NAS Build for Small Office

[Stylin80]

Hello,

I've recently been tasked to attempt at building a NAS for a small office which has 6 PCs that will frequently access the NAS. Since I'm essentially new to the world of building a NAS, I've decided to turn to you guys for help.

The current requirements are future-proofing (Preferably hardware that will be capable of lasting >/=10 years)  , with storage requirement looking around 10TB as we deal with multiple AutoCAD files which may be uploaded to the NAS. Other smaller files such as the spreadsheets and documents will also be stored in the NAS as well. Essentially, we no longer want to store files on each individual PC and use inefficient methods of sharing the files such as folder sharing through Windows.

Any form of data processing on the NAS itself will be unlikely, however it will be required to be able to provide multiple small files simultaneously (ie. documents, spreadsheets, etc) through the network.

Here are my summarized questions:
1. What specification of a system should I build to that allows simple simultaneous file transfer over the network? (Assuming budget is below the range of 1.2K - 2 K USD (Lower is better)
2. What software/ OS will suit my needs for this NAS?
3. Redundancy - RAID 5 or 6? Or no RAID at all?
4. Are Seagate EXOS a viable option for my usage?

Explanation of each answer would be a nice bonus for me to understand further about NAS . Thanks in advance.

P.S. This NAS is probably going to be left alone in a corner collecting dust until the day it malfunctions.

[Radium_Angel]

39 minutes ago, Stylin80 said:

Hello,

I've recently been tasked to attempt at building a NAS for a small office which has 6 PCs that will frequently access the NAS. Since I'm essentially new to the world of building a NAS, I've decided to turn to you guys for help.

The current requirements are future-proofing (Preferably hardware that will be capable of lasting >/=10 years)  , with storage requirement looking around 10TB as we deal with multiple AutoCAD files which may be uploaded to the NAS. Other smaller files such as the spreadsheets and documents will also be stored in the NAS as well. Essentially, we no longer want to store files on each individual PC and use inefficient methods of sharing the files such as folder sharing through Windows.

Any form of data processing on the NAS itself will be unlikely, however it will be required to be able to provide multiple small files simultaneously (ie. documents, spreadsheets, etc) through the network.

Here are my summarized questions:
1. What specification of a system should I build to that allows simple simultaneous file transfer over the network? (Assuming budget is below the range of 1.2K - 2 K USD (Lower is better)
2. What software/ OS will suit my needs for this NAS?
3. Redundancy - RAID 5 or 6? Or no RAID at all?
4. Are Seagate EXOS a viable option for my usage?

Explanation of each answer would be a nice bonus for me to understand further about NAS . Thanks in advance.

P.S. This NAS is probably going to be left alone in a corner collecting dust until the day it malfunctions.

Don't build. Buy.

You will be blamed for everything that goes wrong with the NAS if you build it.

If you buy one, then you can always say it needed a firmware update or something.

 

10+ lifespan will be big bux. What's your budget?

[Stylin80]

18 minutes ago, Radium_Angel said:

Don't build. Buy.

You will be blamed for everything that goes wrong with the NAS if you build it.

If you buy one, then you can always say it needed a firmware update or something.

 

10+ lifespan will be big bux. What's your budget?

Well, blaming it on firmware update requirement is another way to escape .

As for building it, well I'm interested and may be willing to give it a go, but it's true, responsibility will be falling on my shoulder, but I will be more than willing should I build it.

As for buying, i've actually been getting multiple suggestions to buy as well. Is this a suitable choice? Been eyeing on it as well.

Qnap TS-453a

Well in terms of budgeting I am looking somewhere within 2K USD.

[Radium_Angel]

1 hour ago, Stylin80 said:

Well, blaming it on firmware update requirement is another way to escape .

As for building it, well I'm interested and may be willing to give it a go, but it's true, responsibility will be falling on my shoulder, but I will be more than willing should I build it.

As for buying, i've actually been getting multiple suggestions to buy as well. Is this a suitable choice? Been eyeing on it as well.

Qnap TS-453a

Well in terms of budgeting I am looking somewhere within 2K USD.

2k for 10 years?

Not likely.

 

Here's the easiest way to do this:

Contact all the big name NAS makers, give them your system requirements and let them suggest a NAS for you.

QNAP, Synology, ReadyNAS, all top makers. But double the budget...

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, Stylin80 said:

Well, blaming it on firmware update requirement is another way to escape .

As for building it, well I'm interested and may be willing to give it a go, but it's true, responsibility will be falling on my shoulder, but I will be more than willing should I build it.

As for buying, i've actually been getting multiple suggestions to buy as well. Is this a suitable choice? Been eyeing on it as well.

Qnap TS-453a

Well in terms of budgeting I am looking somewhere within 2K USD.

I would also suggest buying, not building.

 

Why? Service warranties, and uptime.

 

If you just slap together a tower - even with new parts - and something dies, what are you going to do now? Wait the 1-3 weeks RMA time while your ENTIRE office is down and unable to access the files?

 

I have some important questions:

1. The 10TB you mentioned, is that your current need, or is that a projected need? How much "free space" will 10TB give you, as of right now?

2. What is your current backup strategy?

3. What is your planned backup strategy with the new NAS?

 

I would suggest buy 2 NAS's, one as your primary NAS, and another as your backup target. Configure the primary NAS to create scheduled, frequent, differential snapshot based backups and store them on the 2nd NAS.

 

Make sure to configure extra storage capacity on the 2nd NAS, since it has to accommodate your current files, plus file versioning (Eg, you create a CAD file. You edit it. A few days later, you edit it again. Now there's at least 2 versions of this file to backup).

 

Possible specs:

 

QNAP BUILD

Primary NAS:

1x TS-453A (4GB RAM version - there's an 8GB RAM version, but I don't think you need it) - $800 USD

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIAFMC73H4597&cm_re=TS-453A-_-22-107-279-_-Product

 

4x Seagate Ironwolf NAS drives - $125 USD each ($500)

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822179005&ignorebbr=1

You could buy WD Red NAS drives as well - they are comparable and within $5 price

 

This gives you 4x 4TB = 16TB of raw storage. Run the system in RAID5, which will reduce usable storage by one disk = 12TB of actual space. If you don't need 12TB, you can swap the 4TB drives out for 3TB drives, and get 9TB of actual space.

 

Primary NAS total cost: $1300 USD + applicable taxes and shipping

 

Secondary NAS:

1x TS-253A (4GB RAM version) - $465 USD

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA6ZP3RB4799&cm_re=TS-253A-_-22-107-281-_-Product

 

2x 12TB Seagate Ironwolf NAS drives - $410 USD each ($820)

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822172025&ignorebbr=1

 

This gives you 2x 12TB = 24TB of raw storage. Run the system in RAID1 (mirrors the drives), which will give you 12TB of actual space to work with. If you opted to go with 3TB drives in the Primary NAS, you can swap these 12TB drives for 10TB drives, and save around $200 from the build.

 

Secondary NAS total cost: $1285 USD + applicable taxes and shipping

 

Total QNAP NAS build: $2585 USD + taxes and shipping

 

You can play with these configurations a bit. For example, you could get 2x of the exact same NAS's and HDD configurations, which will give you a bit more future flexibility (I think it's worth the extra $15, perhaps).

 

You could also scale down your storage needs to save money, such as going with smaller drives, and less total storage.

 

You could also swap out the QNAP for a Synology, for example. The DS418 (non-Play) is about $400 cheaper, but has less powerful hardware. The DS918 is still pretty powerful and is $200 cheaper.

 

Synology Build:

 

Primary NAS:

DS918+ - $550 USD

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822108682&cm_re=DS918-_-22-108-682-_-Product

 

4x Seagate Ironwolf NAS drives - $125 USD each ($500)

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822179005&ignorebbr=1

 

Primary NAS total cost: $1050

 

Secondary NAS:

DS918+ - $550 USD

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822108682&cm_re=DS918-_-22-108-682-_-Product

 

4x Seagate Ironwolf NAS drives - $125 USD each ($500)

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822179005&ignorebbr=1

 

 

Secondary NAS total cost: $1050

 

Total Synology Build: $2100 USD + taxes and shipping

 

So the Synology build ends up being ~$400 cheaper. You could, again, save cost by buying smaller HDD's, but you get diminishing cost savings at this point.

 

I also opted for both Primary and Secondary to be identical, since you save very little money going with the 2-bay Synology vs the 4-bay, and the increased cost of HDD's for 10 or 12TB HDD's was simply not worth it. The 2-bay Synology would end up being $200 more expensive than the 4-bay, when including HDD prices.

 

Configuration:

Setup the Primary NAS as your SMB Share or shares.

Configure in RAID5.

Create as many shares as needed.

Create basic user permissions (Eg: if only the accountant needs access to the accounting folder or share, do so). If you have an AD network, you can integrate AD users, but not required.

 

Setup the Secondary NAS with with RAID5 as well.

Install backup server on the Secondary NAS, and backup client on the primary NAS (Synology and QNAP both have similar software to do this - I use Hyper Backup from Synology for our Archive NAS at work).

Create your backup schedule - I might suggest every hour or every 2 hours. Target the Secondary NAS as the backup server, and it will automatically sync backups over to the secondary NAS on a regular basis.

 

You can configure how long you keep a backup (Eg: Files over x years old can be deleted), or you can just keep filling it up as needed with no retention policy.

 

If you need to upgrade your storage?

1. Buy new matching disks for the primary NAS.

2. Save the current config.

3. Remove the existing array.

4. Replace the disks.

5. Create new larger array, reload the config if necessary.

6. Reload your data from the secondary NAS backup

 

Repeat the process on the secondary NAS, replacing all disks, creating new array, then perform a fresh backup.

 

Alternatively, if you wanted to keep all the old file versions, etc, you could temporarily mirror the secondary NAS to the primary to hold all backups (including old data). Takes a bit more planning, but could be important for some people.

 

Let me know if you have specific questions.

[jde3]

4 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

I would also suggest buying, not building.

 

Why? Service warranties, and uptime.

For 6 users? nah. perfect case for NAS4Free. Being open source you will always be able to restore these with or without the software.

 

You'll want two of them in mirror configurations, one is the working NAS the users access.. the other is a backup that receives nightly or hourly snapshots from the primary NAS. Very easy to setup, very reliable.

 

Raid5 will tank your performance. Mirrors are preferred here.

[dalekphalm]

3 minutes ago, jde3 said:

For 6 users? nah. perfect case for NAS4Free.

 

You'll want two of them in mirror configurations, one is the working NAS the users access.. the other is a backup that receives nightly or hourly snapshots from the primary NAS. Very easy to setup, very reliable.

 

Raid5 will tank your performance. Mirrors are preferred here.

I would still highly consider warrantied turnkey solutions. It's only 6 users, but if the system goes down and they need to do an RMA or repair, it will likely hurt the business a lot.

 

Mirrors can be good, certainly, but I don't know if RAID5 will actually hurt performance enough to matter for the OP. They are dealing with larger files, sure, but not with video editing. The OP makes no mention of performance being critical - only small files like Word Docs and spreadsheets for simultaneous access by users.

[jde3]

8 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

I would still highly consider warrantied turnkey solutions. It's only 6 users, but if the system goes down and they need to do an RMA or repair, it will likely hurt the business a lot.

 

Mirrors can be good, certainly, but I don't know if RAID5 will actually hurt performance enough to matter for the OP. They are dealing with larger files, sure, but not with video editing. The OP makes no mention of performance being critical - only small files like Word Docs and spreadsheets for simultaneous access by users.

If it goes down and you lost all your data, guess what.. your still going to get fired so CYA is out the window. B the only thing your using here is ZFS and it's very common. Data corruption is essentially non-existent on ZFS and lots of things can read a ZFS volume. There is no reason to rope yourself to a commercial vendor who may or may not provide support to you or upgrades or any kind of path to the future.

[dalekphalm]

36 minutes ago, jde3 said:

If it goes down and you lost all your data, guess what.. your still going to get fired so CYA is out the window. B the only thing your using here is ZFS and it's very common. Data corruption is essentially non-existent on ZFS and lots of things can read a ZFS volume. There is no reason to rope yourself to a commercial vendor who may or may not provide support to you or upgrades or any kind of path to the future.

I'm not talking about total failure - in the setup I listed above for the OP, the risk of total failure is near enough zero that if it happened, it's likely because the entire office got trashed by fire/flood/etc.

 

That's why I quoted 2 NAS's - one for the actual usage, and one as the backup target.

 

ZFS is totally fine. Nothing wrong with it. I use it at home, and there are some commercial products that also use it.

 

I'm just talking about having a hardware warranty, and a support company to call and help if things get too complicated for the OP or his company to handle themselves. The hardware warranty is more important than anything else, in my mind.

 

But in the end it all comes down to budget and what the OP's company values more. If he wants to save money and do a self-build, and throw on some variant of BSD and use ZFS? Sure, he can go that route.

 

Or he can get an off-the-shelf product with a robust warranty, and have a single source to call for support.

 

He's got choices, and he'll have to decide what's best.

[jde3]

9 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

I'm not talking about total failure - in the setup I listed above for the OP, the risk of total failure is near enough zero that if it happened, it's likely because the entire office got trashed by fire/flood/etc.

 

That's why I quoted 2 NAS's - one for the actual usage, and one as the backup target.

 

ZFS is totally fine. Nothing wrong with it. I use it at home, and there are some commercial products that also use it.

 

I'm just talking about having a hardware warranty, and a support company to call and help if things get too complicated for the OP or his company to handle themselves. The hardware warranty is more important than anything else, in my mind.

 

But in the end it all comes down to budget and what the OP's company values more. If he wants to save money and do a self-build, and throw on some variant of BSD and use ZFS? Sure, he can go that route.

 

Or he can get an off-the-shelf product with a robust warranty, and have a single source to call for support.

 

He's got choices, and he'll have to decide what's best.

Well yeah, maybe he hasn't gotten that far down the road yet but most shops will have a vendor contract. So your equipment will be coming from them but that might not be the case.

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, jde3 said:

Well yeah, maybe he hasn't gotten that far down the road yet but most shops will have a vendor contract. So your equipment will be coming from them but that might not be the case.

A lot of variables.

 

If the OP has further questions or wants to explore different options, we'll help him out.

[Stylin80]

First and foremost, massive thanks to the both of you, dalekphalm and jde3 for helping me out here. I'll clarify a few things as well and ask some further questions:-

To dalekphalm:-

I have to agree you have a solid point regarding building the NAS on your own runs the risk of waiting for the RMA will take way too long. Especially since the entire office will be based of this NAS. In your post you mentioned as well a few questions that you wish me to clarify. Here are the following answers to your questions:-

- The approximated 10TB of space is projected need. Current usage doesn't even come close to 100GB. Reason is because we are currently in the process of shifting from old school paper and pencil schematics to utilizing AutoCAD.

- As for the current backup strategy, well none. Shocking, I know. Mainly due to the fact that almost none of the staffs here are tech-savvy and uses Word and Excel only. It's where I step in essentially.

- The original planned strategy was for me to assemble a NAS with possible RAID 5 or 6 as redundancy alongside a separate stand-alone machine that will be the backup of the NAS - backing up possibly 1-3 day(s) once. Note: It's a bad idea, thankfully I've come across you nice folks to point it out.  

 

In regards to your secondary NAS that acts as backup, it is actually a good idea. I actually didn't thought of it until you mention about it. The file versioning is a nice addition as well; pretty sure the staffs will be very happy to have said feature.

 

 

As for your suggested NAS(s), I am currently more likely to stick to the cheaper option of the two. As far as I can see, the additional performance would be nice to have, but it's unlikely that it will actually be utilized. However, I am still open to the other more expensive options if the extra ~400USD can be justified for my usage.


To jde3: -

Personally, I actually wouldn't mind taking the risk of assembling a NAS should the cost difference be significant enough to justify taking the risk. Essentially, I am the 'technician' in my work area here. Anything that goes wrong I would be on site in a jiffy to solve the issue. If possible, it would be nice for you to provide me a rough specification of the NAS as well as the estimated total cost.


Some further side questions:-
- In your own personal opinion, Western Digital HDDs or Seagate HDDs? Personally I have some personal experience with WD HDDs which are less than satisfactory. However, it's on the consumer end and I'm not too sure for higher tiers.

- Seagate EXOS; I've inspected them as my possible drive options. They claim to to produce much lesser vibration (which would be useful in a multi HDD rack system; not mine), and at the same time provide much longer expected overall lifespan, which I'm very much interested in. Is it worth the extra cost or simply excessive for my usage?



Some further clarification on the usage for this NAS:
This NAS will be mainly used daily for storing files and folders only. Expected files include spreadsheets, text documents, portable document format (pdf), occasional media and AutoCad save files.

Performance requirement will be quite likely to be very low as it is pretty much meant for storing information only. No expected processing of any kind will take place on the NAS. Any work done will be on the client PCs and not on the NAS itself. 

Note: Is it possible for simultaneous access to a single file (ex: A Word document) to be edited at the same time? I know Google Docs support said feature, unsure about Word or Excel on NAS will support it as well. Some insight on it would be nice.


A massive thanks once again to the both of you in regards to this matter. It's very much appreciated

 

[Stylin80]

11 hours ago, Radium_Angel said:

2k for 10 years?

Not likely.

 

Here's the easiest way to do this:

Contact all the big name NAS makers, give them your system requirements and let them suggest a NAS for you.

QNAP, Synology, ReadyNAS, all top makers. But double the budget...

The budgeting can be increased if necessary, but obviously if possible, within the provided amount.

And as for your suggestion of contacting them, well, unfortunately in my country these big NAS makers doesn't have a branch here. There are only companies with NAS solution in partnership with them, either way, good idea, will try and get quotation from them as well and respond here if there is any feedback. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

How are you managing permissions? Are you on active directory?

 

Windows server isn't a bad bet here. You get great intergration with active directory, and almost all IT people know how to use it.

 

And if you go with something like a dell server with windows server you get very good support(next day on site by default).

 

 

For hdd, Id go wd gold or exos. There basically the same here. Don't go sas hdds here. Both will handle vibrations fine and have the best warrantys and highest load rating of any capacity hdd.

 

1 hour ago, Stylin80 said:

Note: Is it possible for simultaneous access to a single file (ex: A Word document) to be edited at the same time? I know Google Docs support said feature, unsure about Word or Excel on NAS will support it as well. Some insight on it would be nice.

Well there are plugins for things like nextcloud that let you do this, but nothing as good as google drive that I have seen

 

Most programs like word use lock files so you can't open it if someone else did. 

 

 

[jde3]

4 hours ago, Stylin80 said:

First and foremost, massive thanks to the both of you, dalekphalm and jde3 for helping me out here. I'll clarify a few things as well and ask some further questions:

-- snip--

 

I don't have all the answers for you but I can try to point you in the right direction.

 

I've used this a long time. The largest ZFS array I've had was 48 spindles and that was almost 10 years ago on Sun hardware. Similar to one of Linus's storeanators but.. better.

 

For hardware you'll want 19" rack mount U1's or U2. You have a rack right? If not get one (you can use pedestal servers but they are somewhat ghetto)

 

For a vendor for hardware you'll have to shop around. It depends who you want to have a relationship as your business grows. This is usually a choice made by the owner/manager but you can provide input. HP is a solid choice some people go with Dell, some of the lesser known ones are iXSystems and Tyan. (The lesser known ones may be better if your not looking to establish a long term contract and just want a plain jane server) "gamer" hardware companies are pretty much unheard of in this space. aka Asus, Gigabyte.. but they do make them. I would avoid these at all cost.

 

With a ZFS solution you have a couple options as a host OS. FreeBSD, Illumos/Solaris and Linux - There are a couple distros for FreeBSD specifically intended for NAS use FreeNAS and NAS4Free .. They are similar to each other the difference is in the quality of the web based interfaces and how closely they track FreeBSD upstream. Both are fine choices, you should take a look at both and see what one you like more. (FreeNAS tends to be more flashy and has ooodles of plugins but thats not always desired in enterprise) - There are commercial providers for ZFS too. Oracle, Nexenta, TrueNAS, Datto etc. (Does Ubuntu Server count? They support it anyhow.) - How to know what one to pick? Well.. if you don't have someone familiar with Unix/Linux on staff then I'd stick with the web UI ones. FreeNAS, NAS4Free.. You may be able to get more flexibility from a general purpose OS like FreeBSD if you do have someone familiar with it on staff but it's not required.

 

Ok.. so with that your platform should be decided upon so lets talk about the specifics.

 

Mo Spindles is Mo Problems.. in other words the more physical disks you have the greater the chances for failure. So for you you can go with 2 10 TB drives or you can get a mixture of lower capacity cheaper drives at the cost of raising the arrays failure rate. Keep in mind that you WILL want to have at least 1 extra hot swap drive for each pool. Having more spares on hand that are exactly the same is more valuable than having fewer higher quality drives.

 

A pool is a logical array I guess we should talk about this.. ZFS uses different terminology from RAID because it isn't RAID and so terms aren't 1:1 exact, your better off using the ZFS terms because if I say, use  RaidZ-3 that would equal what.. RAID7? So terms are pool for the array, dataset for a grouping of storage (could be a folder but with different properties), Stripe, (raid0) Mirror (raid1), RaidZ-1 (raid5) etc.. It also has ZVOL's that are block devices within the pool. (kind of like partitions) You might want to read about some of these terms to get a grasp of how they work. It's mostly similar but there are some differences.

 

I recommended a mirror layout because it's simple, it's very safe, and there is a low failure risk. If you need to use more than 2 drives this can be done.

[host: ~/zfstest] # zpool create test mirror md1 md2 md5 md6 mirror md3 md4 md7 md8 spare md9 
[host: ~/zfstest] # zpool status
  pool: test
 state: ONLINE
  scan: none requested
config:

	NAME        STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
	test        ONLINE       0     0     0
	  mirror-0  ONLINE       0     0     0
	    md1     ONLINE       0     0     0
	    md2     ONLINE       0     0     0
	    md5     ONLINE       0     0     0
	    md6     ONLINE       0     0     0
	  mirror-1  ONLINE       0     0     0
	    md3     ONLINE       0     0     0
	    md4     ONLINE       0     0     0
	    md7     ONLINE       0     0     0
	    md8     ONLINE       0     0     0
	spares
	  md9       AVAIL   

errors: No known data errors

This creates the pool test with 8 drives grouped into two groups of mirrored vdevs and data striped on top. (this is a more extreme example if you wanted basic mirrors just use 2 disks, again fewer spindles is less risk) This works out to Raid 0+? not sure.. anyhow it's fault tolerant is 3 disks from any one group of vdevs with a hot spare. Very hard to kill. It also will preform well and resilver very fast in case of failure. To make this exact setup work for you each drive would need to be over 5TB

 

To do the snapshots you would just use a cron job or something similar (setup through web UI) So say you had a dataset called "/projects" where people are working on things. You can snapshot that up to every 5 minutes if you wanted to and move that data on to your backup NAS rotating them out with hourly, weekly, monthly, yearly etc. ZFS transfers these at block level and it already knows what blocks have been changed between two sets so the transfer is very fast. No extra sync software is needed and there is very little overhead. This is a big bonus because almost everything your using is just base OS tools and very little complexity. There are no apps to install or packages or databases or what have you. Being basically identical the backup could also preform as the primary with just a DNS change.

 

ZFS can compress on the fly and the way ZFS uses compression it actually turns out to be a performance boost to the array. You dentally want this if you have compressible data. FreeBSD defaults to lz4 compression and that is a good choice.

 

ZFS dedup. avoid it. it doesn't do what people think it does and takes massive amounts of ram. it's currently being improved but it's somewhat of a hype feature that never materialized into a useful thing for daily use cases.

 

ZVOLS, with a ZVOL you can put other file systems on top of ZFS or use them as a block device. and example of this would be using a Windows VM guest with it's storage backed to a ZVOL.. essentially giving Windows all the features of ZFS while it runs it's (horribly inadequate) native file system unaware.

 

tl;dr

Two NAS4Free boxes from a vendor you trust with 3 10TB drives each and ~8-16GB of ram and any new'ish CPU. It might be a bit pricey but the setup will be able to grow with the company and it dosen't cut corners. Likely they will run forever once setup.

 

Edit: you know I didn't think about this but iXsystems (the people that make FreeNAS/TrueNAS) have sales reps.. you can call and ask them this stuff.. they'd know better than I would probably.

 

 

 

 

[Radium_Angel]

Also bear in mind that regardless of which hard drives you buy, they will, sooner or later, fail.

So if you account for that, and have *proper* backups (tape drive, another NAS) then downtime will be minimized and the choice of hard drives will be less important.

 

I have personal experience with Seagates being great (for decades of experience) but I know they tanked their rep with the 2 and 3 TB drives for a while.

I never cared for WD drives, but I also understand they've upped their game recently and now make good drives.

So, flip a coin, go with that result, and ensure you have a solid backup plan and you'll be fine.

 

Also, for 6 people in an office, I wouldn't worry about the "single file needs to be used by multiple people" issue. Remember what they are working on, CAD files, in which any changes are probably reviewed before the next person does their part, so simultaneous usage is a non-issue.

[NelizMastr]

I would also like to add that performance will always be limited to what the network can handle, unless the NAS and all systems connected to it are 10GbE or have trunks of multiple GbE links available. If that was the case, we wouldn't be talking $2k either but at least tenfold. 

[dalekphalm]

8 hours ago, Stylin80 said:

First and foremost, massive thanks to the both of you, dalekphalm and jde3 for helping me out here. I'll clarify a few things as well and ask some further questions:-

To dalekphalm:-

I have to agree you have a solid point regarding building the NAS on your own runs the risk of waiting for the RMA will take way too long. Especially since the entire office will be based of this NAS. In your post you mentioned as well a few questions that you wish me to clarify. Here are the following answers to your questions:-

- The approximated 10TB of space is projected need. Current usage doesn't even come close to 100GB. Reason is because we are currently in the process of shifting from old school paper and pencil schematics to utilizing AutoCAD.

Excellent. So if 10TB of space is your projected needs, you don't need to shoot over that. So to choose your HDD capacity, you basically just choose which combination of drives, in what RAID configuration you're going to need.

 

@jde3 recommends mirrored arrays. RAID1 (2 drives in a pair) is great, but potentially limiting. RAID10 "fixes" the limitations, but adds in greater risk of disk failure. Yes, you can lose up to half your total disks (2 in a 4-disk RAID10 array), but which disks die becomes very important in RAID10, because if the wrong 2 disks die (both pairs in a mirror), your array is gone, despite still having 2 good disks.

 

RAID5 only has single disk failure protection, which is it's own increase of risk, but is more cost effective, since you have more total space available.

 

RAID6 uses 2 disk parity protection, and is similar to RAID5 but just more tolerant to failure (it also has slightly worse write performance). RAID6 and RAID10 are both pretty common in the Enterprise market.

 

ZFS - if you choose to go that route - has ZFS equivalents of all of these.

 

If you decide to use Synology NAS's, which are quite cost competitive as shown above, they have an option to use "SHR" (Synology Hybrid RAID), which is their own custom RAID solution that will automatically adapt your RAID array to the ideal RAID level, depending on how many drives you stuff inside the NAS.

 

The benefit to SHR is that you could - for example - start with 2x 10TB drives in an SHR array (it will automatically turn them into a RAID1 mirror). This leaves you with 2 of the 4 HDD bays free. You could then pop in a 3rd 10TB drive in the future if space is running out, and SHR will change the RAID1 mirror into a RAID5 mirror, and you now have 20TB of usable storage. Further down the line, pop in a 4th 10TB HDD, and you now have 30TB of usable storage.

 

Alternatively, you could use SHR to start smaller, and expand into the 10TB total space as needed. For example:

Start with 2x 4TB HDD's in SHR (RAID1 mirror). This gives you 4TB of space. As you fill up the volume, pop in a 3rd 4TB drive to give you 8TB of space, then a 4th to give you 12TB of space.

 

You can do the same with the Backup Secondary NAS too (Just make sure there's always enough space to handle any upcoming backups).

 

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- As for the current backup strategy, well none. Shocking, I know. Mainly due to the fact that almost none of the staffs here are tech-savvy and uses Word and Excel only. It's where I step in essentially.

Yikes. I know it's common for many small businesses to have no backup strategy, or to have a bad one. I would probably use a backup manager (every major NAS brand has one, and there are plenty of third party ones for Windows, etc) to create something like this:

1. Hourly differential snapshot backups

2. Weekly full backups

3. Monthly full backups

4. Bi-annually full backups (every 6 months)

 

5. (Optional) set retention policies, so that, for example, backups are kept for 5 years then automatically deleted

 

Ultimately, you'd just massage these numbers into whatever makes sense for your business. If you need to keep data for a minimum amount of time due to some sort of tax or privacy law, then make sure to follow that. If you "guarantee" data for client projects for a certain amount of availability, you could work around that instead.

 

There's no right or wrong amount of time to keep backups, just whatever makes sense for your own business.

 

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- The original planned strategy was for me to assemble a NAS with possible RAID 5 or 6 as redundancy alongside a separate stand-alone machine that will be the backup of the NAS - backing up possibly 1-3 day(s) once. Note: It's a bad idea, thankfully I've come across you nice folks to point it out.

 

In regards to your secondary NAS that acts as backup, it is actually a good idea. I actually didn't thought of it until you mention about it.

I personally quite like getting dual NAS setups (with the 2nd NAS as backup) because it's simple, you get familiar hardware, and it's easy to setup.

 

You could, however, ultimately do any number of things. For example: Build a little tower "server" and throw FreeNAS or Windows or Linux on it, chuck in some HDD's, and get something similar enough that'll work fine. It likely won't be as simple though.

 

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The file versioning is a nice addition as well; pretty sure the staffs will be very happy to have said feature.

Windows calls this "Shadow Copy", but there are other names for it. On Synology, to get "Native" File Versioning, apparently you have to use BTRFS as your file system (instead of, say, EXT4), or you have to use the "Cloud Station Server" application to manage your data (Cloud Station is a first party Synology app, but it's an optional install and is typically not required).

 

Quote

As for your suggested NAS(s), I am currently more likely to stick to the cheaper option of the two. As far as I can see, the additional performance would be nice to have, but it's unlikely that it will actually be utilized. However, I am still open to the other more expensive options if the extra ~400USD can be justified for my usage.

Yeah, for the small number of users, I don't think you should be overly concerned with performance. You could go even cheaper than what I've listed, but you'll start to lose some useful features, so I would suggest the DS918+ is an ideal "middle ground" of decent performance and good features without costing way too much.

 

I personally don't think you could really justify the higher expense associated with a better NAS.

 

Quote

To jde3: -

Personally, I actually wouldn't mind taking the risk of assembling a NAS should the cost difference be significant enough to justify taking the risk. Essentially, I am the 'technician' in my work area here. Anything that goes wrong I would be on site in a jiffy to solve the issue. If possible, it would be nice for you to provide me a rough specification of the NAS as well as the estimated total cost.

For what he is suggesting, you'd essentially build (or buy) an actual PC Server. I'm sure @jde3 can provide a parts list or a couple of recommended pre-built servers from the likes of Dell or HPE. Personally I'm very fond of Dell servers.

 

Note: If you buy a new Dell or HPE server, it's likely going to cost even more than the NAS's I have listed. They're expensive, but they're more flexible than a NAS appliance.

 

If you self-build, you can keep the cost way down, but you'll likely end up with consumer grade parts - some people are okay with that, some aren't.

 

You can also buy a used server, but personally I'd stay away from used for a business, since getting replacement parts can often take time and may cost a lot depending on the exact part. If you decide to go used, do thorough research on replacement parts, and maybe even pickup a few common things like RAM, or a spare PSU, etc.

 

Quote

Some further side questions:-
- In your own personal opinion, Western Digital HDDs or Seagate HDDs? Personally I have some personal experience with WD HDDs which are less than satisfactory. However, it's on the consumer end and I'm not too sure for higher tiers.

I've used both extensively, and here's the bottom line:

There's next to no difference between them. Both Seagate and WD have made the occasional bad line of drives. Both occasionally have faulty drives. But overall, you'll get similar lifespans out of either.

 

I've had both WD, Seagate, and even Hitachi drives die on me.

 

Statistically, if you look at the (flawed) drive stats from places like BlackBlaze, Seagate actually scores the worst. But these are not good stats, as there's too many unanswered questions.

 

Quote

- Seagate EXOS; I've inspected them as my possible drive options. They claim to to produce much lesser vibration (which would be useful in a multi HDD rack system; not mine), and at the same time provide much longer expected overall lifespan, which I'm very much interested in. Is it worth the extra cost or simply excessive for my usage?

These are Enterprise grade drives. Very good. Kind of expensive. They come in 2 versions: SAS (very expensive) and SATA (slightly less expensive) - you would want the SATA version, if using it with a NAS. WD Gold drives are equivalent to this.

 

Personally, I'd suggest these drives are overkill, and will definitely increase your overall cost by a decent margin. NAS grade drives like the Seagate Ironwolf or the WD Red are perfectly fine. If you want a bit better, upgrade to the WD Red Pro (or whatever Seagate's equivalent is).

 

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Some further clarification on the usage for this NAS:
This NAS will be mainly used daily for storing files and folders only. Expected files include spreadsheets, text documents, portable document format (pdf), occasional media and AutoCad save files.

Performance requirement will be quite likely to be very low as it is pretty much meant for storing information only. No expected processing of any kind will take place on the NAS. Any work done will be on the client PCs and not on the NAS itself. 

I see no issues here. The mid-tier NAS I've listed would be very suitable, as would a low end PC Server running whatever NAS/Server OS.

 

Quote

Note: Is it possible for simultaneous access to a single file (ex: A Word document) to be edited at the same time? I know Google Docs support said feature, unsure about Word or Excel on NAS will support it as well. Some insight on it would be nice.

Microsoft has introduced these kinds of features in Office 2013, I believe. There are caveats, and I believe you need to share the document using OneDrive, rather than locally on your file server, but it's still doable:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/document-collaboration-and-co-authoring-ee1509b4-1f6e-401e-b04a-782d26f564a4

 

You can "co-edit" or "co-author" Word and Powerpoint files through Office 2013 or 2016, and Excel files through Office 2016.

 

If your version of Office is older than 2013, you're likely out of luck, and you should consider whether that feature is worth upgrading over or not.

Quote

A massive thanks once again to the both of you in regards to this matter. It's very much appreciated

You're welcome.

 

I know there's a lot to digest. There's also more than one "right" way to do this.

 

So don't let any of us "push" you in one particular direction, thinking it's the best, without you yourself carefully considering the options and what way you'd like to do it.

 

Because, ultimately, it's going to be you that has to deal with this on a daily basis after we're long gone

 

Hell, you might even come up with your own great idea based on what we've given you.

[Mikensan]

Overall everything looks very well covered. I would only add in - buy an extra 1-2 of the disks you chose to buy, test them, and store them as hot spares. If you buy a second NAS then it can take over duties while you wait for a replacement drive to come in if you don't buy a hot spare.

 

Also do you think you'll be working for this company 10 years from now? I believe in leaving behind a network anybody could jump in and manage. If you run a "custom" solution I would highly advise documenting it, and paying for support (I.E. use TrueNAS instead of FreeNAS so you can call in for support). 

 

When shit hits the fan at 1am in the morning, you can spend 10 hours of your time figuring out the problem, or 2 hours on the phone. I'm sure 10 hours of your time costs more than it would've to just buy support. And that's just 1 event....

 

Personally I would go with @dalekphalm's suggestion, so the next admin has a well known NAS with support. You could do @jde3's as well, but I would buy a solution from say TrueNAS or Oracle - again so support is only a phonecall away. I'm pretty sure your job posting isn't going to list "BSD/ZFS guru" when you leave.

 

https://www.oracle.com/storage/nas/index.html

https://www.ixsystems.com/freenas-mini/

 

I believe the FreeNAS Mini comes with 1 year support but you can buy support as needed or prepay for 3 years.

https://www.ixsystems.com/support/

 

[Spicedaddy]

Synology DS918+

5x 6TB Hitachi NAS drives in RAID-10 (+ a spare)

Spare power supply for the NAS just in case...

 

More than enough for 6 users... Team up the 2 LAN connections for speed and redundancy.

 

 

[dalekphalm]

3 minutes ago, Sugadaddy said:

Synology DS918+

5x 6TB Hitachi NAS drives in RAID-10 (+ a spare)

Spare power supply for the NAS just in case...

 

More than enough for 6 users... Team up the 2 LAN connections for speed and redundancy.

 

 

Just an FYI, the 918+ is a 4-bay unit.

 

You can buy an expansion unit though to add 5 additional more HDD bays.

[jde3]

6 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

@jde3 recommends mirrored arrays. RAID1 (2 drives in a pair) is great, but potentially limiting. RAID10 "fixes" the limitations, but adds in greater risk of disk failure. Yes, you can lose up to half your total disks (2 in a 4-disk RAID10 array), but which disks die becomes very important in RAID10, because if the wrong 2 disks die (both pairs in a mirror), your array is gone, despite still having 2 good disks.

I'm actually not sure what the raid level is for what I listed out. (its a nested raid of quad mirrors in a stripe, it's similar to 0+1 but more robust) It could be done with 2 or 3 disks per vdev but 2 would be pushing it.

 

5 hours ago, Mikensan said:

Personally I would go with @dalekphalm's suggestion, so the next admin has a well known NAS with support. You could do @jde3's as well, but I would buy a solution from say TrueNAS or Oracle - again so support is only a phonecall away. I'm pretty sure your job posting isn't going to list "BSD/ZFS guru" when you leave.

I believe iX sells support for FreeNAS on the fly Linux does too, not sure if you need a contract. When you are a BSD guru it's something you tend not to think about.

I remember a company I worked for had to pair me and a Yahoo engineer together for a week as we took Zimbra ZCS and customized it in unholy ways (changing it's LDAP schema to work as a domain controller. Pretty hard work as it got really deep into the guts of Zimbra. I think it actually supports that now so our work got made into a product.) However that was somewhat of a special case. Most of the business I've worked for operate without a support contract.

 

As for Oracle I pretty much think they are the devil (and they are really expensive). I'd rather run the array on Redhat or Ubuntu if that were the case that I needed a certified OS and I'm not a huge fan of either.

 

This is more about business policy and if your not a bank or something I'd say you probably don't need it but that's up to the OP.

[dalekphalm]

3 hours ago, jde3 said:

I'm actually not sure what the raid level is for what I listed out. (its a nested raid of quad mirrors in a stripe, it's similar to 0+1 but more robust) It could be done with 2 or 3 disks per vdev but 2 would be pushing it.

Fair enough - I didn't actually look through your nested RAID levels thoroughly. I just think that kind of RAID level nesting is likely overkill and overly complicated for the OP since they are obviously pretty new to all of this.

 

Either sticking with RAID1, or RAID5/6 I think would be totally fine. Or simply using SHR if he ends up buying a Synology unit.

3 hours ago, jde3 said:

I believe iX sells support for FreeNAS on the fly Linux does too, not sure if you need a contract. When you are a BSD guru it's something you tend not to think about.

iX sells different levels of support no doubt, just like all the big companies. If the OP wants to go FreeNAS, I'd push him to buy a pre-built iX server, like the Mini. However, they charge a lot for HDD's, so I'd suggest the OP buy the HDD's separately. Though a pair of FreeNAS Mini's, plus HDD's, would put him over budget by between $500 and $1000 USD. The Mini's are $1000 themselves with no HDD's.

 

He could also just buy a very cheap NAS as the backup target though, instead of a second FreeNAS Mini, if he wanted to go this route.

3 hours ago, jde3 said:

I remember a company I worked for had to pair me and a Yahoo engineer together for a week as we took Zimbra ZCS and customized it in unholy ways (changing it's LDAP schema to work as a domain controller. Pretty hard work as it got really deep into the guts of Zimbra. I think it actually supports that now so our work got made into a product.) However that was somewhat of a special case. Most of the business I've worked for operate without a support contract.

 

As for Oracle I pretty much think they are the devil (and they are really expensive). I'd rather run the array on Redhat or Ubuntu if that were the case that I needed a certified OS and I'm not a huge fan of either.

 

This is more about business policy and if your not a bank or something I'd say you probably don't need it but that's up to the OP.

 

[jde3]

36 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Fair enough - I didn't actually look through your nested RAID levels thoroughly. I just think that kind of RAID level nesting is likely overkill and overly complicated for the OP since they are obviously pretty new to all of this.

 

Either sticking with RAID1, or RAID5/6 I think would be totally fine. Or simply using SHR if he ends up buying a Synology unit.

iX sells different levels of support no doubt, just like all the big companies. If the OP wants to go FreeNAS, I'd push him to buy a pre-built iX server, like the Mini. However, they charge a lot for HDD's, so I'd suggest the OP buy the HDD's separately. Though a pair of FreeNAS Mini's, plus HDD's, would put him over budget by between $500 and $1000 USD. The Mini's are $1000 themselves with no HDD's.

 

He could also just buy a very cheap NAS as the backup target though, instead of a second FreeNAS Mini, if he wanted to go this route.

 

Raid 5 is (should be) depreciated in enterprise. It's not due to raid 5 write hole either (tho that's bad enough for things susceptible to it) but more it's inability to recover multi-disk failure and long resilver time, poor performance etc. 6 or 10 is preferred. Some implementations can't even run degraded. For home use it's fine but.. basically it maximizes storage capacity per $ with some pretty heavy drawbacks.

 

I got a look at one of the FreeNAS mini units at the last Linux conference I went to. I didn't think it was anything super special but it's fine.

 

The reason for dual identical systems is for emergency failover. Not something you'd ever want to do.. but possible if you have to.

[Stylin80]

@dalekphalm + @jde3

My infinite thanks and gratitude goes to you both in aiding me with my decision as to which path should I travel down for this NAS.

 

@Mikensan
 

10 hours ago, Mikensan said:

Also do you think you'll be working for this company 10 years from now? I believe in leaving behind a network anybody could jump in and manage. If you run a "custom" solution I would highly advise documenting it, and paying for support (I.E. use TrueNAS instead of FreeNAS so you can call in for support). 

Couldn't agree more as well. As what you've said, leaving behind a manageable network one is able to manage it as well is important. Documenting for a custom solution I would say has to be a must personally and paying for support is equally advisable as well as per mentioned.



After many many many hours of digging into your replies and doing some of my own research, I've come to a conclusion to deploy the Synology unit(s) @dalekphalm suggested. Primarily its because it would be much simpler to operate and set up as well as the support that will come in as well should anything go wrong within the warranty period. Asides, it has equally ticked all the boxes of my requirements and going custom while may open further options and expandability in the future, I figured that it would be highly unlikely of a need of an upgrade or changes in the near future as this is already meant as a long-term solution. 

However, the plan of custom building will most likely still take place but I will perform it personally for my own home. May not be cost effective, but heck, the experience I'll gain is more than worth it. @jde3 countless hours of explaining and breaking it down to me won't be wasted as well  .

 

I do however through my periods of researching came across a thing or two I'd like to clarify.

- In regards to the DS918+, I've noticed that it does support NVMe SSDs for caching. I understand that caching allows much faster file access, but is it necessary? For my use case at least. Personally I doubt as my files are rather small and the biggest of AutoCAD files will only stretch into the hundreds of megabytes.

- Network bottlenecking. How big of an issue this can possible be? As it stands, the entire office is equipped with Gigabit Ethernet connection to all PCs.

14 hours ago, NelizMastr said:

I would also like to add that performance will always be limited to what the network can handle, unless the NAS and all systems connected to it are 10GbE or have trunks of multiple GbE links available.

How accurate is this statement? Personally I believe this does not apply to me as my common files are <5Mb each and I'm quite sure having a 10GbE will make the transfer any faster. Perhaps the AutoCAD files are an exception.
 

 

 

On 6/29/2018 at 2:34 AM, dalekphalm said:

 

Setup the Secondary NAS with with RAID5 as well.

Install backup server on the Secondary NAS, and backup client on the primary NAS (Synology and QNAP both have similar software to do this - I use Hyper Backup from Synology for our Archive NAS at work).

Create your backup schedule - I might suggest every hour or every 2 hours. Target the Secondary NAS as the backup server, and it will automatically sync backups over to the secondary NAS on a regular basis.

- In regards to this secondary NAS, I've seen personally people making their backup, secondary NAS or whatever it may be off-site. Is it possible to perform on DS918+? I do know there is Hyper Backup and Snapshot Replication feature by Synology, but is this possible? I'd say yes considering from what I've dug up, but I want to make sure as this would be a critical feature that I will require. And if it's possible, how does on perform so and how complicated it can get?


I'd buy you nice folks many cups of coffee or tea but many thanks is all I can give through here