DIY Thunderbolt Raid DAS???

[PWRFNK]

Does anyone know if it is possible to build a high speed DAS/NAS using thunderbolt and GBe?

 

Im looking to build a storage solution for editing workflows (video4k,lightroom,backup) for my thunderbolt3 iMac. It would also be a gigabit NAS for any other devices on the network, like gaming pc library. Would it be possible to utilize the thunderbolt connection from the iTX board to the iMac? Or any other thunderbolt enabled computers? 

 

Possible Build part list: 

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/LFsLr6

 

A theoretical breakdown:

If possible: NVMe cash > 4x2.5"SSD RAID 4,5,0,10 > backs up to > 3.5''8TBx2 in RAID 1 > backs up nightly on network. 

 

iMac using thunderbolt or USB 3.1 to the server. (10GB to the mac would be great without using the 16xPCI slot)

 

Other devices on the network will connect via GBe

 

The two spare 2.5'' external cages will be used for hot swapping OS's and physically moving large files to other locations. 

 

The plan is to run windows in a VM via KVM using fedora plus a file server. The windows VM for living room TV gaming 1080p 30-60fps is more then enough.

 

 

 

 

This "highspeed" box would then backup each night to a much slower main redundancy server elsewhere on the network. 

[JustAStrangeGeek]

 I see no reason that It would not work.

[JustAStrangeGeek]

The system specs look good, but where is the dGPU?

[Electronics Wizardy]

31 minutes ago, JustAStrangeGeek said:

The system specs look good, but where is the dGPU?

Don't need one, the igpu will be fine here.

 

 

 

You can't easily make a thunderbolt das from what I see. Should be possible not not supported well or at all

 

Can't use raid 6 with 2 drives.

 

What are you caching with? ZFS? Normally this doesn't work that well, and just use the hdds and have a seprate pool for ssds.

 

Why usb3 to sata, that will normally be fairly slow.

 

Why a i7? A pentium will be fine here.

 

Id go 10gbe here, and use a thunderbolt to 10gbe adapter on the imac.

 

 

[PWRFNK]

7 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Don't need one, the igpu will be fine here.

 

 

 

You can't easily make a thunderbolt das from what I see. Should be possible not not supported well or at all

 

Can't use raid 6 with 2 drives.

 

What are you caching with? ZFS? Normally this doesn't work that well, and just use the hdds and have a seprate pool for ssds.

 

Why usb3 to sata, that will normally be fairly slow.

 

Why a i7? A pentium will be fine here.

 

Id go 10gbe here, and use a thunderbolt to 10gbe adapter on the imac.

 

 

Apologies I did not paste the most updated build list... Opps! Up to date list:  https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/LFsLr6

 

A theoretical breakdown:  

 

If possible: NVMe cash > 4xSSD RAID 4,5,0,10 > backs up to > 3.5''8TBx2 in RAID 1 > backs up nightly on network. 

 

iMac using thunderbolt or USB 3.1 to the server.

 

Other devices on the network will connect via GBe

 

The two spare 2.5'' external cages will be used for hot swapping OS's and physically moving large files to other locations. 

 

The plan is to run windows in a VM via KVM using fedora plus a file server. The windows VM for living room TV gaming 1080p 30-60fps is more then enough. 

 

Hope is make a bit more sense now! Sorry bout that. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

30 minutes ago, PWRFNK said:

Apologies I did not paste the most updated build list... Opps! Up to date list:  https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/LFsLr6

 

A theoretical breakdown:  

 

If possible: NVMe cash > 4xSSD RAID 4,5,0,10 > backs up to > 3.5''8TBx2 in RAID 1 > backs up nightly on network. 

 

iMac using thunderbolt or USB 3.1 to the server.

 

Other devices on the network will connect via GBe

 

The two spare 2.5'' external cages will be used for hot swapping OS's and physically moving large files to other locations. 

 

The plan is to run windows in a VM via KVM using fedora plus a file server. The windows VM for living room TV gaming 1080p 30-60fps is more then enough. 

 

Hope is make a bit more sense now! Sorry bout that. 

You can't easily make a thunderbolt host, so thats not happening. You can use thunderbolt as a network interface here, but thunderbolt 3 isn't fully supported on linux and its gonna just be a pain. Buying a thunderbolt nas from qnap is a easier option here.

 

You can also have this as a living room gaming pc with a vm if you want. Id get more ram then.

 

What file system? 
 

Normally all this caching makes no sense. Make a 2tb volume with ssds, and a hdd volume. Caching really won't help that much .

 

 

[JustAStrangeGeek]

The easiest was would be purchasing a NAS and fill it up with SSDs. You probably won't gen gigabit speeds, but what else can you do?

[Pixel5]

honestly with what this will cost you could just out some extra SSDs into the device you edit on and do the editing right there and move all the files over to a traditional NAS for permanent storage.

 

everything below 10gbit ethernet is just not worth the hassle and unless you edit multiple terabytes at once local SSD storage is the way to go for fast reading speeds.

[dalekphalm]

On 2/8/2018 at 3:48 AM, Pixel5 said:

honestly with what this will cost you could just out some extra SSDs into the device you edit on and do the editing right there and move all the files over to a traditional NAS for permanent storage.

 

everything below 10gbit ethernet is just not worth the hassle and unless you edit multiple terabytes at once local SSD storage is the way to go for fast reading speeds.

I believe he's editing on an iMac, so adding additional internal storage is a non-starter.

 

@PWRFNK here's a list of some Thunderbolt RAID DAS's:

https://wolfcrow.com/blog/a-comparison-of-10-thunderbolt-raid-storage-solutions/

[JustAStrangeGeek]

4 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

I believe he's editing on an iMac, so adding additional internal storage is a non-starter.

 

@PWRFNK here's a list of some Thunderbolt RAID DAS's:

https://wolfcrow.com/blog/a-comparison-of-10-thunderbolt-raid-storage-solutions/

Can't you add more storage or is the storage soldiered on? Damn Apple, no respect for enthusiasts...

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, JustAStrangeGeek said:

Can't you add more storage or is the storage soldiered on? Damn Apple, no respect for enthusiasts...

At best, you can likely swap out the built-in HDD, with another drive. But you'd still be limited to one drive, which may not be sufficient for the OP's needs.

 

If you're an enthusiast who wants to upgrade a bunch of components? Don't buy a Mac - pretty simple. They can be great hardware, but there are limitations, and they aren't for everyone.

 

Or spend $5K getting an iMac Pro base model

[PWRFNK]

5 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

At best, you can likely swap out the built-in HDD, with another drive. But you'd still be limited to one drive, which may not be sufficient for the OP's needs.

 

If you're an enthusiast who wants to upgrade a bunch of components? Don't buy a Mac - pretty simple. They can be great hardware, but there are limitations, and they aren't for everyone.

 

Or spend $5K getting an iMac Pro base model

Mac's have there place outside of the enthusiast/gamer world. Mostly in my case for editing software and continuity across all devices. For clarification you can upgrade the CPU, RAM, NVMe drives and the 3.5" sata fairly easily. The iMac or iMac pro 5ks are surprising good value when you consider the p3 display. Professional work space displays are well over $1000 let alone 5k at 27". MacOS also supports your colour profiles across the OS natively.  MacOS thankfully is Unix based, that adds a level of integrating with linux user for things like terminal commands.  Plus networking the iMac (via thunderbolt) and iMac Pro you get 10e and external GPUs natively supported. 

 

Buying a NAS from QNAS or many other offering would be much easier and likely cheaper. Im building this system as a hobby/project. Im looking into what would be possible in speed for a small form factor thunderbolt based solution.

 

Thank you everyone for you input so far, this is likely to be a bumpy road. 

 

From what I have found it does seem possible and supported. I will post an update soon when i can verify this information. 

  

[JustAStrangeGeek]

5 hours ago, PWRFNK said:

MacOS, thankfully, is Unix based

The only reason that MacOS is unix based is because it's a rip-off of Linux. All that Apple did was skin the OS, stripped the OS down, didn't even bother to change the command line much, renamed it and sold it with their computers. MacOS isn't 'Game Changing', no copy of anything is, was or will be greater than that of which it was based off.

 

I know that I sound like an 'Apple Hater', but a marketing move like this in the modern world, should be looked down on. Alteast Microsoft actually made Windows NT (New Technology), even though its not as feature-some as many Linux distributions.

[JustAStrangeGeek]

Just now, JustAStrangeGeek said:

The only reason that MacOS is unix based is because it's a rip-off of Linux. All that Apple did was skin the OS, stripped the OS down, didn't even bother to change the command line much, renamed it and sold it with their computers. MacOS isn't 'Game Changing', no copy of anything is, was or will be greater than that of which it was based off.

 

I know that I sound like an 'Apple Hater', but a marketing move like this in the modern world, should be looked down on. Alteast Microsoft actually made Windows NT (New Technology), even though its not as feature-some as many Linux distributions.

This quote is nothing personal and shouldn't be taken into offence.

[PWRFNK]

7 minutes ago, JustAStrangeGeek said:

This quote is nothing personal and shouldn't be taken into offence.

No offence taken. Not entirely accurate and could be said for almost an modern OS such as Android, google OS and current/future windows. Everything is a version of another piece of software/hardware implemented differently. Linux and Unix is an extremely powerful system, there a reason its implemented and almost all enterprise solutions. 

 

Lets not have a Mac vs PC flame war as the entire argument is mute, its use case. What suits your needs best. Id like to keep this tread as open minded as possible. 

[JustAStrangeGeek]

Just now, PWRFNK said:

No offence taken. Not entirely accurate and could be said for almost an modern OS such as Android, google OS and current/future windows. Linux and Unix is an extremely powerful system, there a reason its implemented and almost all enterprise solutions. 

 

Lets not have a Mac vs PC flame war as the entire argument is mute, its use case. What suits your needs best. 

True.

 

Yeah, lets not have that argument, It would lead to WWIII Lol.

[PWRFNK]

7 minutes ago, JustAStrangeGeek said:

True.

 

Yeah, lets not have that argument, It would lead to WWIII Lol.

Sure. 

[PWRFNK]

Update: Still digging but its definitely looking better. It should be possible to emulate the ethernet connection while theoretically taking advantage of the 40GB throughput, more on that soon. 

 

https://lwn.net/Articles/705998/

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Thunderbolt-Network-Linux

[JustAStrangeGeek]

2 minutes ago, PWRFNK said:

Update: Still digging but its definitely looking better. It should be possible to emulate the ethernet connection while theoretically taking advantage of the 40GB throughput, more on that soon. 

 

https://lwn.net/Articles/705998/

Please tell me that you're not going to be configuring this setup as a RAID? No one should trust a RAID 0 setup to store storage... EVER

[PWRFNK]

1 minute ago, JustAStrangeGeek said:

Please tell me that you're not going to be configuring this setup as a RAID? No one should trust a RAID 0 setup to store storage... EVER

Yes it will be using RAID configurations, more specifically multiple raid configurations. As stated before, this server will be backing up nightly to a redundancy specific server. 

[JustAStrangeGeek]

2 minutes ago, PWRFNK said:

Yes it will be using RAID configurations, more specifically multiple raid configurations. As stated before, this server will be backing up nightly to a redundancy specific server. 

So RAID 1 or 10?

[PWRFNK]

1 minute ago, JustAStrangeGeek said:

So RAID 1 or 10?

There are more types of RAID available then 1/10 including combinations in blocks. This build fits 6x2.5" 3x3.5" 1xNVMe. I have more then enough drives to support the speed and redundancy i'm looking for in this build. Im aware of the risks of RAID and am more interested on how a Thunderbolt DAS/NAS may be possible. 

[NTDaws]

I mean I would just buy a used Dell Precision. Buy a Raid Card. Shit load of SSDs. Raid Something. And a 10 Gigabit ethernet pci e adapter.

[JustAStrangeGeek]

4 minutes ago, PWRFNK said:

There are more types of RAID available then 1/10 including combinations in blocks. This build fits 6x2.5" 3x3.5" 1xNVMe. I have more then enough drives to support the speed and redundancy i'm looking for in this build. Im aware of the risks of RAID and am more interested on how a Thunderbolt DAS/NAS may be possible. 

The reason that I mentioned 1 and 10 is because their redundancy orientated and are used in MANY enterprise servers. As long as the RAID setup suits your requirements, go with it.

[dalekphalm]

8 hours ago, PWRFNK said:

There are more types of RAID available then 1/10 including combinations in blocks. This build fits 6x2.5" 3x3.5" 1xNVMe. I have more then enough drives to support the speed and redundancy i'm looking for in this build. Im aware of the risks of RAID and am more interested on how a Thunderbolt DAS/NAS may be possible. 

Above in your posts, you keep mentioning:

4xSSD RAID 4,5,0,10

 

I assume you're just copying and pasting this from somewhere, but just in case you're not, I have some advice:

1. Don't use RAID0, at all. It's not worth the risks. You could spend an entire day working on files, and have the RAID0 crap out 5 minutes before the backup, and now you've lost the entire day's worth of work.

2. Don't use RAID4. It was not adopted much to begin with, and is considered obsolete - use RAID5 instead, if you want a single-parity-drive level of redundancy

3. RAID10 and RAID 6 are also good alternatives, if you have enough drives to make them worthwhile. They offer better protection against drive failure when compared to RAID5.