RAID External Drive

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Peder

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Hi Guys

I want to get a external Raid drive.

Something like this: Mybookstudio II

I just want to do enough research concerning it, i specifically don't want a NAS because it is just to slow imo.

Do you guys know of another drive type that is comparable?

Regards
Peder
 
bekdik said:
Why is it too slow?
Click to expand...

the moment two people access it i get a drop in speed which then means i can't edit the videos, i need a constant throughput of 10mbps at least.

I have a mybookworld which i used and was very disappointed at how long it took to copy things on and also that i couldn't use it for two workstations...
 
Peder said:
i specifically don't want a NAS because it is just to slow imo.
Click to expand...

I don't want to being a I say this, you say that match but that is definitely not true. My NAS and a few I've built (even one with a HP Prolaint MicroServer that has an add in Intel Gbe NIC) maxes out Gigabit LAN (110megabytes/s). I have a hard time getting that from a single drive even if it is directly attached to the PC, forget USB.

I haven't done much concurrent file copying tests but I want to reading your responses here. Would be interesting to see how it deals with that scenario.

spiderz said:
Get a HP Microserver + 5xHDD + Linux with Zraid
Click to expand...

:confused: ZRaid? you mean RAID-Z (which doesn't run on Linux?)
 
Last edited:
Gnome said:
I don't want to being a I say this, you say that match but that is definitely not true. My NAS and a few I've built (even one with a HP Prolaint MicroServer that has an add in Intel Gbe NIC) maxes out Gigabit LAN (110megabytes/s). I have a hard time getting that from a single drive even if it is directly attached to the PC, forget USB.

I haven't done much concurrent file copying tests but I want to reading your responses here. Would be interesting to see how it deals with that scenario.
Click to expand...

I just want something that is not going to give me endless hassles and something that can i can copy to without too much of a mission is all.

I don't mind NAS as long as i can get good speeds and not crappy ones. I Guess a NAS will also never be moved around which will make it less likely to fail.

What operating system do you put on the HP Proliant Microserver? and can you do Raid on it? I only want RAID-1 for now.

Regards
Peder

edit: Where can i get a HP Proliant Microserver?
 
Last edited:
Currently, my ultimate low cost highly available and reliable NAS would be:

1) Hardware:
Server: HP Proliant Microserver
RAM: 2x4GB ECC RAM (you can use regular RAM here but if you can afford it, go ECC route)
OS Drive: 8GB Kingston Flash-Drive (don't try use a HD as the OS drive, just don't)
Dock for 5th hard-drive: Icy-Dock single disk bay
SATA-Cable: Example
Gbe NIC: Intel Pro/1000 CT, PCI-Express x1 Gigabit Ethernet adapter

This will give you all the hardware for a seriously bad-ass little 5 drive NAS that is incredibly stable (I can elaborate on this). The extra NIC is for better speed. The standard NIC adapter on the HP server (Broadcom) is notorious for their bad drivers and non-open source policy. So disable it and use the Intel adapter for much higher speed.

2) Installation & BIOS:
Install the RAM, NIC, Icy-Dock, SATA cable and USB drive (there is an internal port in the Microserver where you should put the flash drive close to the SATA port)

Get the latest BIOS for the Microserver from HP and update.

3) Software:
Download the latest release of FreeNAS 8 x64

Install it to the flash-drive (either in Virtual-Box from another PC with the flash-drive or VIA a USB CD-ROM).

FreeNAS Guide: http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Main_Page

Google for more how-tos if you must but it is simple as falling out of a tree.

4) Notes:
FreeNAS is completely n00b friendly and it will protect your data better than any hardware or any other solution. Why? Because ZFS was designed by Sun Microsystems (now owned by Oracle) who went out to create the most enterprise bad-ass file system to end all filesystems. It is stable and it is guaranteed the best out there when it comes to data integrity (do your research if you doubt it).

Not to mention FreeNAS uses FreeBSD which is regarded as one of the most stable OSs out there (Most firewalls run FreeBSD and according to wikipedia hosting companies prefer FreeBSD over Linux for stability, that is serious).

Any NAS you buy will run an OS under the hood, why not get one that is widely tested, not just as a NAS but as a general OS and has a proven track record.

Even if you loese the OS flash-drive and the entire computer, so long as you have enough drives for recovery you can get all your data back and even with most of your drives damaged you'll still be able to get data back (ZFS will recover as much as it can and skip over that which it cannot rescue), RAID 5/6/1 cannot even do that. You can do that on any PC (no hardware tie in) that can run FreeNAS and you don't need the original setup (you just tell it to detect volumes and import them for you).

Lastly, performance, it exceeds any RAID controller at the same cost point. I dare you to try prove me wrong (I've been doing this for years now and boy have I tested the sh#t out of it) ;)

I rest my case ;)

EDIT: if you want someone to setup something like that for you, PM me and I can do it for you for a modest fee.
 
Last edited:
Gnome said:
Currently, my ultimate low cost highly available and reliable NAS would be:

1) Hardware:
Server: HP Proliant Microserver
RAM: 2x4GB ECC RAM (you can use regular RAM here but if you can afford it, go ECC route)
OS Drive: 8GB Kingston Flash-Drive (don't try use a HD as the OS drive, just don't)
Dock for 5th hard-drive: Icy-Dock single disk bay
SATA-Cable: Example
Gbe NIC: Intel Pro/1000 CT, PCI-Express x1 Gigabit Ethernet adapter

This will give you all the hardware for a seriously bad-ass little 5 drive NAS that is incredibly stable (I can elaborate on this). The extra NIC is for better speed. The standard NIC adapter on the HP server (Broadcom) is notorious for their bad drivers and non-open source policy. So disable it and use the Intel adapter for much higher speed.

2) Installation & BIOS:
Install the RAM, NIC, Icy-Dock, SATA cable and USB drive (there is an internal port in the Microserver where you should put the flash drive close to the SATA port)

Get the latest BIOS for the Microserver from HP and update.

3) Software:
Download the latest release of FreeNAS 8 x64

Install it to the flash-drive (either in Virtual-Box from another PC with the flash-drive or VIA a USB CD-ROM).

FreeNAS Guide: http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Main_Page

Google for more how-tos if you must but it is simple as falling out of a tree.

4) Notes:
FreeNAS is completely n00b friendly and it will protect your data better than any hardware or any other solution. Why? Because ZFS was designed by Sun Microsystems (now owned by Oracle) who went out to create the most enterprise bad-ass file system to end all filesystems. It is stable and it is guaranteed the best out there when it comes to data integrity (do your research if you doubt it).

Not to mention FreeNAS uses FreeBSD which is regarded as one of the most stable OSs out there (Most firewalls run FreeBSD and according to wikipedia hosting companies prefer FreeBSD over Linux for stability, that is serious).

Any NAS you buy will run an OS under the hood, why not get one that is widely tested, not just as a NAS but as a general OS and has a proven track record.

Even if you loese the OS flash-drive and the entire computer, so long as you have enough drives for recovery you can get all your data back and even with most of your drives damaged you'll still be able to get data back (ZFS will recover as much as it can and skip over that which it cannot rescue), RAID 5/6/1 cannot even do that. You can do that on any PC (no hardware tie in) that can run FreeNAS and you don't need the original setup (you just tell it to detect volumes and import them for you).

Lastly, performance, it exceeds any RAID controller at the same cost point. I dare you to try prove me wrong (I've been doing this for years now and boy have I tested the sh#t out of it) ;)

I rest my case ;)

EDIT: if you want someone to setup something like that for you, PM me and I can do it for you for a modest fee.
Click to expand...

Ok sounds like fun. I will definitely consider it :)

Now for the fun part...

I use about 4TB of storage in a year, how can i make this NAS able to remove HDD's and archive them, does the RAID allow that?

Regards
Peder
 
Peder said:
Ok sounds like fun. I will definitely consider it :)

Now for the fun part...

I use about 4TB of storage in a year, how can i make this NAS able to remove HDD's and archive them, does the RAID allow that?

Regards
Peder
Click to expand...

Ok first I need more info:
Are you going to put new hard-drives in every year? If so then just remove them and slot in the next set. Although I would recommend you simply change up to larger hard-drives and more hard-drives.

In terms of backups, RAID-Z does offer a backup solution called Snapshots. Please note however snapshots won't help if you lose the hard-drives.

A snapshot is exactly that, when you take it, you can go back to exactly how the filesystem was at the point you made the snapshot. So long as you don't lose the array you can move through your snapshots and see exactly what the filesystem looked like @ a given time.

Snapshots are stored as differences, so it can potentially take 0 extra space for a snapshot.

Final note:
You cannot add to a current array with RAID-Z. Each Array is part of a pool, and you can't add to an array BUT you can add to a pool. It is a bit technical but see it as:

RAID-z (RAID 5) of 3 disks.
If you add another 3 disks and RAID-z them you could potentially have:

Raid-Z + Raid-Z which would be something like RAID 5 + 0.

You can keep bolting on arrays to the point that it would be impossible to give them their conventional RAID names:
eg. Raid-Z + ZFS Mirror + Raid-Z2 (RAID 6) + Raid-Z3 (RAID 5/6 but with 3 disk failure redundancy)

It doesn't make much sense to combine so many arrays into a single pool but it is possible.
 
Gnome said:
Ok first I need more info:
Are you going to put new hard-drives in every year? If so then just remove them and slot in the next set. Although I would recommend you simply change up to larger hard-drives and more hard-drives.

In terms of backups, RAID-Z does offer a backup solution called Snapshots. Please note however snapshots won't help if you lose the hard-drives.

A snapshot is exactly that, when you take it, you can go back to exactly how the filesystem was at the point you made the snapshot. So long as you don't lose the array you can move through your snapshots and see exactly what the filesystem looked like @ a given time.

Snapshots are stored as differences, so it can potentially take 0 extra space for a snapshot.

Final note:
You cannot add to a current array with RAID-Z. Each Array is part of a pool, and you can't add to an array BUT you can add to a pool. It is a bit technical but see it as:

RAID-z (RAID 5) of 3 disks.
If you add another 3 disks and RAID-z them you could potentially have:

Raid-Z + Raid-Z which would be something like RAID 5 + 0.

You can keep bolting on arrays to the point that it would be impossible to give them their conventional RAID names:
eg. Raid-Z + ZFS Mirror + Raid-Z2 (RAID 6) + Raid-Z3 (RAID 5/6 but with 3 disk failure redundancy)

It doesn't make much sense to combine so many arrays into a single pool but it is possible.
Click to expand...

hmm... i will have to look at this closer :)

All i basically want is Redundancy, not a massively intricate RAID system. RAID 1 will work fine for me, then once i see ok the drive is full i remove the one drive and archive it (by that time the data isn't as important as it was when it was RAIDED) and install a new drive which i can use as a RAID 1 System again.

I hope what i say makes sense, i just want to be able to have a exact copy if the first drive fails is all.

Regards
Peder
 
Other option is to use an external enclosure and add your own raid drives.

D-Link DNS-325
http://sharecenter.dlink.com/product_detail.aspx?product_ranking=3

D-Link DNS-320 ShareCenter Pulse
http://sharecenter.dlink.com/products/DNS-320

Vi-Power VPMA-75211R

CFi B4043ER , 4 bay DAS external tower enclosure
http://www.chyangfun.com/pro01_2_1.asp

CFi B4043JD , 4 bay DAS external tower enclosure
http://www.chyangfun.com/pro01_2_5.asp

iCYDOCK MB662US-2S dual bay external enclosure
http://www.icydock.com.tw/eng/goods.php?id=68

iCYDOCK MB662-USEB dual bay external enclosure
http://www.icydock.com.tw/eng/goods.php?id=91

iCYDOCK MB561US-4SC 4-bay external enclosure
http://www.icydock.com.tw/eng/goods.php?id=69

Lian-Li EX-30 , 3 bay
http://www.lian-li.com.tw/v2/en/pro...=294&cl_index=12&sc_index=42&ss_index=115&g=f


Promise smartstor NS2600 network storage
http://www.promise.com/media_bank/Download Bank/Datasheet/NS2600_20100803.pdf
 
Peder said:
I hope what i say makes sense, i just want to be able to have a exact copy if the first drive fails is all.
Click to expand...

Just because it is feature rich doesn't mean it is complex. Creating a "RAID 1" with ZFS is as basic as clicking a few buttons.

No offence but if you don't read about it you'll remain ignorant of it. I'd highly suggest you give it a look.

These commercial units are for ignorant people (no offence again). Seriously the RAID they use is proprietary: false hope because if it fails you better be able to get another unit. Not only that you better hope it supports "importing" the array on another device if not bye bye data. There are other minor things like the order of the drives. ZFS doesn't care, create the array, mix the drives up, put them back in. It determines the correct order and compensates for you (completely transparent).

Furthermore commercial units are low performance (lucky if you get a unit that does 60mb/s on CIFS), CIFS = Windows shares btw.

They are SUPER expensive, compare the unit I spec'd you and the amount of disks it can take. Forgetting about speed, getting a commercial unit that support 5 drives alone would cost double or triple.

All the commercial unit has done is: Use proprietary RAID (not tested in large scale, compared to ZFS it is as good as untested), use cheap/low performance hardware, use a custom Linux disto with less configuration options. And there you have a commercial unit.
 
Last edited:
Gnome said:
Just because it is feature rich doesn't mean it is complex. Creating a "RAID 1" with ZFS is as basic as clicking a few buttons.

No offence but if you don't read about it you'll remain ignorant of it. I'd highly suggest you give it a look.

These commercial units are for ignorant people (no offence again). Seriously the RAID they use is proprietary: false hope because if it fails you better be able to get another unit. Not only that you better hope it supports "importing" the array on another device if not bye bye data. There are other minor things like the order of the drives. ZFS doesn't care, create the array, mix the drives up, put them back in. It determines the correct order and compensates for you (completely transparent).

Furthermore commercial units are low performance (lucky if you get a unit that does 60mb/s on CIFS), CIFS = Windows shares btw.

They are SUPER expensive, compare the unit I spec'd you and the amount of disks it can take. Forgetting about speed, getting a commercial unit that support 5 drives alone would cost double or triple.

All the commercial unit has done is: Use proprietary RAID (not tested in large scale, compared to ZFS it is as good as untested), use cheap/low performance hardware, use a custom Linux disto with less configuration options. And there you have a commercial unit.
Click to expand...

sorry i sound so ignorant i haven't had much time this week so its easier to ask questions than to find out more about the ZFS, it seems i may just go the HP Proliant Route,

Thanks a lot for the help i appreciate it!

Regards
Peder
 
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