Home Server Research - NAS + NVR

[Krysis]

Hey folks,

 

In the next few months I'm hoping to be building a home server machine which will have a few roles to perform. Firstly, being a home NAS, which doubles as a first line back up for home computers/laptops as well. Second use will be an NVR for IP CCTV equipment for at least 2-3 cameras to start with but the upper limit will be 8 cameras. All will be recording at least at 1080p, most between 2-10 fps, but at least 2, 3 or perhaps 4 will be at 30fps depending on location/coverage of cameras.

 

My technical experience is, well  I can happily build stable computers, have decent knowledge of parts, specs and hardware types but I'm by no means an network admin or IT expert. I have a good grasp of the consumer side of things and networking a bunch of computers up, but when it comes to server grade gear, I'm lacking a lot of experience and knowledge there, but this will hopefully be cleared up with the questions below. So before moving into the meat of what I'm asking, and thanks to being on the internet for a long number of years, I must say that any nonconstructive comments or flaming, trolling, etc ("you don't need that much space, that many cameras", etc) those are my requirement and not what I am requesting support on! Please don't take that as condescending, but this is the internet after all and I ask for help when I'm not 100% sure, I'm sure we all have experienced the results which come of that!

 

So, my list of parts so far:

CPU: Intel Xeon E1220 v5 (S1151, 4 core 4 thread, 3.0-3.5GHz) OR E1230 v5 (4 core 8 thread, 3.4-3.8GHz)

Mobo: Supermicro X11AE-M (Intel C236 chipset, Micro ATX, 8 SATA III on board, supports RAID 5)

RAM: 32Gb (4x8Gb) Crucial DDR4 server memory, ECC, quad channel

 

That's the main part of the system. For the CPU, either is an option, not much price between them for me, but I don't know how important the number of logical cores are in my required setup so I've priced a Xeon with HT just in case. So I've gone with a Xeon because I want to have decent system stability and use ECC memory, but if my understanding of ECC (better system/program stability due to error correction) is wrong, please guide me and I can price a cheaper build. I'm sure by the end of this rather text wall of a post most of you will have a decent idea of what kind of a computer would be best to run such a setup.

 

I'm assuming 32Gb of memory is plenty, as I'm not sure if VM's are the way to go or not for my situation.

 

Motherboard is nothing really special, is actually the cheapest S1151 mobo from the shop this is all from (cheapest I can find over most of the web in the UK, and conveniently a half hour drive from where I live), and covers the bases for the CPU and ECC memory. I like the 8 SATA3 ports however, since I've recently seen a video (LTT channel: "Reliable Data Storage On The Cheap") where Linus has said don't go with a RAID specific card as most of them do not have the proper monitoring and reporting features for the hard drives, and a HBA card with no RAID functionality that you just attach drives to (assuming a software RAID is being used instead) are a better option. Would I be correct in assuming that the motherboard would be able to look after this is the correct reporting software is actively used on the system?

 

I'm looking at using 3 or 4 WD Red drives in RAID 5 for the NAS, what I'm storing is stuff I've downloaded so isn't of critical importance if there ends up being data loss due to more then 1 drive failing, and the backups of the other home computers are also backed up on an external drive. Story of that is my parents do karaoke nights in some places every week so they have a backup of that machine on an internal drive in another computer used on a daily basis (karaoke computer is not used daily, only for karaoke) and another backup on an external drive they keep. I have a copy on the single hard drive I'm currently using for storage/backups but it's showing signs of failure now (so I need this upgrade)!

 

For the CCTV NVR I'm thinking of about 3 WD Purple drives also in RAID 5 separate from the NAS RAID 5, as this is also not critical data. It's just for home security, had an attempted break in, others around the immediate area have also had this, and some cars in my street, including mine, have been damaged or broken into before. Any footage will almost certainly be backed up when needed so going up to RAID 6, or if using 4 drives RAID 10, would be a little too far for redundancy I think, I'm happy with the capacity of 3 drives and tolerance's of using RAID 5.

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention, even though I have the specs I have, I'm trying to avoid a system that is going to eat up power. The more power efficient the better due to power costs as the machine will be on 24/7, but I obviously want it to do everything without straining the hardware or making ton's of noise due to overkill cooling.

 

So from this point I'm not sure. Would I need to install WIndow's server (only used Linux for about 20 minutes in college 13 years ago!), and run NAS software on top (unRAID/FreeNAS, would prefer free software to paid unless it really is worth the money over the free software) or are they operating systems themselves? I am researching into CCTV software that run's on an operating system rather as opposed to them being an OS. Would using 2 VM's (one for NAS one for NVR) be the better option or just have Window's Server on the computer? I haven't set up VM's before but if it is the better option then I'll certainly give it a go.

 

Thank you for for any help you guys can provide, hopefully this post wasn't too much and I hope I'm pointing in the right direction with my setup!

 

Kind regards,

Rob

[GDRRiley]

run 4x4tb wd red for nas and then 3 2-3tb WD purples for the camera capture (go with the larger drives if you want a longer term storage. I would put both in RAID 5s. Feenas is a full OS. WIndows server is 400-1000$ USD and I would grab it. 

[beavo451]

BlueIris is around $50 and a good NVR software. Runs on Windows. Should run on Windows Server.

 

Windows Server with BlueIris would do both of your desires with minimal effort. 

 

Unraid would probably work too. (Think the multiple gamer build videos). 

[Krysis]

Thank you both for your replies! I have considered FreeNAS, but not knowing much about as I've only recently (last few days) been looking into this system for myself, after watching many of the videos around the LTT network, even some older NCIX ones, I actually thought unRAID and FreeNAS was just software to run on top of an OS, not OS's themselves. Software cost is something I would wish to avoid if possible, but I really don't mind if the money is going to be worth it, so FreeNAS certainly piques my interest but would require me to run 2 virtual machines, which I've done once before (a LONG time ago messing about after seeing a friend do it).

 

However since Linus has done a video demonstrating setting up unRAID (video name in first post) and shows how to install and set it up, $59 (about £55) is a lot when FreeNAS may be an option, but will research further on these two, see if there are comparisons.

 

One question I would like to ask which I believe I in some way tried to ask in the first post but reading it back I seem to have missed the shot, as I would like to avoid having to buy a RAID card (motherboard has 8 SATA3 slots and the chipset supports RAID 5), would unRAID and FreeNAS monitor the drives for failures and report and issues before data loss can occur, or would I need a separate piece of hardware that would do that and unRAID/FreeNAS gets its reports from that?

 

Thanks!

 

Rob

[beavo451]

2 hours ago, Krysis said:

Thank you both for your replies! I have considered FreeNAS, but not knowing much about as I've only recently (last few days) been looking into this system for myself, after watching many of the videos around the LTT network, even some older NCIX ones, I actually thought unRAID and FreeNAS was just software to run on top of an OS, not OS's themselves. Software cost is something I would wish to avoid if possible, but I really don't mind if the money is going to be worth it, so FreeNAS certainly piques my interest but would require me to run 2 virtual machines, which I've done once before (a LONG time ago messing about after seeing a friend do it).

 

However since Linus has done a video demonstrating setting up unRAID (video name in first post) and shows how to install and set it up, $59 (about £55) is a lot when FreeNAS may be an option, but will research further on these two, see if there are comparisons.

 

One question I would like to ask which I believe I in some way tried to ask in the first post but reading it back I seem to have missed the shot, as I would like to avoid having to buy a RAID card (motherboard has 8 SATA3 slots and the chipset supports RAID 5), would unRAID and FreeNAS monitor the drives for failures and report and issues before data loss can occur, or would I need a separate piece of hardware that would do that and unRAID/FreeNAS gets its reports from that?

 

Thanks!

 

Rob

You do not use RAID for Unraid or FreeNAS. Both use software RAID. Unraid is basically RAID5 with one parity drive. FreeNAS can do mirrored, one parity, two parity, or three parity drive configurations.

 

I find that Unraid has a more user friendly GUI.

 

I'm not familiar with FreeBSD and I dabbled with FreeNAS. FreeNAS requires more working knowledge and I don't know how to run another OS within a FreeNAS jail. Per the FreeNAS documentation, FreeNAS itself should not be run in a virtual environment.

 

After dabbling with a FreeNAS box for a couple months, I went with Unraid.

 

Nas4Free and OpenMediaVault are two other free NAS operating systems. Or you can use a Linux distro as a NAS OS.

 

Unless you buy a dedicated, standalone NVR, you are pretty much stuck running NVR software within Windows, OSX, or Linux. The Linux option is free, but I hear that the NVR software (Zoneminder) can be a bit complicated.

[vandergrego]

Hi Rob,

I hope your project is working fine!

I am looking to create something like this, but I'm also trying to back up the video of the surveillance system to the cloud. Have you tried to do that? What would you consider to do so? 

 

Thanks a lot,

Alan.