NAS / RAID Question

[BenoitWW]

Hey guys. I am building a NAS to be accessed by 2 computers on a regular basis. I have 2 questions..

 

1. Do I need anything in addition to this build for a NAS? https://nz.pcpartpicker.com/list/27L9wV

2. Can I perform RAID 10 on this build currently, or will I need to purchase a RAID Card / different motherboard? If so, could you please suggest a suitable card / motherboard?

[79wjd]

I wouldn't run RAID off a motherboard. Do you already have that system (if not, there are a bunch of changes I'd make)? What OS are you running? You could run something like FreeNAS, and then you would just run a software RAID and you wouldn't need any RAID card.  

 

Also, what will the NAS be hosting and why did you choose RAID 10 rather than RAID 6? And why do you need three network adapters (and a monitor)?

 

EDIT: I just noticed it says FreeNAS. You don't want any form of hardware RAID with FreeNAS. You want FreeNAS to have direct control over the drives so it can run its own software RAID (so no RAID card is needed, nor will you configure any RAID in the bios).

[fjdhdhcyfhf]

get a second hand monitor for $10, you wont be using it much and you wont miss it if it dies.

4 minutes ago, BenoitWW said:

2. Can I perform RAID 10 on this build currently

yes and i recommend software raid so you can move the drives to other hardware if required.

5 minutes ago, BenoitWW said:

Do I need anything in addition to this build for a NAS?

I recommend a seperate disk for the operating system. A USB disk will work.

[BenoitWW]

4 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

I wouldn't run RAID off a motherboard. Do you already have that system (if not, there are a bunch of changes I'd make)? What OS are you running? You could run something like FreeNAS, and then you would just run a software RAID and you wouldn't need any RAID card. 

 

Also, what will the NAS be hosting and why did you choose RAID 10 rather than RAID 6? 

No, i do not own this system. Just been doing some research about the NAS. The NAS will be hosting video files which will be relatively constantly being transferred from NAS -- > comp 1 --> NAS --> comp 2 --> NAS etc.

 

Thanks for the info about freeNAS and about its raid. 

 

I choose RAID 10 because of strip + mirroring across 4 drives. IS RAID 6 better for these purposes?

[79wjd]

1 minute ago, BenoitWW said:

No, i do not own this system. Just been doing some research about the NAS. The NAS will be hosting video files which will be relatively constantly being transferred from NAS -- > comp 1 --> NAS --> comp 2 --> NAS etc.

 

Thanks for the info about freeNAS and about its raid. 

 

I choose RAID 10 because of strip + mirroring across 4 drives. IS RAID 6 better for these purposes?

RAID 10 is faster, but I personally prefer RAID 6 from a reliability standpoint since in RAID 6 any two drives can fail whereas in RAID 10 only any ONE drive can fail.

[BenoitWW]

2 minutes ago, SCHISCHKA said:

get a second hand monitor for $10, you wont be using it much and you wont miss it if it dies.

yes and i recommend software raid so you can move the drives to other hardware if required.

I recommend a seperate disk for the operating system. A USB disk will work.

Cool. so just a ~16GB USB flash drive for boot system? Sound good
yes I will get 2nd hand monitor, I just found the cheapest on PCPP for reference.

Thanks for backing up the info about the software RAID on FreeNAS.

What Raid would you recommend?

 

Thanks

[BenoitWW]

1 minute ago, djdwosk97 said:

RAID 10 is faster, but I personally prefer RAID 6 from a reliability standpoint since in RAID 6 any two drives can fail whereas in RAID 10 only any ONE drive can fail.

Okay, Thanks for that info!

[79wjd]

Also, for the build, I would consider getting a Supermicro board (and forgoing the monitor+keyboard+ethernet adapters). You gain ECC support (in case you decide you want it), more sata ports, an IPMI (remote connection), and dual Intel NICs. Oh, and either way, I'd get a single 8gb stick so you can add another if you want. 

 

What I'd personally do: 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G4400 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($87.12 @ PC Force) 
Motherboard: Supermicro MBD-X11SSL-F-O Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($379.33 @ PB Technologies) 
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($94.00 @ Paradigm PCs) 
Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($189.00 @ DTC Systems) 
Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($189.00 @ DTC Systems) 
Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($189.00 @ DTC Systems) 
Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($189.00 @ DTC Systems) 
Case: Fractal Design Core 1100 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($83.00 @ Paradigm PCs) 
Power Supply: Corsair CXM 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($92.80 @ DTC Systems) 
Other: Free NAS 
Total: $1492.25
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-12-13 18:02 NZDT+1300

[Oshino Shinobu]

You will need a USB Stick or small drive to install FreeNAS. It will eat up all of the drive you install it on, so if you use one of the those 3TB drives, it will take up all 3TB for itself. 

FreeNAS manages RAID volumes through software and you should stick with it. No need for hardware RAID in this case. 

 

I wouldn't recommend RAID 10. In fact, I strongly recommend against it (IMO it's the worst type of RAID) as it's incredibly wasteful, inefficient and doesn't scale well. 

 

6 minutes ago, BenoitWW said:

I choose RAID 10 because of strip + mirroring across 4 drives. IS RAID 6 better for these purposes?

I would go for RAID 5 with 4 drives, not RAID 6. They're essentially the same thing in how they operate, but RAID 6 uses double parity, so you can lose any two drives before losing any data. With RAID 5, you can lose one drive, but then the array can be rebuilt when you add a replacement drive (as it can with RAID 6). I wouldn't recommend RAID 6 until you're looking into 5/6+ drives, otherwise you're losing half your capacity to parity. 

 

EDIT: RAID 5 and 6 both use stripe + parity and scale much better than RAID 10. They have better worst case scenarios than RAID 10 and are designed to be rebuilt when a drive fails. 

[fjdhdhcyfhf]

5 minutes ago, BenoitWW said:

Cool. so just a ~16GB USB flash drive for boot system? Sound good
yes I will get 2nd hand monitor, I just found the cheapest on PCPP for reference.

Thanks for backing up the info about the software RAID on FreeNAS.

What Raid would you recommend?

 

Thanks

my bare debian install is 1GB. 8GB or 4GB should do. I don't know what FreeNAS requires, you can go to the website, it should be less than a DVD.

 

For RAID; Read up about ZFS, I think you are getting the minimum RAM required for it and it gets some pretty good reviews.

[brob]

RAID 5 is not a good choice for consumer based arrays involving multi-TB drives. Rebuilding a drive can literally take days and while that is occurring the array is open to catastrophic failure should another fault occur.

[79wjd]

6 minutes ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

I would go for RAID 5 with 4 drives, not RAID 6. They're essentially the same thing in how they operate, but RAID 6 uses double parity, so you can lose any two drives before losing any data. With RAID 5, you can lose one drive, but then the array can be rebuilt when you add a replacement drive (as it can with RAID 6). I wouldn't recommend RAID 6 until you're looking into 5/6+ drives, otherwise you're losing half your capacity to parity. 

My only "issue" with RAID 5 is the likelihood of a drive failing during a rebuild is pretty high with four 3tb drives -- well, going by manufacturer ratings, which, admittedly, are usually far worse than real world statistics. But I still prefer to err on the side of caution and consider the worst case scenario (which for four 3tb drives in RAID 5 would be like 60% if I did my napkin-head math correct).

 

4 minutes ago, SCHISCHKA said:

my bare debian install is 1GB. 8GB or 4GB should do. I don't know what FreeNAS requires, you can go to the website, it should be less than a DVD.

 

For RAID; Read up about ZFS, I think you are getting the minimum RAM required for it and it gets some pretty good reviews.

FreeNAS can run on a 4gb drive, but 8gb is better (more room for logs/more write durability). The FreeNAS install is just for storing the OS when the system is off and for writing logs too. The OS gets loaded into memory on boot. 

2 minutes ago, brob said:

RAID 5 is not a good choice for consumer based arrays involving multi-TB drives. Rebuilding a drive can literally take days and while that is occurring the array is open to catastrophic failure should another fault occur.

I personally agree, but see above

[BenoitWW]

2 minutes ago, brob said:

RAID 5 is not a good choice for consumer based arrays involving multi-TB drives. Rebuilding a drive can literally take days and while that is occurring the array is open to catastrophic failure should another fault occur.

What RAID would you recommend?

[BenoitWW]

3 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

My only "issue" with RAID 5 is the likelihood of a drive failing during a rebuild is pretty high with four 3tb drives -- well, going by manufacturer ratings, which, admittedly, are usually far worse than real world statistics. But I still prefer to err on the side of caution and consider the worst case scenario (which for four 3tb drives in RAID 5 would be like 60% if I did my napkin-head math correct).

 

FreeNAS can run on a 4gb drive, but 8gb is better (more room for logs/more write durability). The FreeNAS install is just for storing the OS when the system is off and for writing logs too. The OS gets loaded into memory on boot. 

 

I personally agree, but see above

Okay, I can see why not to go for RAID 5!. Is RAID 6/10 a better option?

 

 

[fjdhdhcyfhf]

2 minutes ago, BenoitWW said:

What RAID would you recommend?

you have 4X3TB drives; In RAID 6 you will get the same performance as you would with 2X 6TB drives in RAID1. The MTBF with less drives will be better too.

[brob]

Just now, BenoitWW said:

What RAID would you recommend?

Unless the environment is commercial/professional and downtime would be extremely expensive I would not use a RAID array. I would invest any savings in beefing up my backup system.

 

If one is using FreeNAS, use its file system. Don't worry about what is "best".

 

[79wjd]

6 minutes ago, BenoitWW said:

Okay, I can see why not to go for RAID 5!. Is RAID 6/10 a better option?

 

 

To be clear, the liklihood that a RAID 5 array would fail to rebuild based on real world statistics is more like 5-10% (iirc from when I did the math months ago). Hard drive manufacturers overestimate the failure rate by an order of magnitude. But I still personally prefer prefer to use their numbers than real-world results (but that's not necessarily the right answer). Also, scrubbing does help lower the chances of an array failing to rebuild. 

 

RAID 10 is easier and much faster to rebuild since it's a lot less labor to rebuild than Raid 5's data/parity data, but you still can only handle one drive failure. 

3 minutes ago, brob said:

Unless the environment is commercial/professional and downtime would be extremely expensive I would not use a RAID array. I would invest any savings in beefing up my backup system.

 

If one is using FreeNAS, use its file system. Don't worry about what is "best".

 

He means what type of FreeNAS software RAID (mirror, stripe, Z1, Z2, Z3 -- 1, 0, 5, 6, 7 respectively).

[BenoitWW]

3 minutes ago, brob said:

Unless the environment is commercial/professional and downtime would be extremely expensive I would not use a RAID array. I would invest any savings in beefing up my backup system.

 

If one is using FreeNAS, use its file system. Don't worry about what is "best".

 

downtime would not be too expensive for me. I'm just looking for the fastest transfer rate, without losing any data. It can take time to rebuild if it wants

[Electronics Wizardy]

8 minutes ago, BenoitWW said:

downtime would not be too expensive for me. I'm just looking for the fastest transfer rate, without losing any data. It can take time to rebuild if it wants

You seem to be using 1gbe, with 1gbe, the speed will be the same with any raid config or a single drive.

 

Also, use the onboard network card. Its just as good a as 1gbe add on card, and if you get a network card, go intel. Best drivers and fastest(by about 5 mbps or less).

 

Also id personally use zfs on linux with their raid 5. Then make a backup with something like ACD to back it up.

[BenoitWW]

3 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

You seem to be using 1gbe, with 1gbe, the speed will be the same with any raid config or a single drive.

 

Also, use the onboard network card. Its just as good a as 1gbe add on card, and if you get a network card, go intel. Best drivers and fastest(by about 5 mbps or less).

 

Also id personally use zfs on linux with their raid 5. Then make a backup with something like ACD to back it up.

Cool. Would this be better? http://nz.pcpartpicker.com/product/k94gXL/intel-wired-network-card-expi9301ct

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, BenoitWW said:

Cool. Would this be better? http://nz.pcpartpicker.com/product/k94gXL/intel-wired-network-card-expi9301ct

Use the onboard nic. It won't make a difference.

[79wjd]

1 minute ago, BenoitWW said:

Cool. Would this be better? http://nz.pcpartpicker.com/product/k94gXL/intel-wired-network-card-expi9301ct

I'd personally recommend just getting a better board. It won't cost much more at the end of the day, but you'll end up with a much better setup.

 

34 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

Also, for the build, I would consider getting a Supermicro board (and forgoing the monitor+keyboard+ethernet adapters). You gain ECC support (in case you decide you want it), more sata ports, an IPMI (remote connection), and dual Intel NICs. Oh, and either way, I'd get a single 8gb stick so you can add another if you want. 

 

What I'd personally do: 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Pentium G4400 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($87.12 @ PC Force) 
Motherboard: Supermicro MBD-X11SSL-F-O Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($379.33 @ PB Technologies) 
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($94.00 @ Paradigm PCs) 
Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($189.00 @ DTC Systems) 
Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($189.00 @ DTC Systems) 
Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($189.00 @ DTC Systems) 
Storage: Western Digital Red 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($189.00 @ DTC Systems) 
Case: Fractal Design Core 1100 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($83.00 @ Paradigm PCs) 
Power Supply: Corsair CXM 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($92.80 @ DTC Systems) 
Other: Free NAS 
Total: $1492.25
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-12-13 18:02 NZDT+1300

 

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Use the onboard nic. It won't make a difference.

FreeNAS sometimes doesn't like playing nicely with non Intel NICs (although it's rare).

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, djdwosk97 said:

I'd personally recommend just getting a better board. It won't cost much more at the end of the day, but you'll end up with a much better setup.

 

 

Ecc won't really make a difference, I wouldn't spend the extra 200, Just get good backups.

[BenoitWW]

1 minute ago, djdwosk97 said:

I'd personally recommend just getting a better board. It won't cost much more at the end of the day, but you'll end up with a much better setup.

 

 

Okay. I will consider. The reason i was getting 2 network cards is to connect with Internet + each computer. Is this not necessary?

[brob]

16 minutes ago, BenoitWW said:

downtime would not be too expensive for me. I'm just looking for the fastest transfer rate, without losing any data. It can take time to rebuild if it wants

What is meant by "without losing any data"?