Build a Cheap and Fast RAID 5 NAS - Page 3 - Article-Discussions

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Not true at all. The ReadyNAS NV can be expanded via USB, or, if you want to replace all the drives (one at a time, let it rebuild, then another, and so on) it will expand the array. So, if you start with 4 250 gig drives, and decide to upgrade to 4 500 gig drives, you can.

Size, heat, and noise there is no comparison. The ReadyNAS NV wins. Plus, it will draw less power as well. And it's going to be smaller than any PC you hack together.

Thanks, I'd really like to accept that. I have however heard some conflicting reports - people complaining about noise and particularly speed. But given the ease and the power managment I agree it's worth considering.

Reply to dimitrik

Register or log in to remove.

Just thought I'd add my experience.

I built a NAS box about a month ago using SATA drives and a new Asus motherboard - can't remember the model number but the one with both Intel RAID5 and Silicon Image SATA controllers on. 4 RAID drives on the Intel controller and 1 plain drive on the SI.

Fedora Core crashed after asking for the keyboard layout. Knoppix wouldn't recognise either of the controllers. Maybe another distro would have worked, but at 2am after a full day you give up trying.

In the end I gave in and put Windows XP on. Worked fine.

Reply to adrianw

According to the manufacturer’s website http://www.norcotek.com/DS-1220.php, it supports ‘RAID 0, 1, 5, 0+1, JBOD’. I can’t wait to try it out when I get the unit in.

Reply to mobileHTPC

Quote :

Thanks, I'd really like to accept that. I have however heard some conflicting reports - people complaining about noise and particularly speed. But given the ease and the power managment I agree it's worth considering.

Noise->Compared to the Antec 350W case with the 5 250 5400RPM drives and Pentium 4 chip RAID system I had, the ReadyNAS NV is easily 3xs as quiet. Plus, it generates less heat. And uses less electricity.

Speed->Copying and accessing files is about the same as the above system. I'm hoping to upgrade the 256Megs of Ram to 1 Gigabyte to improve performance. A number of other users have done this and they report huge speedups.

Reply to ericdano

Quote :

Speed->Copying and accessing files is about the same as the above system. I'm hoping to upgrade the 256Megs of Ram to 1 Gigabyte to improve performance. A number of other users have done this and they report huge speedups.

That makes sense since it seems the hardware is what restricts the efficiency of the system. Are the Infrant units easy to upgrade or do you need to order some special RAM? Any chance of upgrading the processor as well?

Reply to dimitrik

Bah! Ready NAS is still slower than my very quiet low heat PIII rig Passive heat sink on the CPU and 120mm low noise fans in the PSU and on one the case. There is enough room for 11 drives provided I use enough adapters for 5.25" to 3.5" drives I can load it up.

Reply to jasonuscg

Kind of a bad news update. Setting up a cheap DIY RAID 5 system using hardware RAID, is actually rather impractical unless you can find an old PCI IDE RAID card.

The probelm is that old/low end motherboards have 32-bit PCI or PCI-Express slots.
Most of the hardware RAID cards (exlude software or fakeraid cards) come in PCI-X, PCI-E x4 or x8 format.

PCI-X is only on expensive mobo's for servers/workstations. PCI-E x4 or x8 is also prety rare.

Some SLI motherboards will allow you to stick those cards in the SLI slot, but its mostly a plug and pray deal since it depends on each vendor's bios implementation.

PCI RAID cards aren't made anymore, so eBay is your best bet. I found LSI MegaRaid's for $180. If you're outside the US, its even tougher to find one. Other hardare RAID cards will be more expensive. :x

This also means that you're restricted to IDE HDD's which some may not like in terms of future re-usability. IDE disks are also more expensive than SATA at high densities (weird).

So between having to buy a new case to accomodate 5 disks, tracking down a PCI RAID card and buying IDE HDD's, I've lost much enthusiasm

Combine it with setting up the software, and those Infrant ReadyNAS boxes are looking better and better. :?

Reply to dimitrik

Dimitrik did you know that PCI-X cards are generaly backwards compatable, one will fit into 32bit 33MHz PCI slots but it will be limited to the standard PCI bus speed...133MBs. A single HD won't normaly reach even half of that speed. :wink: and yes your can still find PCI hardware based I/O raid cards.

PCI:
32bit x 33Mhz
PCI-X:
32bit x 33Mhz
32bit x 66Mhz
64bit x 33Mhz
64bit x 66Mhz
64bit x 100Mhz
64bit x 133Mhz
PCI-X 2.0 - includes 266 MHz and 533 MHz speeds as well.

Reply to jasonuscg

Thanks, you're rightbut unfortunately this doesn't really solve the problem.

None of the current hardware RAID cards (below $600) happen to be backwards compatible. Many fakeraid/software RAID cards are, but they're not a very good idea if data integrity is important to you.

An while you can still find old PCI RAID cards on eBay, but that brings up another problem: What happens to your array if your card dies?

You might not find the same card and no other products will be compatible with your array. If you start with a new product and it dies the chances of finding another one, even 2nd hand, are much better.

I'm not knocking the ideas here, I'm just bringing up some key questions that need to be considered by anyone attempting this: What are you using the NAS for? How precious is the data? What kind of kit do you have access to? And of course, what's your budget?

Long term, I plan to build a proper fileserver, following Bill's example but short term one of the ready boxes seems more convenient.

Reply to dimitrik

Highpoint Rocket RAID 1640 and 1810 are both capable PCI RAID controllers, it may saturate the bus, but only by maybe 10-20MB, not a huge loss for this kind of implimentation.

I have a 1640 running RAID1 with 2 250GB drives for an email server, works great.

My other 2320 RAID controller is a PCI-e 4x, just get an Asus board, lots of them have 4x slots.

The 2320 offloads XOR, though it doesn't have onboard cache, the 1640 is a non-accelerated version. The 1810 I believe will also offload, not sure though.

You don't need cache for smaller arrays. I only use cached controllers for my Terminal Servers, near-line storage servers, and large email servers. All of which are SCSI of course and use PCI-X cards. The typical home user geek doesn't need that kind of equipment for a home theater storage system

Reply to michaelahess

Really it isn't that much to build a high quality NAS even with PCI-X using older new and or even refurb'd gear. If you are looking for big, fast and cheap, check this out, all new, although not the newest gear but it would make a kick butt box.

2 - PIII 1GHz 133MHz FSB 256K FCPGA Socket 370 CPU RETAIL BOX - Warranty: 3 Years Intel Manufacturer Warranty
Price: $30.00 each

1 or more - 512MB PC133 ECC Registered SDRAM 168-PIN DIMM 64X72-75 - Major Brand: Micron/ Samsung/ Hitachi/ Infineon/ Hyundai
Price: $43.00 each

1 - Intel STL2 DUAL S370 ATX SCSI LAN VIDEO - OEM Warranty: 1 year
Price: $109.00

1 - Thermaltake Mambo VC2000BNS Mid Tower Case (Black) Retail ***Free Shipping*** - Drive Bays: 11
Price: $44.99:
After Rebate: $24.99 - Mail-In Rebate: $20.00 Expires 08/14/06

1 - D-Link DGE-530T PCI NIC
Price: $24.99

1- Raidmax Workstation RX-380K 380W Power Supply - If you want a quiet one then buy one or hack this one with a quiet fan
Price: $19.99

Total so far: appox $282

Add in a SATA or PATA raid card and drives and bam. There are two PCI-X slots at 64 bit/66 MHz so if you really wanted a high quality PCI-X sever NIC or two striped RAID cards then you have much cheaper alternative with this set of gear. You could also spend more on the CPUs as well.

Heck when I get home I'm ordering one of those cases. 8)

Reply to jasonuscg

I'm not bothered by the performance aspect - data reliability is my concern.

The Highpoint cards are basically software raid dependent on a combination of BIOS & OS drivers doing the work. The issue with that is the potential risks with switching OS's or guranteeing coninued driver support.

In any case, the main costs are in the disks, and I'd need to spend some more a few extra components to push this over the edge for me. However building a DIY RAID is still a very valid idea for purposes other mine (i.e. backup). If you want a fileserver to keep all your data handy and have a backup regime in place, you're fine with DIY like the article describes.

Reply to dimitrik

I understand were you are coming from but my experience says otherwise.

I've run various versions of rocketraid cards for years, never had a problem with reliability. I've had a couple of people bring in SI based cards and promise fasttrak cards that died, but never an nvraid, highpoint, or adaptec. Saying these type of raid controllers have reliability problems is like saying RAID 5 is useless since it only allows one drive to fail. Sure you can get RAID6 on cached controllers, but you pay a LOT more for nothing.

I've built hundreds of RAID rigs, probably 20 or more with high end scsi solutions, none that I have built have ever had a problem except the occasional overheated HD failing. Never once had a controller fail. Though like I said, I've had to replace some promise and si based cards. I think luck plays a big role no matter what you get.

I have transfered various arrays from computer to computer. I've had success going from si cards to fastrak and rocketraid cards (might have had the same chipset, didn't bother to check) and I've gotten adaptec arrays to move to rocketraids. These were all when they needed larger capacity controllers, and a couple that wanted me to do online expansion with my rocketraid since their controller didn't support it. I've never had an nvraid array work on anything else, too proprietary I suppose, but board with that are a dime a dozen.

Reply to michaelahess

I'm not, in any way, suggesting there is anything wrong with these cards, or that they are not reliable.

All I'm saying is that they are not true hardware RAID. Therefore they offload the RAID5 calculation on the CPU (which is not necessarily a problem). There are also many expensive cards that do this. Adaptec and promise make both hardware and software RAID cards. The only issue with software-based RAID cards is that you are heavily dependent on driver support, as oposed to hardware cards.

I am however very interested in your information about moving arrays from card to card. That really surprised me (pleasantly ).

I'll give the RocketRaids another look, especially since they make some PCI compatible models. Thanks!

Reply to dimitrik

Sorry I came on kinda strong. When I run benchmarks with my 2320, cpu usage is around 2-4% peaking at 5-6 at rare times (writing lots of data to the array while moving data around on it also). When using nvraid or built in SI controllers I've seen as much as 20%, so it does offload some of the work. The 1640 uses around 10%, but it's on a much slower machine, P4 2Ghz vs athlon 64 3700+, the 2320 is running raid5 while the 1640 is running raid1, hard to compare the two really, but the 2320 is certainly not a slouch.

Reply to michaelahess

Well, I'm probably ordering a 1820A which apparently works on old PCI slots too (though I have a feeling, I'll need to slice off the back of it or the PCI-X card won't fit). I don't want to try the 1640 because according to highpoint its RAID 5 is slower and my CPU is a p3 800.

Reply to dimitrik

Dude, don't slice anything off! PCI-X cards will fit in a regular pci slot, no problem, you'll just be limited to the 133 peak transfer, theoretical of course. You won't be dissapointed though.

Reply to michaelahess

Quote :

Really it isn't that much to build a high quality NAS even with PCI-X using older new and or even refurb'd gear. If you are looking for big, fast and cheap, check this out, all new, although not the newest gear but it would make a kick butt box.

2 - PIII 1GHz 133MHz FSB 256K FCPGA Socket 370 CPU RETAIL BOX - Warranty: 3 Years Intel Manufacturer Warranty
Price: $30.00 each

1 or more - 512MB PC133 ECC Registered SDRAM 168-PIN DIMM 64X72-75 - Major Brand: Micron/ Samsung/ Hitachi/ Infineon/ Hyundai
Price: $43.00 each

1 - Intel STL2 DUAL S370 ATX SCSI LAN VIDEO - OEM Warranty: 1 year
Price: $109.00

1 - Thermaltake Mambo VC2000BNS Mid Tower Case (Black) Retail ***Free Shipping*** - Drive Bays: 11
Price: $44.99:
After Rebate: $24.99 - Mail-In Rebate: $20.00 Expires 08/14/06

1 - D-Link DGE-530T PCI NIC
Price: $24.99

1- Raidmax Workstation RX-380K 380W Power Supply - If you want a quiet one then buy one or hack this one with a quiet fan
Price: $19.99

Total so far: appox $282

Add in a SATA or PATA raid card and drives and bam. There are two PCI-X slots at 64 bit/66 MHz so if you really wanted a high quality PCI-X sever NIC or two striped RAID cards then you have much cheaper alternative with this set of gear. You could also spend more on the CPUs as well.

Heck when I get home I'm ordering one of those cases. 8)

I'd love to do this unfortunately none of this equipment is availble in the UK.

Reply to dimitrik

Quote :

Bah! Ready NAS is still slower than my very quiet low heat PIII rig Passive heat sink on the CPU and 120mm low noise fans in the PSU and on one the case. There is enough room for 11 drives provided I use enough adapters for 5.25" to 3.5" drives I can load it up.

Yeah, and it takes up 5 or more times the space. And not to mention requires more power and generates more heat!

Reply to ericdano

Quote :

Bah! Ready NAS is still slower than my very quiet low heat PIII rig Passive heat sink on the CPU and 120mm low noise fans in the PSU and on one the case. There is enough room for 11 drives provided I use enough adapters for 5.25" to 3.5" drives I can load it up.

Yeah, and it takes up 5 or more times the space. And not to mention requires more power and generates more heat!

I assume you mean the DIY rig takes up 5 times the space - the ReadyNAS NV seems pretty comptact.

Either way, these units are generetaing a lot of polarised comments. Some people are very happy with them and some are really unhappy with them. I think there is a trade off between performance and cost on the one hand and features and complexity on the other. DIY = Low cost, High Performance, High Complxity. ReadyNAS = High Cost, Mid-level Performance, Low Complexity.

Reply to dimitrik

Quote :

I assume you mean the DIY rig takes up 5 times the space - the ReadyNAS NV seems pretty comptact.

Either way, these units are generetaing a lot of polarised comments. Some people are very happy with them and some are really unhappy with them. I think there is a trade off between performance and cost on the one hand and features and complexity on the other. DIY = Low cost, High Performance, High Complxity. ReadyNAS = High Cost, Mid-level Performance, Low Complexity.

Indeed. The ReadyNAS NV took the place of a Pentium 4 server with 4 250 Gig hard drives. Similar to what was described in the article.

It might have cost a little more, but the form factor, and the great software have been worth every extra penny.

Reply to ericdano

Think about this if a single component goes bad in an off the shelf NAS other than an HD you're screwed and have to buy another unit. I've seen it first hand with $2000+ stand alone NAS (I still call most of these off the shelf) and other integrated equipment. Almost always happens right after the warranty goes out. Think about a car that if a tire goes flat you replace the whole car I think not.

Getting an off the shelf NAS is like eating at McDonalds. Sure it’s food but it is low quality. If it really makes you feel better, you can get a kid’s meal. Hmmmm mmmm McNAS.

Maybe I’m just stuck on value, production, usability and reliability.

Over and out.

Reply to jasonuscg

Quote :

Think about this if a single component goes bad in an off the shelf NAS other than an HD you're screwed and have to buy another unit. I've seen it first hand with $2000+ stand alone NAS (I still call most of these off the shelf) and other integrated equipment. Almost always happens right after the warranty goes out. Think about a car that if a tire goes flat you replace the whole car I think not.

Getting an off the shelf NAS is like eating at McDonalds. Sure it’s food but it is low quality. If it really makes you feel better, you can get a kid’s meal. Hmmmm mmmm McNAS.

Maybe I’m just stuck on value, production, usability and reliability.

Over and out.

Poor anaolgy, but whatever works for you. It's not low quality at all. It is small, quiet, cool, and I don't have to worry about it. It works. No remembering to turn it on, nada. It's just there when I walk in the studio, and turns off when I leave at night.

Reply to ericdano

Quote :

It's just there when I walk in the studio, and turns off when I leave at night.

How are you getting the NV to turn on and off automatically? I'm running the v2.00c1-p9 [1.00a014] (latest) firmware and don't see that option.

Reply to thiggins

I bet it is the on/off button :lol:

ericdano I’m not sorry if you don’t like my analogy. I was even trying to make light of this discussion, after all it’s already off topic.

I’m thinking in a business environment or even at home that if it being anything is a critical piece of equipment and it is holding valuable information and you are not at least making back ups and taking them offsite then if you lose it then that is your bad. Too many times have I heard the cries of the people who have used the quick fix. Boohoo whaaaa whaaaaaa. It’s the hard truth once its gone it is gone. Same goes for flash memory copy it and put it elsewhere. :roll:

Reply to jasonuscg

Quote :

I’m thinking in a business environment or even at home that if it being anything is a critical piece of equipment and it is holding valuable information and you are not at least making back ups and taking them offsite then if you lose it then that is your bad. Too many times have I heard the cries of the people who have used the quick fix. Boohoo whaaaa whaaaaaa. It’s the hard truth once its gone it is gone. Same goes for flash memory copy it and put it elsewhere. :roll:

In a business environment, yeah, you need multiple backups. And then back those up.

For home use, a NAS is a great little thing.

PS->I do have one of those buttons ;-)

Reply to ericdano

Quote :

It's just there when I walk in the studio, and turns off when I leave at night.

How are you getting the NV to turn on and off automatically? I'm running the v2.00c1-p9 [1.00a014] (latest) firmware and don't see that option.

Go to their forums, and get the Beta 3.0. It works great. They are about to release it offically. It supports all kinds of new things.

Infrant Forums

Reply to ericdano

The button is evil. It is just like on a new mobile phone screen; peel off the protective layer.

Get thee behind me button!!! :evil:

No further comment.

Reply to jasonuscg

Quote :

I use an Linux build called NASLite from http://www.serverelements.com/. It was an absolute piece of cake to set up and does everything I could want (except maybe assign specific user rights). Version 2.0 was recently released with RAID support which saved me a lot of money. I have been using version 1 for some time but it did not support RAID and I was getting nervous. I was looking at the Terastation and a few other similar products quite seriously.

Naslite supports SMB/CIFS, NFS, FTP, HTTP and RSYNC and is loaded onto a 64mb memory key. Because my machine is so old I have to boot up off a " kicker disk" first as it does not support booting from USB but in a newer machine you would be able to boot up directly from the USB drive.

Hey JohnB or anybody else that knows, does NASlite have any sort of power saving feature with automatic shutdown or wakeup on lan? This is the last obstacle I must over come before I am 100% ok with building this project myself. If not this, as much as I hate to say it, xp should do the trick, correct?

Quote :

I use the storage primarily for storage and streaming of home video, music and Digital Photo files to my X-Box media centre. It performs this task without any issues. The system is also used with RSync to backup my laptop and desktop hard disk drives.

Does that mean that NASlite is UPnP comliant to allow it to work with all types of media servers?

Alfred

Reply to mas897j8x

Interesting article, and interesting thread too! Although the assertion that 100W for 1 hour = 1kWh makes me want to sell you electricity...and accounts for 64.8 of those missing kWhs!

I currently have a 1GB Teravault (PPC processor, Linux, XFS filesystem), and my $0.02 on the "large file size when using Linux" issue is as follows:

I have a directory containing a large number of video files (mixed MPG and AVI(Xvid) etc. About 10,000 or so I think!

If I double click one, it takes an age to start playing in MediaPlayerClassic.

However, if i create anopther directory containing 100 symbolic links to files in this directory, each one starts really snappily. Even though the same physical file is being viewed - and seeming regardless of file size, which ranges from 2MB to 5GB.

Does anyone else have a similar experience? Is this the Linux File size issue, or is it a Windows thing?

Reply to iainf

Can anyone suggest an 8 port PATA RAID Card to me for $100 or less?

Reply to Chile

:? 8 port PATA ummmm... Sorry no such animal under $100. The only one I've ever seen with eight ports/channels is the 3WARE ESCALADE 7506-8 and that goes for no less than $400.

You're only going to find 4 Channel PATA cards and at most these would support up to eight drives. You won't find an 8 port card for under $100

Reply to jasonuscg

That's pretty much what I'm finding. Any suggestions on a card with a hardwatr controller that I can add memory too?

Reply to Chile

I don't think I've EVER seen an IDE RAID controller with memory expansion on it. Do you need 8 channels/ports or 8 drives, because a 4 channel ide controller will support 8 drives, two per ide cable.

The Highpoint Rocket RAID 464 is around $150 and handles 8 HD's and RAID5, or the lower end 404 which should be around $100 but no RAID5. (haven't checked prices though)

Reply to michaelahess

I've noticed some (like the Promise 2400A). They have a slot on them for an SDRAM module. My biggest problem though, is now that SATA drives are main stream, it's getting very difficult to find a PATA RAID controller at an affordable price...especially a hardware based one!

And it's not that they are hard to find I guess, but more of doing searches for them brings up both because there is not a very easy way to search SATA from PATA (no one lists them as PATA. They are listed as ATA which also brings up SATA).

4 channels is fine...but if I can find a 6 or 8 channel, why not!?!?! I'd rather look a little harder to find what I want and get it. That way I can leave hot spares connected!

Reply to Chile

Hi, I recently aquired a used Dell Poweredge 2200 ( for free) from work.
It's a dual Pentium 2 and it has a couple of pci slots left.

I am wondering if this server would be powerfull enough to run as a NAS if I install a hardware raid card and throw in 4 new drives. I would like to have it reach the 1TB measure.

Anyone has thoughts about the feasibility of this project?

Reply to 6million

Yeppers even a 486 could run as a NAS given not much faster than a MB or two a second. I have several P2 machines with GbE NICs that blow away $1000+ off the shelf NAS boxes so use the P2 box! Depending on your drive choices you could easily do a 2TB+ with four drives...

Reply to jasonuscg

Great,
thanks for the fast answer!

I think 1MB/s would be a bit tight to me though. I am looking to stream videos from that server ( no more than 2 clients). Can I expect to get decent speeds with that system ?

I am trying to decide wether to buy a raid card for that server or buy a complete disk-less system.

Reply to 6million

On one box I have NASLite 2 with a P2 450, 384 MB ram, GbE NIC, ATA 100 controller and multiple 120GB 7200RRPM 8MB ATA100 drives set up in JBOD and I easily get over 40MB/s depending on file size I do hit 60+MB/s.

Reply to jasonuscg

Well I don't know anything about Linux but after reading Bill's article and this thread I would like to try building an old P2-466 sytem I have into a really cheap and low end NAS. I don't have any great need for speed or vast storage. I have three computers on my home network with a total of only 320MB, but I would like to have a place to access shared files and backups, and put the old computer to use. I think I would try to use just 2 drives in a Raid 1 configuration.

It seems that this is possible, even with my old P2. What kind of contoller should I look for? I see the one Bill used (MegaRAID i4 ATA) on eBay for around $90. Would this do the trick? Also, concerning Bill's comments on the motherboard and maksing interupt 19, I'm not sure how to determine if this is an issue for my board.

As far as the OS, I see there are a number of options. Any suggestions?

Thanks

Reply to AKTed

hi thiggins and Michaelahess,

was researching on setting up a diy raid box when i came across your interesting article and comments.

i just acquired a highpoint 2310 raid card and have established a raid 5 array using 4 hitachi 250 hdds. the raid array does not have any os on it, and runs on a c2d 6300x winxp pro and asus p5w dh motherboard.

with your experience, how safe is it for me to transfer this raid array (with data intact) to a brand new mobo, cpu and freshly installed os (vista)?

will plugging the raid card into a new mobo and os (with the same hdd array) affect data integrity in anyway?

appreciate if you or anyone has answers for my mission critical data Smile

Reply to pinkcow

With the megaraid 150-4 or 150-6, can you set the drives to spin down after a period of inactivity? I want to be able to reduce the noise when not using the NAS.

Reply to frny

My NAS RAID conf is following:

Intel P4 2GHz + 521 MB RAM
Windows XP Pro
RocketRAID 1810a in the 32bit PCI
4 x 160 GB SATA drives from WD
Inter Pro/1000 MT gigabit ethernet

I had RocketRAID 1640 earlier, but it was really slow in writing operations, as it used main CPU to calculate parity. Model 1810 has parity-calculation in the hardware.

IOmeter tests:
Write throughput 54 MB/s Improvement 5,4x
Read throughput 100 MB/s

mORE ABOUT rOCKETraid 1640 AND 1810A UPGRADE http://jacksgadgets.blogspot.com/2 [...] grade.html

More about mu half terabyte media server: http://jacksgadgets.blogspot.com/

Jaak

Reply to Jaak

Hey, sorry just saw this older post, you should have no prob as long as the controller is moved along with the hd's. Keep them plugged into the same ports (usually doesn't matter but a good idea) and make sure you have a stable driver first if using vista!

Reply to michaelahess

Quote :

Can anyone suggest an 8 port PATA RAID Card to me for $100 or less?

Chile,

I just purchased a 3ware Escalade 7506-8 (with cables) for $81 plus shipping off of Ebay. These are the 8 port IDE cards. I was having trouble with the MegaRAID i4 (and now Bill isn't speaking to me!).

The card should arrive after the weekend, so I can't speak yet to performance.

These are sold constantly on Ebay, and the prices range from a low in th $60+ range to $180.

Good luck.

Andrew

Reply to AndyInNYC

wooord to that

Reply to ryanthesav

I hope no one flames me for a few noob questions (and a bit of rant) but here goes.

After finally (more or less) settling on setting up a homebrewed NAS similar to the recent DIY unit written about here, I was hoping someone familar with this build could answer a few questions for me. Firstly, I should probably mention I'm probably not going to use "old dusty" for this build as the unit will be housing SOHO data. So that in itself will ratchet my budget up a notch.

Sooo, I noticed with the DIY unit described that on the TG NAS charts the file read and write performance at 1Gb/s tanked badly on files larger than 128mb files.

Any guesses on what that could be attributed to? Perhaps the PATA RAID card running on a legacy PCI? I ask so if a hardware RAID upgrade would resolve this, I can get past this little problem. Or perhaps it has something to do with not using jumbo frames. Whatever it is, my application will have some large files so i'd need to address this somehow.

Also, now that some time has passed since the DIY article was written I was wondering , how much field use has this build seen?

IE: Bill Meade in his recent Media vault mv2040 article spent a considerable portion of the article on the HP backup interface and its functionality (or partial lack of). How much hunting would be necessarry to give the Ubuntu OS a somewhat comparable interface (read user friendly interface). Conversely, how much hunting would be necessarry to give a Windows interface (win2ks or perhaps xp) a somewhat comparable interface, web access and all.

I've spent an inordinate amount of time just to get this far with the hardware. I'm not complaining mind you. But discovering that the Manu's out there are still peddling hardware fit for 2000 or 2001 at a $1200-$2k per box price point took some time. No one speaks much about how comparatively slow their latest and greatest hardware is. Even my trusted local nework contractor was more than willing to have me spend crazy money for him to buy and setup an Intel ss4000 NAS. What a disapointment that would have been.

It seems the Pro-sumer/SOHO NAS box hardware out today is still somwhat adolecent and it's probably gonna take a year or two more before what's being sold is really mature. Basic file sharing doesn't seem to be a problem, but the prospect of dealing with potential backup software problems today in exchange for the DIY's speedy file transfer rates isnt making me grin much.

Anyone who cares to share personal experiences and preferences with apps, be it windows based or Linux based please help a guy out...

My last question also relates to the functionality of the backup software being used. How thoroughly has the Ubuntu backup interface been tested and does it actually allow for friendly file restoring and easy data transfer to DVD or tape?

(Being green with Ubuntu one of my thoughts is I might be better using MS for the OS to save this business owner some time figureing out a new OS).

Thanks again folks. Feel free to post or PM me.

Reply to LIONINSTREET

Sorry to resurrect this old thread but I need to know which is the best bang for the buck pci-x (64/66) RAID 5 IDE small network/workstation solution when using 4x500GB ATA-133 drives? I looked at the 3Ware 7506-08 and I thought there should be better, what others should I be looking at?

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Reply to nania

nania wrote :

Sorry to resurrect this old thread but I need to know which is the best bang for the buck pci-x (64/66) RAID 5 IDE small network/workstation solution when using 4x500GB ATA-133 drives? I looked at the 3Ware 7506-08 and I thought there should be better, what others should I be looking at?

Well, within the ATA/Ultra-ATA world- that is a decent controller from what I understand. As long as you use those U-ATA-133 drives you're doin' alright for ATA. Just keep one disk per cable, then you will eliminate U-ATA port read/write bottlenecks.
It doesn't appear like there is any battery backup on this device or for it? That would help with the write cache, and its queue depth- if thats posslbe (again I'm not sure).
The card interface of course, is still operating in a more or less binary fashion (like SCSI, but much much slower as its ATA).
I would recommend 5 drives if you can afford it for a Raid 5 setup, as that's generally a sweet spot in parity/stripe configs (unless you want massive sweep I/O stripe, or tiny random I/O stripe sizes)- you will generally see less of a hit per write with standard stripe size in that setup (unless you meant 4+1 x 500GB). It looks like that controller has the ports to support it.

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However, since the world has moved on the SATA, SAS, iSCSI, FC and SD - you can snag SCSI interfaces and disks for pretty cheap used...
and since you have a PCI-X interface, you can utilize used server hardware. You might want to look there for your needs, as obviously it will massively increase your IOPs.

Reply to enser

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