Xpenology vs. unRaid or another other OS

[Member]

I'm wondering what you guys use for a server OS. 

Freenas is way too hardware demanding. (costs too much $)

Planning to have an i3, 8GB ram.

 

I am going to backup macs and window computers.

Do you guys have any suggestions?

 

 

thx

[Electronics Wizardy]

11 minutes ago, Member said:

I'm wondering what you guys use for a server OS. 

Freenas is way too hardware demanding. (costs too much $)

 

I am going to backup macs and window computers.

Do you guys have any suggestions?

 

 

thx

What is your budget/hardware your using. How well do you know linux?

[Member]

58 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What is your budget/hardware your using. How well do you know linux?

I am probably going to be building a server with an i3, 8GB Ram

 

I am not experienced with linux

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Member said:

I am probably going to be building a server with an i3, 8GB Ram

 

I am not experienced with linux

How much storage do you need? Total budget. A good solution for just files would be a synology/qnap nas.

[Member]

59 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

How much storage do you need? Total budget. A good solution for just files would be a synology/qnap nas.

I need around 2TB of storage. 

Total budget is around $700 CAD.

I have looked at Synology solutions; however, they are really pricey for the low performance hardware. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, Member said:

I need around 2TB of storage. 

Total budget is around $700 CAD.

I have looked at Synology solutions; however, they are really pricey for the low performance hardware. 

No reason why you need a fast cpu for a nas, there normally the same speed as systems with cpu's much faster.

 

Id probably get this

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BNPT1EG/ref=s9_acsd_hps_bw_c_x_1

 

With a hgst 2tb drive

[Member]

59 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

No reason why you need a fast cpu for a nas, there normally the same speed as systems with cpu's much faster.

 

Id probably get this

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01BNPT1EG/ref=s9_acsd_hps_bw_c_x_1

 

With a hgst 2tb drive

Do you think I can do some occasional video streaming with this?

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Member said:

Do you think I can do some occasional video streaming with this?

 

Yea, they will fill a gig network connection just fine.

[Member]

59 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Yea, they will fill a gig network connection just fine.

Ok, I will look into the Synology products. 

It seems as though the Synology DSM is very good from home surveillance to media streaming.

[brwainer]

5 hours ago, Member said:

Ok, I will look into the Synology products. 

It seems as though the Synology DSM is very good from home surveillance to media streaming.

I haven't used it myself, but Synology DSM is one of the best NAS OS's out there. If I were to get a NAS (versus building full servers as I have been doing) then I would definitely get Synology.

[Member]

1 hour ago, brwainer said:

I haven't used it myself, but Synology DSM is one of the best NAS OS's out there. If I were to get a NAS (versus building full servers as I have been doing) then I would definitely get Synology.

Do you think the Synology boxes have good enough hardware for streaming, little bit of virtualization, etc.?

It seems like most boxes only have duo core CPUs.

[RezidentSeagull]

Just my 2-cents, but I built a FreeNAS box using for $500 CAD with the following:

 

- Athlon 5350 4-core APU

- MSI AM1i ITX Motherboard

- 8GB DDR3 Non-ECC RAM (roast me for it, Idgaf)

- 2x 3TB WD RED drives in a mirror-config

- 2x 16GB Sandisk USB drives (mirrored and super small for the OS itself)

- Fractal Design Node 304

 

The most expensive part of the build were the drives themselves, at a total of $300 for the pair.

 

It maxes out a local one-to-one Gigabit connection to my desktop rig, although I'm sure FreeNAS snobs will undoubtedly trash it for the use of AMD hardware and non-ECC ram. Let's be honest though: physical hardware failure is much more likely than bit-errors to destroy data, and you just have to accept that this sort of build is really only meant for budget NAS functionality, which is exactly what I use it for.

 

EDIT: One of the trade-offs is limited SATA ports on my particular box. Still, if I shop for a used HBA card, I can add more drives later when I actually need more storage

Edited June 26, 2016 by RezidentSeagull
Adding extra detail, yo

[brwainer]

8 hours ago, Member said:

Do you think the Synology boxes have good enough hardware for streaming, little bit of virtualization, etc.?

It seems like most boxes only have duo core CPUs.

Does streaming mean a client connects via either normal file sharing or DLNA, and plays the file from the NAS? If so, then any NAS that has the features you need will be powerful enough. If 'streaming' means transcoding with Plex or a similar software, then you should check the documentation and forums for the software. The Plex support site jas pretty good details on recommended NAS models, including some Synology units, for either "just streaming", or full transcoding on the fly.

 

Any NAS that has the ability for virtualization should be powerful enough for small home use. This obvioualy depends on what a "little bit" means to you for this.

 

I wouldn't be put off by a dual core unit just because it is dual core.

[Sunshine1868]

Ubuntu with Samba...takes 3 minutes to set up. follow the Ubuntu help page and you'll be done in no time.

[Member]

1 hour ago, Sunshine1868 said:

Ubuntu with Samba...takes 3 minutes to set up. follow the Ubuntu help page and you'll be done in no time.

Can it backup Mac? AFP

[Rob_LC]

Checkout one of these:

http://www.bjorn3d.com/2015/12/asustor-as1002t-nas/

It supports both windows and MAC fileshares. 

Add two 3TB or 4TB drives in Raid 1 (mirror) and you are away.

 

[Sunshine1868]

7 hours ago, Member said:

Can it backup Mac? AFP

there are ways to back up a Mac other than Time machine  

besides, AFP is getting dropped this fall with macOS

[brwainer]

3 hours ago, Sunshine1868 said:

there are ways to back up a Mac other than Time machine  

besides, AFP is getting dropped this fall with macOS

There are other ways but Time Machine is pretty nice and you can't really complain about an Apple user who wants to use the Apple tools. But I'm confused about this supposed dropping of AFP - are they going to support SMB for Time Machine? If so that's great!

[Sunshine1868]

21 minutes ago, brwainer said:

There are other ways but Time Machine is pretty nice and you can't really complain about an Apple user who wants to use the Apple tools. But I'm confused about this supposed dropping of AFP - are they going to support SMB for Time Machine? If so that's great!

I'm with ya, I too am a Mac user and TM is my backup solution... With the advent of APFS (Apple File System), the file system itself will (essentially) handle snapshotting in the same way (except lighter weight and more reliably), so TM backups won't be necessary. Apart from that, I did read somewhere that TM over SMB would be supported as SMB will become the de facto standard of transferring files on mac (which it already is, just not for TM). 

 

It seems Apple will let AFP* (fixed from AFS) die; it is not terribly reliable and only has TM as a use case...I'm quite ok if it does.

 

quick read later: it seems APFS volumes will only be allowed sharing access over SMB, so it stands to reason that since APFS will be used on all Apple devices, TM will go to APFS and then it will work over SMB.

[brwainer]

3 minutes ago, Sunshine1868 said:

I'm with ya, I too am a Mac user and TM is my backup solution... With the advent of APFS (Apple File System), the file system itself will (essentially) handle snapshotting in the same way (except lighter weight and more reliably), so TM backups won't be necessary. Apart from that, I did read somewhere that TM over SMB would be supported as SMB will become the de facto standard of transferring files on mac (which it already is, just not for TM). 

 

It seems Apple will let AFS die; it is not terribly reliable and only has TM as a use case...I'm quite ok if it does.

 

quick read later: it seems APFS volumes will only be allowed sharing access over SMB, so it stands to reason that since APFS will be used on all Apple devices, TM will go to APFS and then it will work over SMB.

So they're ripping off snapshotting from ZFS and not the rest of the features. Got it. Good ol Apple lol.

 

To tie this back into the conversation, right now Synology is the best bet, regardless of future possible changes.

[Sunshine1868]

@brwainer actually, the features APFS includes are executed in a different way than ZFS, they just happen to solve the same issue. Aside from that, APFS has many features that ZFS falls short on - hence Apple's decision to not use it back in 2006, and again to not use it now.

but i digress...

 

In the meantime, there are plenty of options for you, OP. if you are looking for a backup solution, I'd say pick a pre-built NAS; for the price, you can't build a better system (most of the time)

if you have a spare machine that you want to turn into a NAS, there are plenty of options; I find Ubuntu an easy, light solution.

[Member]

3 hours ago, Sunshine1868 said:

@brwainer actually, the features APFS includes are executed in a different way than ZFS, they just happen to solve the same issue. Aside from that, APFS has many features that ZFS falls short on - hence Apple's decision to not use it back in 2006, and again to not use it now.

but i digress...

 

In the meantime, there are plenty of options for you, OP. if you are looking for a backup solution, I'd say pick a pre-built NAS; for the price, you can't build a better system (most of the time)

if you have a spare machine that you want to turn into a NAS, there are plenty of options; I find Ubuntu an easy, light solution.

 

Good discussion guys about the future possibilities of Apple's MacOs.

 

I'm thinking of building a Freenas box with used parts and possibly go without ECC memory. (i3, 16GB ram, 3x3TB WD reds, etc.)

I have another discussion on the Tek Syndicate Forum and the ECC memory dilemma.

 

Thx, 

 

[Sunshine1868]

@Member I don't recall *exactly* where I saw it, but I remember there being an interview with a FreeNAS engineer who had said that neither ECC RAM, nor the "1GB/TB ratio" were completely necessary for the operation of FreeNAS. 

 

Admittedly, I have never played with FreeNAS myself, but I can't imagine a NAS with the specs you just gave struggling at all...remember, a lot of the prebuilt NAS options use ultralight processors and, more often than not, around 1 GB RAM.

[Member]

59 minutes ago, Sunshine1868 said:

@Member I don't recall *exactly* where I saw it, but I remember there being an interview with a FreeNAS engineer who had said that neither ECC RAM, nor the "1GB/TB ratio" were completely necessary for the operation of FreeNAS. 

 

Admittedly, I have never played with FreeNAS myself, but I can't imagine a NAS with the specs you just gave struggling at all...remember, a lot of the prebuilt NAS options use ultralight processors and, more often than not, around 1 GB RAM.

Yes, here is the article: http://jrs-s.net/2015/02/03/will-zfs-and-non-ecc-ram-kill-your-data/ 

 

I agree, most Synology, QNAP enclosures have around 1GB Ram and like duo-core 32 bit CPUs.

[Asgardthor]

My vote is for unraid 

 

 

My server is 2600k/8gb/ 3 x 5tb(1 parity) 

 

Previously I was using xpenology then decided to try unraid. Feels much more stable. 

My uses are mainly plex / file server /windows back up