NAS Guidance

[thelochias]

Hello everyone, I am building a NAS for the first time. This is mainly going to be used as a backup/file server for me and my friends, but I would like my setup (if possible) to be expandable for a game server, or even POE storage. I already have an extra SuperMicro X8DTT-F from my friend trying the cheap Xeon gaming pc LTT video. Based on this motherboard, I was thinking of having 4x 8TB WD Red Easystores when they go on sale, and I have 1-2 SSD's that I could use for cache disks if I wanted to. Additionally, I have a 8TB Easystore that I could use for a parity disk if I wanted to, with 2x 2TB Refurb drives that I could also use for parity if I truly felt like it. 

 

Here are all my questions:

-Which piece of software should I use? 

-Which filesystem should I use?

-Are my harddrive picks okay or should I use a larger amount of smaller capacity hard drives?

-Do I need a RAID card?

-Is there a way that I can keep all of this cool and quiet?

-How much ram should I get?

 

Thanks in advance!

 

 

 

 

Edited July 4, 2018 by thelochias
Thought we had the right RAM, but we didn't.

[jde3]

2 hours ago, thelochias said:

Hello everyone, I am building a NAS for the first time. This is mainly going to be used as a backup/file server for me and my friends, but I would like my setup (if possible) to be expandable for a game server, or even POE storage. I already have an extra SuperMicro X8DTT-F from my friend trying the cheap Xeon gaming pc LTT video. Based on this motherboard, I was thinking of having 4x 8TB WD Red Easystores when they go on sale, and I have 1-2 SSD's that I could use for cache disks if I wanted to. Additionally, I have a 8TB Easystore that I could use for a parity disk if I wanted to, with 2x 2TB Refurb drives that I could also use for parity if I truly felt like it. 

 

Here are all my questions:

-Which piece of software should I use? 

-Which filesystem should I use?

-Are my harddrive picks okay or should I use a larger amount of smaller capacity hard drives?

-Do I need a RAID card?

-Is there a way that I can keep all of this cool and quiet?

-How much ram should I get?

 

Thanks in advance!

 

 

 

 

I don't have time for a detailed reply here but I'd just like to say a NAS really isn't a game server. Hate to break that to ppl.

[Razor Blade]

2 hours ago, thelochias said:

Hello everyone, I am building a NAS for the first time. This is mainly going to be used as a backup/file server for me and my friends, but I would like my setup (if possible) to be expandable for a game server, or even POE storage. I already have an extra SuperMicro X8DTT-F from my friend trying the cheap Xeon gaming pc LTT video. Based on this motherboard, I was thinking of having 4x 8TB WD Red Easystores when they go on sale, and I have 1-2 SSD's that I could use for cache disks if I wanted to. Additionally, I have a 8TB Easystore that I could use for a parity disk if I wanted to, with 2x 2TB Refurb drives that I could also use for parity if I truly felt like it. 

 

Here are all my questions:

-Which piece of software should I use? 

-Which filesystem should I use?

-Are my harddrive picks okay or should I use a larger amount of smaller capacity hard drives?

-Do I need a RAID card?

-Is there a way that I can keep all of this cool and quiet?

-How much ram should I get?

 

Thanks in advance!

 

-Which piece of software should I use? 

• Depends on what you're wanting to accomplish. First you'll need to decide if you're going to run a hypervisor or not. Running VMs have advantages but a bare metal OS is usually simpler.

-Which filesystem should I use?

• There are pros and cons to all file systems. If you're using a linux OS, many like the ZFS file system. If you're running a Microsoft OS, you could simply use window's tools to manage your disk spaces.

-Are my harddrive picks okay or should I use a larger amount of smaller capacity hard drives?

• Use the highest capacity disks you can afford. More disks aren't necessarily better.

-Do I need a RAID card?

• That depends on if your hardware can support the quantity of disks and type of disks you are going to use. For example if your motherboard has 4 sata ports and you have 6 drives, you will need some sort of HBA or raid card to support more disks.

-Is there a way that I can keep all of this cool and quiet?

• Stay away from rack mount equipment. Using quality fans and a controller helps a lot.

-How much ram should I get?

• This one also will depend on what you're going to do with it and what the requirements of the OS is going to be. If you're going to make a bunch of VMs, more RAM may be needed.

[thelochias]

5 minutes ago, Razor Blade said:

 

-Which piece of software should I use? 

• Depends on what you're wanting to accomplish. First you'll need to decide if you're going to run a hypervisor or not. Running VMs have advantages but a bare metal OS is usually simpler.

-Which filesystem should I use?

• There are pros and cons to all file systems. If you're using a linux OS, many like the ZFS file system. If you're running a Microsoft OS, you could simply use window's tools to manage your disk spaces.

-Are my harddrive picks okay or should I use a larger amount of smaller capacity hard drives?

• Use the highest capacity disks you can afford. More disks aren't necessarily better.

-Do I need a RAID card?

• That depends on if your hardware can support the quantity of disks and type of disks you are going to use. For example if your motherboard has 4 sata ports and you have 6 drives, you will need some sort of HBA or raid card to support more disks.

-Is there a way that I can keep all of this cool and quiet?

• Stay away from rack mount equipment. Using quality fans and a controller helps a lot.

-How much ram should I get?

• This one also will depend on what you're going to do with it and what the requirements of the OS is going to be. If you're going to make a bunch of VMs, more RAM may be needed.

Thanks so much!, I don't think I need virtualization at all, because all I want to do is to write everything I want backed up and have my friends constantly read stuff off of it. I was thinking of using UnRAID to achieve this, would that work? I think the fact that UnRAID can set up multiple accounts and split data across multiple drives is a good argument for why I should use it.  And if so, how much RAM would I need?

[Razor Blade]

18 minutes ago, thelochias said:

Thanks so much!, I don't think I need virtualization at all, because all I want to do is to write everything I want backed up and have my friends constantly read stuff off of it. I was thinking of using UnRAID to achieve this, would that work? I think the fact that UnRAID can set up multiple accounts and split data across multiple drives is a good argument for why I should use it.  And if so, how much RAM would I need?

Sorry I know nothing of Unraid, hopefully someone can chime in on those questions. I believe Unraid is a hypervisor though so if you're not planning on virtualization there could be other better options out there.

 

As for RAM, all i can say is don't go overboard on it. Decide on the OS and software/plugins you'll be using and go with that. Maybe add a little for some headroom so you aren't having to run out and buy more RAM just to try something out. Depending on your budget 8 or 16GB should be a decent number to start with. If you were going to start messing with VMs though consider at least 32GB to give you enough RAM that you can reserve some for running VMs.

[Fleetscut]

if its purely to be run as a NAS filer then freeNAS is probably your best premade solution, though tbh im getting by just fine with plain old ubuntu server. unraid is more of a hypervisor than a nas os.

 

ram and cpu power really arent that big of a deal for a nas. though if you plan to run a transcoder like plex thats where you will need horepower.

 

You dont really need a raid card either, software raid is more than enough for a basic file server. the benefits seen from hardware raid really only matter if the server is going to see alooot of use

[BrianXShen]

unRaid really isn't that good of a hypervisor. It's more designed to be a NAS. I would recommend using VMware ESXi and then running a FreeNAS VM and a game server VM.