for me without ECC memory if it encounters an error.

 

27 minutes ago, d3sl91 said:

First question, are you familiar with Linux?

Second question, since you are not sure about that APP working in a non-windows OS, are you willing to spend hours/days screwing with it to get it to work?

 

I have plain ole Windows 10 Pro on my NAS. Has had zero problems. Prior to that I had a 7 Pro NAS that ran for....3+ years with not a single problem. By all means, spend the time using a NAS Linux distro if you have the time/knowledge/need of a feature. Otherwise... I'm sure Windows server will work fine... even a non-server version will likely work. 

Quite familiar with linux, so that's not much of my concern. It's more of getting it all to do what I want at this time. I am thinking i will probably look at a linux based one in the future once i get out of here and back into my own place where i have the ability to hardwire things with ethernet and more space to have what i want where i want it. I was merely going to either run full linux based (and no app), gaming NAS (for both worlds), or straight up windows

 

How do you run your system with windows 10? how many drives, what kind of system (i did see your PC part picker but that doesn't explain to much more about it). It is looking more and more, right now, that i will continue with this. Do you use backup software? Do you control shares via workgroups or windows share?

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, lowlyf said:

Hope you find what you're looking for. The SAN I work on doesn't run conventional RAID anymore, and for a reason. Check out the vid below on RAID solutions, and why error correction on the platter is great. Also those ZFS and BTRFS features are soooo cool. Wendell makes some really accurate points. (Tek Syndicate vid on LMG site, suck on that lol)

 

The linked video has been the worst thing to ever have been seen and talked about on the LMG forum regarding storage. Many people watch it and reference it without any real understanding of RAID or what is actually being shown in the video, the worst case scenario and specifically engineered to guarantee a failure.

 

The points in the video are valid yes but are not a representation of the real world and the true failure rates of RAID arrays etc.

 

RAID controllers do data scrubing/patrol reads to detect bit errors and correct them, in every case in the video if this was run before replacing disks etc the error would have been fixed and that would be the end of the matter. The danger is only from bit errors and array rebuilds before a patrol read and no other mirror copy or parity bit can be used.

 

I have run literally hundreds of RAID arrays and the only one that has ever failed during a rebuild was one where the RAID card failed during the rebuild, this could have equally killed a ZFS pool also since it was writing garbage to the disks before it outright stopped functioning (assuming it was an HBA in this case).

 

Yes ZFS, BTRFS, ReFS are much better suited to large data storage for long term but RAID is not dead or going anywhere any time soon. There may even be a technology shift at some point where RAID cards start to implement features like ZFS or ZFS itself.

[Joshndroid]

The linked video has been the worst thing to ever have been seen and talked about on the LMG forum regarding storage. Many people watch it and reference it without any real understanding of RAID or what is actually being shown in the video, the worst case scenario and specifically engineered to guarantee a failure.

 

The points in the video are valid yes but are not a representation of the real world and the true failure rates of RAID arrays etc.

 

RAID controllers do data scrubing/patrol reads to detect bit errors and correct them, in every case in the video if this was run before replacing disks etc the error would have been fixed and that would be the end of the matter. The danger is only from bit errors and array rebuilds before a patrol read and no other mirror copy or parity bit can be used.

 

I have run literally hundreds of RAID arrays and the only one that has ever failed during a rebuild was one where the RAID card failed during the rebuild, this could have equally killed a ZFS pool also since it was writing garbage to the disks before it outright stopped functioning (assuming it was an HBA in this case).

 

Yes ZFS, BTRFS, ReFS are much better suited to large data storage for long term but RAID is not dead or going anywhere any time soon. There may even be a technology shift at some point where RAID cards start to implement features like ZFS or ZFS itself.

I appreciate your input 100% can u further shed light on whether raid via things such as Windows 10 assist me at this time. Can I be fairly safe in a raid 5 or 6 of my 4 storage drives at this time?

[leadeater]

12 minutes ago, Joshndroid said:

I appreciate your input 100% can u further shed light on whether raid via things such as Windows 10 assist me at this time. Can I be fairly safe in a raid 5 or 6 of my 4 storage drives at this time?

If your starting fresh with a new build it would be best to not use hardware RAID, the extra cost is not worth it unless you have a requirement to use it which is unlikely.

 

If Windows is the easiest for you to use and some of the software requires this OS to work, TV etc, then use Windows Storage Spaces. It is available in both the desktop OS and the server OS. Simple to use and many good guides and information online. It really is just a GUI select disks ,next ,next, done task to get it working.

 

Also have you considered ethernet over power (powerline ethernet) from the modem/router to a switch then plug the NAS and other PC's etc in to the switch. Will get much better network file copy speed and won't take up any extra space in the kitchen, just a slightly larger power plug. Much faster than wireless too.

 

Keep your NAS and gaming pc separate too, would just end up being extremely annoying and inconvenient for you.

 

Also good to see you are already aware that a backup is required no matter the solution, Windows Backup to a USB disk(s) will work well btw or Veeam Endpoint Backup Free.

[d3sl91]

9 hours ago, Joshndroid said:

How do you run your system with windows 10? how many drives, what kind of system (i did see your PC part picker but that doesn't explain to much more about it). It is looking more and more, right now, that i will continue with this. Do you use backup software? Do you control shares via workgroups or windows share?

Currently 4 drives, set up in two Storage Spaces using Mirror type. I would go for parity, but I want to do a refresh on all 4 drives before I do that. (oh, and I have differing drive sizes). 

 

The NAS is the backup for the systems in my house, and just switched from "bvckup 2" to using Microsoft File History. For the system itself, the network backup folders are not backed up, but the OS drive and network share are, and that is done using an external drive once a week - currently an image + directly copying my network shares/media folders. The way I handle important files does not require that my local NAS be redundant. All of my work documents and important personal documents are stored directly on OneDrive already - providing me with at least 4 locations at once, one being offsite. (Desktop, NAS, Work Laptop, Cloud).

That, and I don't want to spend the money on a 4+ TB external drive to hold everything, when the system needs a full CPU+Mobo refresh and 4x 3TB WD Red drives. 

 

Shares are being controlled using strict homegroup sharing (for lack of better term). Because all my systems are now running at least windows 8.1, I add the computer to the homegroup, and then share specific backup folders with specific microsoft usernames. (Right-click Share With and specify exactly who has access). And then some I have open completely for anyone within the homegroup to access. 

 

I used to to password protected, etc etc. But honestly - taking advantage of the current microsoft ecosystem ends up working well. Non-windows devices (my macbook) Its as easy as ConnectingAs.. and then punching in my MS account info. 

[leadeater]

4 hours ago, d3sl91 said:

Currently 4 drives, set up in two Storage Spaces using Mirror type. I would go for parity, but I want to do a refresh on all 4 drives before I do that. (oh, and I have differing drive sizes). 

Just be aware that Storage Spaces parity configurations write performance is really crap as it currently stands, when I tested it with 5 3TB Reds it would only do 30MB/s write. Also Storage Spaces two-way/three-way mirror configurations support as many drives as you want, it's not a typical mirror but you do have less usable space.

 

You can also use different disk sizes and would will be able to use all of the space. You would have to create a second Virtual Disk to use the extra space beyond what the maximum size allows with all disks calculated on the smallest disk in the pool. It's actually one of the nice things about Storage Spaces compared to other products out there.

[LinusTech]

I am also frustrated by the NAS options available on the market. Pre-built units are mostly terrible for some reason or another and it feels like every software solution has some critical flaw - a big issue with freenas for me is the fact that you have to add entire pools of drives at a time if you want to expand. 

 

We are on unRAID for all of our NASes now and I've been really happy with it.

 

One of the biggest advantages to Unraid is easy expansion. You can just plunk in another disk whenever you want as long as it's equal or smaller in size compared to the parity disk.  

 

I don't know what kind of support you're going to find for wireless, however.. 

[Joshndroid]

I am also frustrated by the NAS options available on the market. Pre-built units are mostly terrible for some reason or another and it feels like every software solution has some critical flaw - a big issue with freenas for me is the fact that you have to add entire pools of drives at a time if you want to expand. 

 

We are on unRAID for all of our NASes now and I've been really happy with it.

 

One of the biggest advantages to Unraid is easy expansion. You can just plunk in another disk whenever you want as long as it's equal or smaller in size compared to the parity disk.  

 

I don't know what kind of support you're going to find for wireless, however.. 

I have a dlink 2 bay Nas at the moment but it is so slow and buggy that I was better off taking it offline than the subpar result I was getting, constant dropping out, locking up using the webui, just pure disappointment.

Unraid can use your wireless card if you build the module compatible with the Linux version associated, so I've read, which should be alright as I get good support with my other tplink cards on linux. So with further playing it can work. It's just hard when you don't have much control over the house as it's not mine, the joys of saving for a house deposit.

The adding of drives via a drive pool is a real turn off. I want to just grab a new drive, throw it in, and keep going on my merry way which is a big tick for unraid.

I think I will just have to stick with what know for now and revisit in 6 months or so. By that time I should also have sufficient drives (hopefully 6 to 8) to have a really good crack at a standalone Nas box, connected via Ethernet which is definitely what I want

[Joshndroid]

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Thanks for the input. Will be setting it up in this manner today, luckily I didn't wipe my windows off my ssd =) . Will probably just mirror same drive type to drive type, setup a few shares and ensure full spreading of important data across a couple devices.

[Aekim]

10 hours ago, leadeater said:

Also have you considered ethernet over power (powerline ethernet) from the modem/router to a switch then plug the NAS and other PC's etc in to the switch. Will get much better network file copy speed and won't take up any extra space in the kitchen, just a slightly larger power plug. Much faster than wireless too.

Try this method, it`s far more stable than any wifi and has way better speed ( we used the 500mbit and now the 1200mbit devolo plugs).

 

The only other OS which can add drives like unraid is rockstor as far as I know (exept windows with its storage pools).

Openmediavault could do it with snapraid and greyhole, but that`s rather complicated to configure.

[LinusTech]

5 hours ago, Aekim said:

Try this method, it`s far more stable than any wifi and has way better speed ( we used the 500mbit and now the 1200mbit devolo plugs).

 

The only other OS which can add drives like unraid is rockstor as far as I know (exept windows with its storage pools).

Openmediavault could do it with snapraid and greyhole, but that`s rather complicated to configure.

I didn't know that Rockstor can do that. I've gotta make some time to tool around with it. The offsite replication feature sounds amaze-balls as well..

[d3sl91]

13 hours ago, leadeater said:

Just be aware that Storage Spaces parity configurations write performance is really crap as it currently stands, when I tested it with 5 3TB Reds it would only do 30MB/s write. Also Storage Spaces two-way/three-way mirror configurations support as many drives as you want, it's not a typical mirror but you do have less usable space.

 

You can also use different disk sizes and would will be able to use all of the space. You would have to create a second Virtual Disk to use the extra space beyond what the maximum size allows with all disks calculated on the smallest disk in the pool. It's actually one of the nice things about Storage Spaces compared to other products out there.

That is helpful! Was not aware Spaces were flexible like that, but then being software-based it shouldn't be that surprising to me. When I get my set of 4 new drives and update the CPU/Mobo (in a few months, Weddings cost $$$), I'll see what kind of throughput I get. Otherwise I'm just thinking RAID5. 

[Joshndroid]

So I took everyone's advice on board and read further. At this time I decided to ditch raid altogether regarding raid 1 (which is all I was going to do due to needing to stick with windows at this time anyway) and just set up 2 sets of like drives. I did this due to not having perfect environment of multiple storage drives and a best case filesystem. If I had run raid 1, if raid fails I could still lose almost everything. I decided that I would use 1 desktop drive and setup media files commonly accessed through home group shares. On one of the Nas drives I placed more important document files and photos. I will also set local shares. I configured firewall rules to limit sharing (although in widows it says to everyone) only to 5 local ip address and I actually have incoming connections blocked on all other both internal and external ip's to the pc. I then setup a batch system that will mirror the contents of the desktop drive to the second desktop drive and the Nas drive to the other Nas drive based on what has changed filesystem wise and content wise as if it is more of a backup I guess rather than a concurrent write at the time. Why? Well I guess for raid 1 I didn't necessarily need the immediate write to 2 disks. Further this (from what I can gather) will limit unnecessary read/writes on the second disks for which the primary disk will be taking the brunt of the daily work load, in serving content to the TV, as well as sharing that content to all others on the network. I only add maybe a few files per day so a once daily at like 3am script will be all I need right now. I have been researching a powerline adaptor, but to see best results I would need one on the modem end and 2 (1 to where my gaming and building pcs are) and the second to where the TV is. I still want to do a proper Nas and I will in the future for sure thanks to all who threw in their thoughts/ideas