Recommended NAS?

[perfessor101]

I'm going to be converting an old server to Unraid soon, and I'm hoping for PMP support.

Here's some posts from their forums regarding which SATA PMP's will be/are supported.

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=83.0

Unraid server Release 4.3-beta1
http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=1615.0

They are currently on Unraid server Release 4.3-beta6 and they just added support for a cache disk. You can save/copy files to the cache disk which is outside the array with parity and consequently has higher throughput. Unraid will then copy the files when it isn't busy from the cache disk to the array with parity. (On the Pro version anyway)


Bobby

[hdtvrocks]

Just picked up a Rocketfish 24" ATX case for $51 at BB. It's an OEM Lian-Li, even has Lian-Li fans. Lian-Li equivalents go for $220+. Holds up to 8 HD's and comes with 3 120mm fans. Screaming deal for a server case.

Rocketfish Aluminum Full-Tower Case

Pics someone took of the box and case and accessories

Search for BB in your area that has stock and give them a call and ask for the price. I was able to snag 2 for $47+tax each.

PS. I even saw someone put 2 computers in this case it's so big.

[PGPfan]

Originally Posted by mikesm

Unraid is based on Freebsd, which has lackluster hardware support as compared with Linux (No Sata PMP's, etc...). It's filesystem is not well suited for media serving apps, something XFS excels at. Raid Performance is Ok, but the lack of tuning for large sequential media operations that XFS does well at hurts in benchmarks.

Huh? Not sure where you're getting your info from but Unraid is NOT based on Freebsd, it IS based on Slackware, however. FWIW, it's file system is ReiserFS.

Originally Posted by mikesm

I don't think RAID management is that bad. Unraid may be easier for 4-5 disks, but when you hit 10 disks or more, the volume management drives you crazy. With Linux XFS and LVM on top of RAID5, you get enterprise grade features that makes it easy to export a single volume, and hide all the expansion and swapping under the covers. Good volume management means clients don't have to clean up a mess in organization at the server. Unraid is uninteresting in this aspect.

Sounds like you've never tried unRaid. I assure you disk managemeny won't drive you 'crazy'. In fact, it is about as seemless as it can get, with up to 16 data drives.

Originally Posted by mikesm

Also, many of us like to run other apps on the server as well, like commercial processing, etc..., so unraid isn't a good platform for that.

That is and accurate statement.

Originally Posted by mikesm

Now, if unraid added ZFS support, that would be another story and clean up a bunch of the problems with both filesystem and volume management, but for me at least, lack of SATA PMP support is a killer, and that doesn't appear to be changing anytime soon.

It actually appears to be changing VERY soon, like the next beta (for SATA PMP).

-PGPfan

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by PGPfan

Huh? Not sure where you're getting your info from but Unraid is NOT based on Freebsd, it IS based on Slackware, however. FWIW, it's file system is ReiserFS.



Sounds like you've never tried unRaid. I assure you disk managemeny won't drive you 'crazy'. In fact, it is about as seemless as it can get, with up to 16 data drives.



That is and accurate statement.



It actually appears to be changing VERY soon, like the next beta (for SATA PMP).

-PGPfan

Wow, I don't kno where I got the idea that it was based on FreeBSD, but as you point out, I am totally wrong about that. Thanks for correcting me. I was way off.

I do think my statement about volume management being crazy is correct though. It's easy on the server, as each disk is exported as a share. But I think this is a TERRIBLE model in terms of clients having to mount each disk.

What I think its really desired is the ability to span multiple disks, in RAID or non-RAID configurations into pools of storage, and then map volumes on top these pools that can be exported. For example, I have 15 disks and about 8 TB of storage online, and every machine, whether it's my sage server, my sonos client, HTPC client, desktop and laptop computers, photo frames, etc... all see it as 1 volume. Volume management should be done on the server, not each client.

Not every one may want just one exported volume, but it really helps for devices like music players, etc..., that don't have a lot of local options. And with LVM, you can always create multiple logical volumes that can have filesystems and such on them and export each logical volume independently, as well as with separate quotas.

I find the unraid scheme unworkable for lots of disks and lots of clients.

I haven't used it, but did look at it a couple years ago. The lack of raid support and volume management turned me off pretty quickly, but I am sure they have added some features since then too.

ReiserFS is not particularly good for our application either, and with the principle author facing life in prison for murder, I'm not sure I would bet on it's longevity either.

I'm glad they are finally adding PMP support - that is a huge need for our community.

I think it is fine for a small business NAS, but out of it's league for all but the simplest media serving needs.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. :-)

[PGPfan]

Originally Posted by mikesm

I do think my statement about volume management being crazy is correct though. It's easy on the server, as each disk is exported as a share. But I think this is a TERRIBLE model in terms of clients having to mount each disk.

What I think its really desired is the ability to span multiple disks, in RAID or non-RAID configurations into pools of storage, and then map volumes on top these pools that can be exported. For example, I have 15 disks and about 8 TB of storage online, and every machine, whether it's my sage server, my sonos client, HTPC client, desktop and laptop computers, photo frames, etc... all see it as 1 volume. Volume management should be done on the server, not each client.

Not every one may want just one exported volume, but it really helps for devices like music players, etc..., that don't have a lot of local options. And with LVM, you can always create multiple logical volumes that can have filesystems and such on them and export each logical volume independently, as well as with separate quotas.

I find the unraid scheme unworkable for lots of disks and lots of clients.

You really haven't seen unRaid then. It DOES all of the management transparently at the server and exports (fully configurable) as a single share just as you are recommending. You REALLY should check it out again!

Originally Posted by mikesm

I think it is fine for a small business NAS, but out of it's league for all but the simplest media serving needs.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree here. I've never seen ANY real world usage situation that it couldn't serve flawlessly - that's exactly what it was designed for (media serving, that is).


-PGPfan

[hdtvrocks]

Got a question about power savings since I'm planning to run the server 24x7. Can you set the HD's in the array to spindown after idle time? If so how would I do that?

How about WoL and S3 sleep mode? I tried turning on the "g" WoL capabilities on my NIC but seems like it requires a magic packet. In Windows I can just tell it to bring it out of power savings mode and any network traffic will wake it up.

Thankss.

[coppit]

Originally Posted by hdtvrocks

Got a question about power savings since I'm planning to run the server 24x7. Can you set the HD's in the array to spindown after idle time? If so how would I do that?

In the unRAID management tab you can set a time to spin down. That's it... My server spends most of its time with the disks spun down. It takes about 5 seconds to spin back up, during which time SageTV does its little spinning icon while it waits.

Originally Posted by hdtvrocks

How about WoL and S3 sleep mode? I tried turning on the "g" WoL capabilities on my NIC but seems like it requires a magic packet. In Windows I can just tell it to bring it out of power savings mode and any network traffic will wake it up.

Dunno. I don't recall seeing anything, but then I haven't investigated... Wait. here is a discussion on the forums. Apparently partial support is there?

Regarding the previous discussion about the weaknesses of unRAID, PGPFan said pretty much what I was about to. mikesm's info is about a year old. Since then they've added "user shares" which transparently aggregate multiple disks into a single volume, complete with strategies for choosing which disk to write to. Disk management is easy... Two days ago I replaced a bad disk with a bigger one. It involved noting the drive ID, shutting down, finding the drive, swapping it out, then powering back up and telling unRAID to reconstruct the data. Right now though the data disk must be smaller than the parity disk.

Regarding unRAID's suitability as a media server, I have 6 disks serving over a TB of media data, and I know there are people with 10 disks serving 4+ TB of media data. These folks swear by it, which is good enough for me.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by coppit

In the unRAID management tab you can set a time to spin down. That's it... My server spends most of its time with the disks spun down. It takes about 5 seconds to spin back up, during which time SageTV does its little spinning icon while it waits.



Dunno. I don't recall seeing anything, but then I haven't investigated... Wait. here is a discussion on the forums. Apparently partial support is there?

Regarding the previous discussion about the weaknesses of unRAID, PGPFan said pretty much what I was about to. mikesm's info is about a year old. Since then they've added "user shares" which transparently aggregate multiple disks into a single volume, complete with strategies for choosing which disk to write to. Disk management is easy... Two days ago I replaced a bad disk with a bigger one. It involved noting the drive ID, shutting down, finding the drive, swapping it out, then powering back up and telling unRAID to reconstruct the data. Right now though the data disk must be smaller than the parity disk.

Regarding unRAID's suitability as a media server, I have 6 disks serving over a TB of media data, and I know there are people with 10 disks serving 4+ TB of media data. These folks swear by it, which is good enough for me.

I'm sorry for all the confusion over unraid's reatures - they really have made a lot of progress, even if it's not a best fit for me.

BTW, Seagate 1 TB disks are on sale now at Best Buy for $180. See here: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1186003683968

You can get a 12% off coupon here: http://emailinfo.bestbuy.com/P/v3/HT...15;1;02&a=1007
if you are a best rewards club member, so the net price is $167 plus tax.

Best price I've seen for 1TB disks...

[sandor]

Originally Posted by mikesm

Wow, I don't kno where I got the idea that it was based on FreeBSD, but as you point out, I am totally wrong about that. Thanks for correcting me. I was way off.

I do think my statement about volume management being crazy is correct though. It's easy on the server, as each disk is exported as a share. But I think this is a TERRIBLE model in terms of clients having to mount each disk.

What I think its really desired is the ability to span multiple disks, in RAID or non-RAID configurations into pools of storage, and then map volumes on top these pools that can be exported. For example, I have 15 disks and about 8 TB of storage online, and every machine, whether it's my sage server, my sonos client, HTPC client, desktop and laptop computers, photo frames, etc... all see it as 1 volume. Volume management should be done on the server, not each client.

Are you confusing parts of NASLite with unRAID? NASLite *does* set each individual disk as a share (Disk-1, Disk-2, etc) and does not support *any* software RAID, and offers no user management.

That said, my NASLite box has been running 24/7 for the past two years with no unscheduled downtime, and it runs in an 8 MB space. The lack of software RAID support is actually good - it forces you to get a real RAID card (i have a pair of 3Ware 7506-8's each with a 2 TB RAID-5 + hot spare). In my instance, i have two exported shares - Disk-1 and Disk-2 because the hardware RAID card does all the work, and NASLite sees the singular RAID array from each card.

Setting up the 3Ware cards was dead simple for me (i'm quite a novice) and the knowledge that i can lose two hard drives per RAID card before i "need" to intervene is nice.

[mikesm]

Fry's has the Seagate 1 TB SATA retail disks available for $179 out the door tomorrow only. No rebates. A very good deal if anyone is interested in building a big NAS.

[mikesm]

Fry's has the Samsung 1 TB SATA drive on sale now for only $169. It's a great drive for RAID use...

[toricred]

Thanks for the tip. I've ordered one. Too bad they won't let you order more than one at that price.

[bcjenkins]

What's the best spot to run the diskopt script? before the drives are mounted? Or just do it before you start running SageTV?

B

[jpwegas]

mikesm,
Have you found that using basic bonnie tests (i.e. "bonnie -d /mnt/disktest -s 3200") is a decent indicator for recording drive performance?

I ask because bonnie seems to do most of it's tests on a single file, where I'm really more curious about how the array performs when 4 or 5 shows are being recorded at once.

Although I guess I could just run 5 bonnie processes in parallel.

--John

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by bcjenkins

What's the best spot to run the diskopt script? before the drives are mounted? Or just do it before you start running SageTV?

B

Sorry folks, I've been gone for awhile... You can run it anytime, but I think it works best if you run it at startup before raid activation. This is pretty easy to set up using most linux distros, but the specifics vary.

[mikesm]

Originally Posted by jpwegas

mikesm,
Have you found that using basic bonnie tests (i.e. "bonnie -d /mnt/disktest -s 3200") is a decent indicator for recording drive performance?

I ask because bonnie seems to do most of it's tests on a single file, where I'm really more curious about how the array performs when 4 or 5 shows are being recorded at once.

Although I guess I could just run 5 bonnie processes in parallel.

--John

You can use bonnie++ to do more complicated tests. Take a look at this powerpoint deck and the linkx to the various utilities they used: http://www.nikhef.nl/hepix/pres/wenzel.ppt

RAM buffering helps a lot with concurrent writing, but to be fair, nothing that Sage can do in terms of a lot of recording should be able to put a dent in the write performance of a decently architected NAS. HD streams top out at most at 20 mbps, abd even if you had 5 being written simultaneously, that's only 100 mbps or 12 MB/s, which the disks should handle with no sweat. Now, if you put a stupid filesystem on it like FAT32, or use tiny cluster sizes and not enough RAM for buffering, well, I guess you could end up with problems, but a good Linux based NAS shouldn't break a sweat.

[mikesm]

Here's a note I just also posted to the storage thread at AVSforum:

Well, a few updates for folks. I have a friend who got a new P45 based motherboard with the ICH10R southbridge on it to upgrade his linux based software raid server. After a lot of conversations with the linux programmers who write SATA drivers, it appears to be the case that despite telling everyone last year (http://www.dailytech.com/More+Intel+...rticle8077.htm) they were adding it and a bunch of other I/O features, Intel turns out to not have built in FIS switching support into the ICH10R after all! What losers. You have to plow through the datasheet for the ICH10 to figure out they made hardly any changes at all to the southbridge over the old ICH9R. Sigh.

I hope this news gets to anyone who was counting on this support before buying a P45 board for this purpose. Maybe in the ICH11...

The good news is that there is a pretty decent discrete PCI-E based solution that works very well in software RAID mode under linux, based on the Marvell 88SX7042 chipset. This is found in many 4 and 8 port PCI-E SATA II controllers, such as the Highpoint 23XX and 25XX series. It supports FIS switching using PMP's and is VERY fast, and supported very well in the most recent linux kernels. You can get them in X4 and X1 PCI-E controllers, and there are versions that are PCI-X flavored as well.

There is a pretty detailed review of the performance of this controller here: http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/am...es/sonnet/e4p/ . As you can see, it doesn't suffer from a 120 MB/s limit on throughput the way the SI3132 does.

One issue though, the Highpoint versions of controllers that use this chip seem to have a strange issue where they corrupt non-raid disks under linux when not using the proprietary drivers, probably due to the firmware onboard marking non-raid disks do their proprietary management software can index it properly. This does not appear to be present in non highpoint based 88SX7042 cards like the Adaptec 1430SA, or Rosewill RC-218. For linux, you can just use the builtin sata_mv driver and avoid all the proprietary stuff.

The adaptec 1430SA is available from newegg for about $105, and under $100 wholesale, and is an X4 card. My friend is going to get one and if it works well I'll upgrade my system to it as well.

That's a pretty decent price for a high performance SATA controller that can support 20 disks with PMP's.

[Taddeusz]

Just thought I'd add to the discussions here. I recently built my own NAS using FreeNAS. I looked at NASLite and unRAID but was completely turned off since they are not free solutions. While unRAID has a free version it only supports 3 drives, I will eventually need 4. Sorry, not paying $70 just so I can use one more drive. NASLite is more affordable but still not free.

I'm rather pleased with FreeNAS so far. It supports quite a lot. For the time being until I can afford to get 4 750GB drives for a 2.2TB RAID I only have two drives hooked to it as individual drives. A 500GB and 300GB. I have the drives set to spin down after 20min. With the other hardware I have it uses about 64W idle and about 94W maximum when both drives are in use.

The only problem I have had is that FreeNAS, or at least FreeBSD 6.3, doesn't support the NIC on my motherboard. It's a Realtek 8111C PCIe NIC. There are drivers available on Realtek's web site but the instructions talk about recompiling the kernel. While I used to be able to recompile a Linux kernel my knowledge of FreeBSD is almost nil. Right now I'm using an Intel PCI gigabit NIC. I'd rather use the on-board NIC. Especially because PCIe provides better throughput for gigabit vs PCI.

But other than that I've had a very pleasant experience with FreeNAS. Very easy and very configurable.

[mikesm]

BTW, Samsung 1 TB drives (the fastest 1 TB dsrive currently shipping) is now on sale at frys and frys.com for $160. No 1 drive limit at frys.com like before.

Great time to build a TB based RAID array...

[mikesm]

Zipzoomfly now has the seagate 7200.11 1 TB drive on sale for $149.99 (no rebate). Shipping was low for me 4 drives for $8. No limit on number ordered. No tax outside of CA. New, but OEM drive instead of retail. Same 5 yr warrenty. Look here: http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Produc...tCode=10005936

This is a great drive for building raid arrays with.