NAS appliances?
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Posted by on July 1, 2008, 11:05 am
Please log in for more thread options Thanks for the response and to all those that responded. I guess I've been persuaded in favour of a computer instead of a dedicated hardware NAS setup. I leaning in the mini ITX direction right now. I'm looking at the following components: VIA Epia LN 10000G mobo - Compromise between fanlessness, price and perfomance 512Mb DDR2 memory- Should be enoguh for a Unix - see later Seagate 360GB Barracuda hard disc - more price than anything else Optical drive - NEC AD-5540A-0B Slimline DVD +- R/RW Case - Morex Cubid 2699V Mini-ITX Does this look OK? It seems a short bill of materials to me but the motherboard has most stuff on board. For OS this will be presumably eith a Linux or a BSD. Any specific recommendations there? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Posted by Andrew Smallshaw on July 1, 2008, 11:53 am
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> I'm looking at the following components: > > VIA Epia LN 10000G mobo - Compromise between fanlessness, price and > perfomance No experience of that particular board but based on experience of others in the range it should be fine. It'll probably run fairly hot but the boards seem to be good for it. Just make sure you connect up the case fans - some don't for noise reasons and that is asking for trouble IMHO. Even minimal airflow will aid cooling immeasurably. > 512Mb DDR2 memory- Should be enoguh for a Unix - see later
I run NetBSD on 128Mb with ease - it only swaps with heavy interactive use. For serving a few files memory isn't really a consideration. > Seagate 360GB Barracuda hard disc - more price than anything else
Not really the best criteria for choosing the most important aspect of this system. Personally I've steered clear of Seagate since I went through a phase of replacing pretty much every unit I fitted around the millenium, but since then others have rated them top-notch in terms of reliability. I prefer Hitachi myself. If you are really concerned about power consider a 1, 2 or 4 Gb CompactFlash card as boot/root drive and have the main HDD reserved purely for data. That way it can spin down when the machine is not actively in use. > Optical drive - NEC AD-5540A-0B Slimline DVD +- R/RW
No real comments there, apart from how are you planning to back up for system? DVDs don't really cut it since they are poor for archival and the hassle of burning 20-30 DVDs is enough to ensure that it won't get done in the real world. > Case - Morex Cubid 2699V Mini-ITX
My ITX based systems use these cases simply because I got an good end-of-line deal on them (£9 a throw). Make no mistake they good quality cases and far more robust than many full sized cases. A couple of comments though. If you want to run them flat instead of on-edge (where they can get knocked over) you will need to supply your own stick-on feet - for some reason they don't come with the case. They are important for noise damping and also, due to a design flaw, to open the front panel flap - as stock it fouls on the desktop. I'm not too sure about the flap anyway - it seems overly twiddly to me and something whose sole purpose is to break. If they are similar prices go for the 2688 or similar instead. > For OS this will be presumably eith a Linux or a BSD. Any specific
> recommendations there? Any BSD will be leaner than even a 'lean' Linux - it their efforts to be as Windows-like as possible Linuxes are getting Windows style bloat. I'm mainly a Net user myself but I wouldn't actually recommend that in this instance - there are problems with booting certain EPIA boards and be be honest power management isn't the strongest feature of NetBSD - these issues are nothing insurmountable but enough to get in your way. Someone posted a link to a FreeBSD NAS server which I would certainly have a good look at, though I have no experience of it myself. -- Andrew Smallshaw andrews@sdf.lonestar.org | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Posted by kony on June 25, 2008, 1:13 pm
Please log in for more thread options On Wed, 25 Jun 2008 03:34:30 -0700 (PDT), laider@live.com
wrote: >
>Thanks for the responses so far, but I had in mind one of the >dedicated NAS units. This machine is going to be running 24/7. >Andrew Smallshaw touched upon size and noise which is certainly a >consideration but I'm very concerned about power consumption with the >state of electric prices at the moment. Surely a dedicated unit would >be lower than a full blown machine, and they can't all be truly awful? For a small number of hard drives, especially only one, yes a dedicated NAS box has much lower power consumption. The NAS alone might consume in the neighborhood of 5W, while even a power conservative *full* PC build would consume about 40W or more. The difference becomes less important when you start adding more hard drives since one might say it's n # of hard drives times 5W, plus looking at the total power consumption of the hard drives plus system makes the system consumption without drives a smaller percentage. Full system allows spinning down the hard drives while some NAS don't. I wish I had a comprehensive list of nas that do or don't spin down drives but I don't. With several drives this too can make the power consumption difference small. Noise isnt' a factor, passively cooled NAS are a bad choice due to the heat buildup and one with a small fan is at least as loud as a full system optimized for low heat and using a larger low RPM fan. Size is a more significant factor if it must be in an area without much excess space. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Posted by Stephen Howard on June 25, 2008, 8:34 am
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>On Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:54:00 +0000, Stephen Howard
> >>On Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:26:28 +0200 (CEST), Andrew Smallshaw
>> >><snip> >>>Things get better with the commercially orientated units starting
>>>around £5-600 but for that money a home user is probably better >>>off with a simple machine for the task running approriate software. >>>Use a Shuttle or Mini-ITX system is size and/or noise is a >>>consideration. I have just such a set up here and it works a treat, >>>with the added advantage it runs my Amanda server as well and so >>>keeps extra traffic off the network. There's also plenty of scope >>>for other servers as well, basically no limits as it has most of >>>the capability of a general purpose PC. >>
>>For simple file sharing ( mp3s, jpgs, etc ) and storage, is there any >>reason to eschew an old W2000 or XP box? >>I could set up a Freenas box, but it would be relatively new territory >>for me...whereas I can knock up a tweaked W2000 box in a fraction of >>the time. >> >
>Indeed, I still have an old Celeron (500-odd MHz) on i810 >motherboard from Compaq or HP that refuses to die. I put a >couple RAID cards and a GbE card in it, transplated that >mATX board to a full tower case to hold 8 drives and it's >never had a problem (knock on wood). > <snip> Would it be worth installing a Gb network card in the server if the client machines are running on older NICs? It would mean having to look for one at the local tip ;) Regards, -- Stephen Howard - Woodwind repairs & period restorations www.shwoodwind.co.uk Emails to: showardshwoodwindcouk | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Posted by kony on June 25, 2008, 1:18 pm
Please log in for more thread options On Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:34:07 +0000, Stephen Howard
>>Indeed, I still have an old Celeron (500-odd MHz) on i810
>>motherboard from Compaq or HP that refuses to die. I put a >>couple RAID cards and a GbE card in it, transplated that >>mATX board to a full tower case to hold 8 drives and it's >>never had a problem (knock on wood). >> ><snip>
> >Would it be worth installing a Gb network card in the server if the >client machines are running on older NICs? It would mean having to >look for one at the local tip ;) Presumably you're building this for a few years of use so I would suggest going with the gigabit network adapter for future support - set up the system and then you don't have to touch it again except periodic maintenance if it needs a fan lubed or replaced, or dust cleaned out, etc. Since the target would be a low powered system you would find dust doesn't need cleaned out very often, mine has gone several years with only one time taking a front filter panel off and dusting it off, and use of a large low RPM fan means it will last much longer than smaller higher RPM fans if all else is equal. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Similar Threads | Posted |
| NAS appliances? | June 23, 2008, 11:22 am |
> things like Wake on Lan etc. or a scheduled startup time.
> I suppose 'green' is the byword these days - but I'm pretty sure an
> old 'recycled' W2K box has more credentials than a brand-new NAS box,
> particularly if it can be made to be largely fanless in operation.