Home built NAS

Thanks Gnome your input has helped so much :) I'm going to get a quote on the set up you suggested this week and hopefully get it soon. I already have the drives so hopefully it won't break the bank. I may be back very soon if I get stuck :P
 
yep, definitely wish I came here 1st...

EDIT: me failed badly at this one

now going to try get the Centurion that Gnome mentioned.
 
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Ah, guys remember I haven't personally built that setup (motherboard and CPU combination wise), so I can't say with 100% certainty you will not have hardware compatibility issues (because I haven't built it myself but I have looked online and looks like it'll be supported). However post back here if you do have issues, then I might be able to help you out.

However everything on that board is Intel so I really don't see why there should be problems. Worst scenario you need to run the SATA controller on IDE mode. That won't really have drawbacks on a NAS.
 
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only advice I can give is, when you do your research on what you want to have in your build, don't go and start changing afterward.

you will make the mistake I made and switch around so much, that you end up buying something that don't work together :(

it isn't the end of the world in my case as all I need to do is get a new mobo and then I at least have a back up for my own system.

in my case I bought a Lian-Li PC-Q08 and the Intel H55TC mobo, which ofc isn't MINI-ITX but ofc MICRO-ATX :(

it is because my initial setup would have been one of the Atom mobos but I wanted to change it so badly, that I ended up not taking the case into account.
 
@ Gnome, cool info - i have managed to get my NAS box working without a screen or keyboard / mouse. I used a Logitech Bluetooth receiver on a USB port and connect the keyboard / mouse necessary - not that a mouse i really need on the NAS box itself :p I access the box using the FreeNAS GUI from my workstation and alls well.

One thing I do not remember how to do now is how to upgrade FreeNAS to the latest version (without losing my settings)...
 
CriticalConsumer said:
@ Gnome, cool info - i have managed to get my NAS box working without a screen or keyboard / mouse. I used a Logitech Bluetooth receiver on a USB port and connect the keyboard / mouse necessary - not that a mouse i really need on the NAS box itself :p I access the box using the FreeNAS GUI from my workstation and alls well.
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Which hardware did you use? Also you can lose the screen, mouse, keyboard etc. by enabling Serial Console in Advanced options then enable the serial port in the BIOS. Also disable the on board screen card (if you have one), if you can to save power :)
As a matter of fact disable everything you don't use (except the SATA, USB and Serial Port). Even go so far as to only enable some serial ports (some mobos have that option, to only enable internal USB ports). The less hardware you have enabled, the lower the possibility of problems and probably saves power also.

CriticalConsumer said:
One thing I do not remember how to do now is how to upgrade FreeNAS to the latest version (without losing my settings)...
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You should use this one IMHO: http://sourceforge.net/projects/freenas/files/nightly build (testing only!)/0.7.2.5799/

I know it says testing only but I've been running nightly builds for over a year now. They are very stable. Just not FreeNAS version 8 (steer clear until at least the second stable release IMHO, it isn't even at stable yet however).
 
Thanks for the info - Ok once I have downloaded the ISO, do I just pop it in (once written to a flash drive / CD) to the NAS DVD reader and let it do the rest or is there a guide somewhere to do this - lost all the guides i had :(
 
CriticalConsumer said:
Thanks for the info - Ok once I have downloaded the ISO, do I just pop it in (once written to a flash drive / CD) to the NAS DVD reader and let it do the rest or is there a guide somewhere to do this - lost all the guides i had :(
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Yeah I'll post some links and possible add a few comments soon (just busy at work and busy during the weekend). You never said tho, but what kind of hardware did you end up using? (purely interested from a compatibility perspective at this point)
 
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I used the following Hardware:
  1. Asus Crosshair II mobo - nVidia 780a chipset with 2x Gb ethernet ports
  2. AMD X2 3.1GHz CPU
  3. 6 GB of non ECC RAM
  4. Asus 9600GT 512MB gfx card
  5. 6x 1,5TB Seagate 32MB Cache SATA2 HDD's
  6. Adaptec 5805 RAID Kit (SAS to SATA)
  7. 1x 500GB for FreeNAS
  8. Coolermaster HAF 932 with 4-in-1 drive cage
  9. Netgear 16 port GbE switch GS716T

I have a wireless Logitech keyboard and mouse and a cheapie LG monitor. Most of the time the keybaord, mouse and monitor are disconnected.
 
Sorry if this has been asked here - does freenas allow striping of different size disks?
 
xrapidx said:
That part I know :) hoping they'd worked around that by now.
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That would be impossible. Theoretically, nevermind practically. Unless you want to compromise data integrity and want the algorithm complexity to increase substaintially.
 
xrapidx said:
Um... Drobo does it (http://www.drobo.com/) (hence my question).
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As I said it isn't impossible. But you'd have higher chance of data loss. Parity is no longer equally distributed across multiple volumes and thus the chance of data loss increases.

Also they use a prorietary form of "RAID".
 
Gnome said:
That would be impossible.
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Gnome said:
As I said it isn't impossible.
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:eek:

:p

I'm sure it will come at the cost of performance - not data quality, especially if they are providing a business solution now. I mean using a calculation based on drive sizes, it can decide how much to stripe to each disk... also - you probably find you'd loose more than the equivalent of one discs space.

I would really like something where I could pop in 5x 1TB discs - then when space runs low, pull out 1 disc and replace it with a 2TB disc, and then at a later stage swap out another 1TB disc for a 2TB disc... once all bays are full of 2TB discs...move up to the next size, etc.
 
xrapidx said:
:eek:

:p
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I meant would be impossible if you don't want to compromise on the failure rate tollerance of RAID 5. Performance would also be less than a RAID 5 volume (theoretically and probably practically). (In my original post you'll notice I say: "Unless" :p )

To a home user it sounds great but from a data integrity perspective it is very bad (that is kinda the point of RAID 5 afterall). Which is probably why it isn't used anywhere else.

I can also think of sitations in which it wouldn't be possible. eg: 2x500GB drives + 2TB drive. I might be wrong but in such a setup I don't believe you would have more than 1TB of storage because mathematically you couldn't spread the parity data over enough volumes to mask a single disk failure.
 
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Just a little slip of the tongue Gnome, build a bridge.

Anyway are these seemingly ludicrous system specs really necessary ? Its just gonna be a NAS box. I always thought one of the precious few cool things about any linux OS is that it runs well and reliably on lower specs as well.
 
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