Need a little help.

[iamMINT]

So, I've been doing some general IT for this company for a little while. It's been pretty easy so far, just working on super- super old stuff with zero budget. It's still fun though. Yet, I've found a new challenge there.

 

This organization is old, and I mean old. I'm talking half a century or so. And because of what they do they've got all kinds of data. I'm talking hundreds of pounds of straight up papers and documents, not to mention all the tape, cds, and other forms of archaic media it was all put onto. Their old solution, before I came in, was to have a whole box full of unlabeled flashdrives and external drives to store all of their mission critical data. Ew.

 

First thing I did when I came in was to tell them to find a better solution. Right now I'm trying to set them up a barebones networking infrastructure as the organization grows. Putting in a hand made pfsense router to handle all of their traffic (they had something like a 10/100 modem doing everything). Though, as all of that is rather easy, this all gets a little tricky when we start talking about the data issue again.

 

The only decent solution is to build them a NAS for them to digitize all of this media, then have it offload onto a cloud solution for redundancy. Pretty easy right? Pick up a HP server for a few hundred then put in a whole bunch of like, four terabyte drives and raid them all together. Though, the tricky thing is that I have around $300 to spend on the NAS. Drives and all.

 

I was looking at some supermicro stuff, though it's just a little to premier for what we want. The second option, which was some HP Proliant used gear sounded perfect. Though, those servers are just too hot and inefficient. So, what I'm looking for is something that doesn't make way too much heat, doesn't use up enough power, but is powerful enough to RAID 6. I'm looking to use FreeNAS, which really doesn't need too much at all. What matters here is the cost and efficiency.

 

I'll eventually find something, though if there's any particular server models that you know of that fit this description let me know. It can be a barebones system with just a PCB and a PSU, though I typically find that people selling machines with the ram and processor shipped with it cheaper. Its just that this stuff needs to get done, and done quick. I have no idea how much longer their data's going to last just being passed around on flashdrives. 

[gtx1060=value]

your job is impossible - i know employers generally don't understand how much tech of this calibre cost but if you can talk them up 100 dollars you will find your options increase alot. If i may, what area are you based in>

[gtx1060=value]

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR12.TRC2.A0.H0.Xdell+serv.TRS0&_nkw=dell+serve&_sacat=0

[JJBTEXAS]

sounds like a law office

[bgibbz]

Just found this-

 

 

FreeNAS Storage 15 bay with LSI SATA Controllers FreeBSD / Linux / UNRAID

[iamMINT]

7 minutes ago, gtx1060=value said:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR12.TRC2.A0.H0.Xdell+serv.TRS0&_nkw=dell+serve&_sacat=0

Don't have that kinda money. Besides, any of their four or so bay servers are just, way too expensive. Overpriced even, in my opinion. 

 

10 minutes ago, gtx1060=value said:

your job is impossible - i know employers generally don't understand how much tech of this calibre cost but if you can talk them up 100 dollars you will find your options increase alot. If i may, what area are you based in>

Southwestern VA/North East TN

8 minutes ago, wrathoftheturkey said:

Your budget's screwed you, m8. Any idea of how much data you have to store?

Not exactly sure, though it's gotta be a terabyte at least. 

 

 

[iamMINT]

3 minutes ago, bgibbz said:

Just found this-

 

 

FreeNAS Storage 15 bay with LSI SATA Controllers FreeBSD / Linux / UNRAID

That's awesome, though sadly a bit overkill for what we need. If there's nothing else I might think about it, though 15 bays and a dual cpu is just straight up overkill.

 

[bgibbz]

2 minutes ago, JohnBRoark said:

That's awesome, though sadly a bit overkill for what we need. If there's nothing else I might think about it, though 15 bays and a dual cpu is just straight up overkill.

 

Maybe, but it's all old hardware and fully equipped. You would have 130$ to spend on drives, You could probay get either 2x 2tb drives for raid 1 or 2x 1tb nas drives for raid1 with that kind of leftover. The form factor isn't that big, it's just a standard rack mount form factor. It was the cheapest fully equipped server I could find that packed enterprise grade hardware. 

[iamMINT]

Just now, bgibbz said:

Maybe, but it's all old hardware and fully equipped. You would have 130$ to spend on drives, You could probay get either 2x 2tb drives for raid 1 or 2x 1tb nas drives for raid1 with that kind of leftover. The form factor isn't that big, it's just a standard rack mount form factor. It was the cheapest fully equipped server I could find that packed enterprise grade hardware. 

It was an awesome choice, and if it were anywhere else I'd use it. Though, we honestly don't need that much. The issue is the power efficiency of this. Like I said earlier, I wanted to get one of these servers. It would've been perfect. The issue is that they generate too much heat and use up a whole lot of power. It's anywhere from fifty to a hundred dollars to run one of these things every year nonstop like we need it to. Thats why I didn't go with one. Though, the one you showed me is probably a better deal and much better than the HP- it's still overkill for FreeNAS and it'll just use up more resources than we have to offer. 

[bgibbz]

4 minutes ago, JohnBRoark said:

It was an awesome choice, and if it were anywhere else I'd use it. Though, we honestly don't need that much. The issue is the power efficiency of this. Like I said earlier, I wanted to get one of these servers. It would've been perfect. The issue is that they generate too much heat and use up a whole lot of power. It's anywhere from fifty to a hundred dollars to run one of these things every year nonstop like we need it to. Thats why I didn't go with one. Though, the one you showed me is probably a better deal and much better than the HP- it's still overkill for FreeNAS and it'll just use up more resources than we have to offer. 

Fair enough. 

 

 

[NelizMastr]

What kind of scalability are you looking at? At just $300 budget, you can't really be THAT picky. You have to make a compromise somewhere. It's either limited but economical or expansive and hot. 

RAID6 capable, efficient and under $300 = nope unfortunately.

 

Also may I remind you that FreeNAS requires 8GB of RAM nowadays? It's not THAT light anymore

 

I'd say you have two options:

- Old server with relatively slow low energy CPUs, possibly without RAM (server RAM is cheap af on eBay)

- 2nd hand 2 or 4 bay Synology NAS just for basic storage.

[Mikensan]

You will have to chose a different solution than FreeNAS, budget can't afford it (since you're including $100/yr in electricity as being too expensive). Honestly FreeNAS is also overkill based on what you've written/replied thus far. 

 

Also one thing to learn is don't spend money on the company's behalf, properly explained they may make a surprising decision. It's not your company, not your money, so don't try to spend it like it is. That was the hardest adjustment for me as I moved on with my career. Come up with 4-5 solutions, with the first 2 going over budget by 20% and 50%. Explain the benefits and risks of each solution. At the very least it sounds like they have paper backup ^_^.

 

Your best option is to get a used synology. Low power, low budget, no heat, and very small footprint.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Synology-DiskStation-SAN-NAS-Server-DS216J-/282113905453?hash=item41af4c932d:g:CiYAAOSwtnpXl68N

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Synology-DS213-/232094969319?hash=item3609f02de7:g:kFwAAOSwAuZX6JWB

https://www.amazon.com/Synology-DiskStation-Diskless-Attached-DS213/dp/B008U68UHG

^ in case you wanted to buy used from Amazon.

 

 

[Questargon]

That HP stuff is really overpriced across the big pond. You can get a ProLiant MicroServer G1610T in Germany for about €200. Ordering one abroad and letting it being shipped to you might be an option. https://www.amazon.de/dp/B013UBCHVU?smid=A1UNYT4WMQLLBQ&linkCode=df0&creative=22514&creativeASIN=B013UBCHVU&childASIN=B013UBCHVU&tag=geizhals10-21

 

Slap some Harddrives into it and use Linux with Samba.

 

P.S: Warning: The european model might have a 230 VAC Power supply that cannot be switched to 110 VAC. See here: https://www.hpe.com/h20195/v2/gethtml.aspx?docname=c04123182. You'll need a fitting power cord as well.

Edited September 26, 2016 by Questargon
Power specifications warning!

[iamMINT]

On 9/26/2016 at 9:41 AM, NelizMastr said:

What kind of scalability are you looking at? At just $300 budget, you can't really be THAT picky. You have to make a compromise somewhere. It's either limited but economical or expansive and hot. 

RAID6 capable, efficient and under $300 = nope unfortunately.

 

Also may I remind you that FreeNAS requires 8GB of RAM nowadays? It's not THAT light anymore

 

I'd say you have two options:

- Old server with relatively slow low energy CPUs, possibly without RAM (server RAM is cheap af on eBay)

- 2nd hand 2 or 4 bay Synology NAS just for basic storage.

In the long run I'll probably end up building something. I'll most likely end up with a used supermicro chassis with the pcb that fits my need, any decently clocked dual core I can find lightly used, and 8-16gb of ram. That'd probably satisfy all my needs.

 

Though, I'm not really interested in a proprietary NAS. For what we want out of this, we really need to be using FreeNAS. 

On 9/26/2016 at 10:14 AM, Mikensan said:

You will have to chose a different solution than FreeNAS, budget can't afford it (since you're including $100/yr in electricity as being too expensive). Honestly FreeNAS is also overkill based on what you've written/replied thus far. 

 

Also one thing to learn is don't spend money on the company's behalf, properly explained they may make a surprising decision. It's not your company, not your money, so don't try to spend it like it is. That was the hardest adjustment for me as I moved on with my career. Come up with 4-5 solutions, with the first 2 going over budget by 20% and 50%. Explain the benefits and risks of each solution. At the very least it sounds like they have paper backup ^_^.

 

Your best option is to get a used synology. Low power, low budget, no heat, and very small footprint.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Synology-DiskStation-SAN-NAS-Server-DS216J-/282113905453?hash=item41af4c932d:g:CiYAAOSwtnpXl68N

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Synology-DS213-/232094969319?hash=item3609f02de7:g:kFwAAOSwAuZX6JWB

https://www.amazon.com/Synology-DiskStation-Diskless-Attached-DS213/dp/B008U68UHG

^ in case you wanted to buy used from Amazon.

 

 

I'm not just buying stuff freely. I've been working with one of the directors here on this closley on what we can make that will be the best for our money here. Honestly, FreeNAS is what we need for what we're doing. I can't really stand behind getting some proprietary Synology (or anything of that manner) and garuntee the same things I can with a custom built machine. 

 

On 9/26/2016 at 10:38 AM, Questargon said:

That HP stuff is really overpriced across the big pond. You can get a ProLiant MicroServer G1610T in Germany for about €200. Ordering one abroad and letting it being shipped to you might be an option. https://www.amazon.de/dp/B013UBCHVU?smid=A1UNYT4WMQLLBQ&linkCode=df0&creative=22514&creativeASIN=B013UBCHVU&childASIN=B013UBCHVU&tag=geizhals10-21

 

Slap some Harddrives into it and use Linux with Samba.

 

P.S: Warning: The european model might have a 230 VAC Power supply that cannot be switched to 110 VAC. See here: https://www.hpe.com/h20195/v2/gethtml.aspx?docname=c04123182. You'll need a fitting power cord as well.

Thats a good point there, though not really what I'm looking for in terms of price. Thanks for the post, though. 

[NelizMastr]

It would be appreciated if you wouldn't wipe all suggestions off the table. You're looking for mass storage on a very very tight budget but it can't be power hungry or proprietary. Also taking into account that FreeNAS requires at least 8GB of RAM to run and requires 1GB of RAM per TB of storage (ideally) isn't going to make it any easier. You could also try OpenFiler. A lot lighter but not as up to date. 

 

As far as hardware goes, you have our suggestions. Pick one or try yourself to get something to fit your needs.

[samiscool51]

been threw this, not fun at all

spent a week and only managed to get 25% of the data transferred, and i was working 24/4 no sleep

mainly because they were going to pay me loads of the good stuff

but here i an, still with no sports car

[leadeater]

@JohnBRoark Your best option is going to be something like a QNAP, Synology or Netgear NAS. As others have pointed out however budget is a real issue so your likely going to have be buying used, something I really don't recommend for business use of critical data but if your going to be replicating the data to a cloud storage provider it's less of a concern. Both QNAP and Synology have inbuilt cloud backup connectors to many different providers.

 

Good picks I know of that can be found on ebay are QNAP TS-451, TS459 Pro II and TS-469. I only did a quick look but these and similar older models from Synology should fit your bill nicely, do buy new disks for them however. Oh and get US models for the correct voltage unless it has an auto sensing power supply.

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/QNAP-TS-451-NAS-fur-4-Festplatten-4GB-RAM-x86-CPU-/222259530024?hash=item33bfb34928:g:TM0AAOSwYIxX5Xg9

http://www.ebay.com/itm/QNAP-TS-459-Pro-II-mit-2x-3TB-WD-RED-Edt-/201671508009?hash=item2ef48f0029:g:~yQAAOSwLnBX3raN

http://www.ebay.com/itm/QNAP-TS-469L-TurboNAS-Great-Nas-For-Home-Or-Home-Office-/122149294778?hash=item1c70aa52ba:g:EvYAAOSwLnBX5ei4

[leadeater]

7 hours ago, JohnBRoark said:

Though, I'm not really interested in a proprietary NAS. For what we want out of this, we really need to be using FreeNAS. 

 

I'm not just buying stuff freely. I've been working with one of the directors here on this closley on what we can make that will be the best for our money here. Honestly, FreeNAS is what we need for what we're doing. I can't really stand behind getting some proprietary Synology (or anything of that manner) and garuntee the same things I can with a custom built machine. 

Why? What is it about FreeNAS that makes it a better option. Pre-built NAS's come with years of engineering experience and if new warranty and support. Thousands of businesses use them very happily and the range of models and power they offer is immense, from single bay all the way through to QNAP Enterprise ZFS.

 

I think your opinions of NAS's is a little skewed. You mentioned that the amount of data to be stored is around 1TB, this is the perfect use case for a pre-built NAS and FreeNAS I would actually consider overkill. I don't know if you have any special case requirements that would make FreeNAS a much better pick.

[leadeater]

On 9/27/2016 at 3:14 AM, Mikensan said:

You will have to chose a different solution than FreeNAS, budget can't afford it (since you're including $100/yr in electricity as being too expensive). Honestly FreeNAS is also overkill based on what you've written/replied thus far. 

 

Also one thing to learn is don't spend money on the company's behalf, properly explained they may make a surprising decision. It's not your company, not your money, so don't try to spend it like it is. That was the hardest adjustment for me as I moved on with my career. Come up with 4-5 solutions, with the first 2 going over budget by 20% and 50%. Explain the benefits and risks of each solution. At the very least it sounds like they have paper backup ^_^.

 

Your best option is to get a used synology. Low power, low budget, no heat, and very small footprint.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Synology-DiskStation-SAN-NAS-Server-DS216J-/282113905453?hash=item41af4c932d:g:CiYAAOSwtnpXl68N

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Synology-DS213-/232094969319?hash=item3609f02de7:g:kFwAAOSwAuZX6JWB

https://www.amazon.com/Synology-DiskStation-Diskless-Attached-DS213/dp/B008U68UHG

^ in case you wanted to buy used from Amazon.

 

 

Thank you, glad to see someone else who clearly has IT experience talking some sense. I don't know exactly what it is about this thread but it makes me very uneasy looking at the proposed solutions and the justifications for them.

[Mikensan]

If a product like Synology does not meet your needs then you haven't explained your needs properly. I believe Synology is no more proprietary than FreeNAS... they are certainly under a difference license structure but both run off x86 arch meaning you could install Synology onto your own hardware.  Whitebox Synology

 

You want a power efficient FreeNAS box? Look for servers on ebay that are using the Intel Avoton family. Just know there aren't many and you're not likely to get them under $300 (since the board/cpu alone are $300). http://goo.gl/ejliM4

 

I want to help but you've asked for something that doesn't exist yet (maybe in a few more years when today's technology sells cheaper used). 

 

My last recommendation is give up on FreeNAS, get a used xeon based workstation (Should sit under 100w idle), install Windows and use either Storage Spaces or FlexRAID, which a crap ton of people on this forum truly believe in and use. Or get an Atom based server and use Windows etc... and that should idle under or at 50watts.

 

**I only say to give up on FreeNAS because majority of solutions that support ECC ram (the star of FreeNAS/ZFS) that are in your budget will emit some heat and consume power, or are outside of your budget.