FreeNAS vs drobo vs other linux solution options? advice needed..

markm75

Gawd
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Sep 12, 2008
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I'm just beginning to look into some alternative solutions to buying more expensive dedicated NAS hardware like the Drobo 5N, to go along with 3, 4TB Seagate 5900 rpm sata III drives which in a traditional raid 5 or beyondraid config give me around 8TB of usable space for Windows mappings..

So I ran across info suggesting FreeNas as one option, or perhaps Linux based options.. i'm primarily a windows person, so this area is very foreign to me, though I've heard good things about FreeNas and ZFS file systems.
I came to realize though, that with ZFS there is no expansion option for adding another drive and increasing the size, like with Drobo or other solutions (are there any in linux in general)?

So hardware wise for this, this is what i've come up with so far.. i'm assuming a dual core 1.6 is better than 1.0 in most cases, in raid 6 especially..

8 ports on motherboard FM2 AMD A85X Hudson D4
With
AMD A4-5300 Trinity 3.4ghz socket FM2
For combined around $140

Now ram.. 8GB of Gskill for $52

Originally I considered a 1.0ghz or 1.6ghz combo board from newegg.. but i'd have to add a sata card to one of them eventually, bringing the cost closer to the above.
(amd e-350 1.6ghz)

I'll probably put all this in the rack size case i have handy, a supermicro sc825tq-560lp, which granted is only sata II, but shouldnt matter for gigabit ethernet and using sata III drives.


So all that said..

With freenas, no way to expand the array? What would the ZFS single parity equivalent to raid 5 be here? Does the freenas have a gui for managing remotely and sending alerts on failures?

If growth is desired, should I consider any random flavor of linux with the multi-disk manager Mdadm and mdadm gui instead? Or some other option? (FlexRaid?)

I'm concerned on making sure I make the easiest choice here for dealing with failures and long term expansion to grow beyond 8TB (if the linux/freenas options even equate out to nearly 8TB on 3, 4TB drives combined with single parity minimal)?

So quick summary is this:
1. I'd like to have 1 or 2 drive failure ability (raid 5 or 6 later on)
2. Be able to grow the array later on
3. Be able to stream at least 2 blurays at once (though really this is only ever going to be 1 at a time for now I think) to my Home Theater PC over gigabit
4. Have a web gui for managing and have alerts on failure

*it may also be nice to host gui apps for HTPC needs as well, ones supported in linux, but not a requirement, hence FreeNAS becomes one option since i may or may not need this, i think.


Thus far it would seem linux options of standard linux ubuntu? with mdadm and the gui or maybe flexraid or unraid would work, I believe flexraid supports expansion?



Thanks for any tips here
 
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I recently looked at FreeNAS for my storage solution. I ultimately did not choose it, but here is what I learned:

First: RAID-Z1 equivalent to RAID 5, RAID-Z2 equivalent to RAID 6

With ZFS, you can only expand the array in sets (called vdevs). Your initial set will probably be a 3x4TB RAID-Z1, giving you ~7.3TB usable space. You cannot expand/shrink this set without destroying the data on the set. In FreeNAS, here is how you can expand from this:

  • Add a single, unprotected drive as UFS (a simple drive, NO REDUNDANCY)
  • Add two same-sized drives in RAID 1
  • Add three same-sized drives in RAID-Z1
  • Add four or more same-sized drives in RAID-Z1 or RAID-Z2

The key to this is once a drive has been configured to one of these modes, you CANNOT change it without destroying the data on that specific set (vdev). This means if you wanted to expand your 3x4TB RAID-Z1 to include one more 4TB, you first must find a place for your data to be while you break that vdev and recreate it with an additional drive.

The benefit to this method is you can have as many sets (vdevs) as you like. Your case has room to add more than 2 drives at a time, thus if you don't mind having to purchase 3 or more same-sized drives at once to expand your array, ZFS can do so without you losing data or risking redundancy. You would just add another few drives as RAID-Z1 or RAID-Z2 and your pool would grow accordingly.

As for everything else, basically any drive created ever since SATA came out can stream blu-ray's; any setup you choose will work just fine. FreeNAS has a robust web interface and can give you alerts on failure. If at any point you want to run this as an HTPC, you probably would need to run Windows or Linux (which has ZFS on Linux, although some say not as bullet-proof as other OS's like Solaris and FreeBSD/FreeNAS).

FlexRAID, SnapRAID, unRAID, DrivePool, and Drive Bender all support multiple drive sizes and expanding by single drives at a time, running on various platforms with various amounts of redundancy.

Hope this helps!
 
I recently looked at FreeNAS for my storage solution. I ultimately did not choose it, but here is what I learned:

First: RAID-Z1 equivalent to RAID 5, RAID-Z2 equivalent to RAID 6

With ZFS, you can only expand the array in sets (called vdevs). Your initial set will probably be a 3x4TB RAID-Z1, giving you ~7.3TB usable space. You cannot expand/shrink this set without destroying the data on the set. In FreeNAS, here is how you can expand from this:

  • Add a single, unprotected drive as UFS (a simple drive, NO REDUNDANCY)
  • Add two same-sized drives in RAID 1
  • Add three same-sized drives in RAID-Z1
  • Add four or more same-sized drives in RAID-Z1 or RAID-Z2

The key to this is once a drive has been configured to one of these modes, you CANNOT change it without destroying the data on that specific set (vdev). This means if you wanted to expand your 3x4TB RAID-Z1 to include one more 4TB, you first must find a place for your data to be while you break that vdev and recreate it with an additional drive.

The benefit to this method is you can have as many sets (vdevs) as you like. Your case has room to add more than 2 drives at a time, thus if you don't mind having to purchase 3 or more same-sized drives at once to expand your array, ZFS can do so without you losing data or risking redundancy. You would just add another few drives as RAID-Z1 or RAID-Z2 and your pool would grow accordingly.

As for everything else, basically any drive created ever since SATA came out can stream blu-ray's; any setup you choose will work just fine. FreeNAS has a robust web interface and can give you alerts on failure. If at any point you want to run this as an HTPC, you probably would need to run Windows or Linux (which has ZFS on Linux, although some say not as bullet-proof as other OS's like Solaris and FreeBSD/FreeNAS).

FlexRAID, SnapRAID, unRAID, DrivePool, and Drive Bender all support multiple drive sizes and expanding by single drives at a time, running on various platforms with various amounts of redundancy.

Hope this helps!


Thanks for that info..

Yeah right now I'm toying with the idea of either flexraid or snapraid..

Flexraid appears to be the right fit and can do what I need and also can run on windows (since i'm primarily fam. with windows).

I've ordered all the hardware and have a AMD A4-5300 Trinity 3.4ghz socket FM2 cpu and motherboard and ram for $182 which is pretty adequate even for windows.

Just cant decide whether to go flexraid windows or linux.. leaning towards windows.. there is storage spaces on server 2012, but that only has 1 drive parity (eventually need 2).
 
Storage Spaces has been proven to perform very, very poorly when using the parity mode for data protection as well as when getting close to a full drive, especially with multiple sized drives. This is a very good review of Storage Spaces, and we have multiple threads around here with [H] members trying it for themselves, getting the same results.

SnapRAID has a handy chart to compare between itself FlexRAID, ZFS, Storage Spaces, and others.
 
The more I research this the more I figure I have 2 options overall..

Go with windows and flexraid and have basically single drive performance and a familiar platform (windows) as well as use windows for other things if need be..

Or..

Go with a cheaper hardware solution, dual core or maybe quad core fm2 amd at best (or wait for a10-6770).. run linux (and learn linux as i go) with mdadm and get striping and much better performance.

If i start off with a better performing raid array now, later, should 10gbe become cheaper and more of a standard (and desire to stream more than say 1 bluray stream at at time), then the performance gains of mdadm seem to make sense to try to get that going now, rather than start with flexraid and change later (not to mention the migration hassle).

I was also toying with the idea of hyperv server and linux in the vm.

As of now i'm opting to go with the fm2 dual core and either flexraid on linux or mdadm (though in just a few days i believe the 6700 cpu comes out, on par with an i5-3579k from what it seems.

The fm2 hardware option for dual core will only run me about $186 vs am3+ 6 core around $280 or i5 ivy bridge quad at around $416, each with 8GB of memory (for an initial 4TB x 3 array, to expand to as many as 3 to 5 more drives).
 
I think your ideal solution would be a Dedicated Hardware RAID card. It's simple to setup and OS independent. It's performance is also superior to most software RAID options
 
I think your ideal solution would be a Dedicated Hardware RAID card. It's simple to setup and OS independent. It's performance is also superior to most software RAID options

Ironically I already have a decent one in a win7/8 box.. but i'm running into issues with aging hardware and/or the card itself.. i'm trying to slim down my workstation box and put everything in a NAS and make it software raid.. hardware independent.

So, I keep tossing back and forth between flexraid and linux based mdadm..

One ivy I hadn't considered (if not virtualizing or streaming on this box) is the Ivy Pentiums like the G2130...

I guess even the Pentium G2130 would be ok just as a single file server.. but also if I'm doing ffmpeg decoding for streaming then the quad would again be more beneficial (or so would it be to upgrade my htpc's i5-540 where the streaming is now and make it faster, but the cost to do so, combined with a dual core Nas server is higher than a single quad core nas server).


Already have the chasis, sata 3/sas backplane supermicro 825TQ-560LPB (has 8 removable bays)

Considering:

Option A-dual core AMD:
A4-5300 FM2 Dual core AMD (1984 cpumarks, which is less than the i3-540 2400 i have in the htpc)
Gigabyte GA-F2a85xm-d3 fm2 amd with 8 sata III (ideal)
Ram: 8-32GB depending
Cost: $200 (8GB)

Option B-quad core AMD:
A8-5500 FM2 Quad core AMD (4600 cpumarks)
MB same as above
RAM: same
cost: $248 (8GB)

Option C-dual core ivy:
Ivy Bridge G2130 CPU dual core
MB: ASUS P8B75-V LGA 1155 B75 (only 3 sata III)
*Add on 4 port Highpoint 640L pcie $69 (gives 7 total ports)
Cost: $316 (8GB)

Option D-quad core ivy:
Ivy Bridge i5-3570 quad
MB: ASUS P8B75-V LGA 1155 B75 (only 3 sata III)
*Add on 4 port Highpoint 640L pcie $69 (gives 7 total ports)
Cost: $416 (8GB)


For Option A... its kinda nice I guess.. if i opted for bare bones windows, no virtualization, just flexraid.. or linux and mdadm.. because later on I could put in the forthcoming A10-6700 (march 19th?) which has cpumarks of around 7144, more in line with that of the i5-3570k.. assuming I needed a windows beast at that point.. start simple change later, though changing the raid later is next to impossible with ~7TB of data without added cost.

At this point leaning towards A and sucking it up and becoming more familiar with Linux, maybe update the cpu later if i have to switch to windows and have a messy nas migration (again).
 
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I love Linux, but for ease of use have gone away from home grown Linux solutions (Fedora with custom scripts) to appliance like distros (FreeNAS and pfSense) for my needs. Essentially I got tired of the upkeep associated with these other distros.

One thing to keep in mind is that you don't appear to have a backup for your NAS. If you have a backup then migration to larger arrays isn't a very big deal as you already have another copy of your files. My main PC really acts as the backup to my NAS since the NAS is what is up 24/7.

I currently run an E350 based system with 4 ancient drives as my NAS and it works great to stream mkv files (full DVD rips) to my WD TV Live SMP over 100Mb. FreeNAS runs off a USB thumb drive which allows me to use all 6 SATA ports from disk space.
 
I love Linux, but for ease of use have gone away from home grown Linux solutions (Fedora with custom scripts) to appliance like distros (FreeNAS and pfSense) for my needs. Essentially I got tired of the upkeep associated with these other distros.

One thing to keep in mind is that you don't appear to have a backup for your NAS. If you have a backup then migration to larger arrays isn't a very big deal as you already have another copy of your files. My main PC really acts as the backup to my NAS since the NAS is what is up 24/7.

I currently run an E350 based system with 4 ancient drives as my NAS and it works great to stream mkv files (full DVD rips) to my WD TV Live SMP over 100Mb. FreeNAS runs off a USB thumb drive which allows me to use all 6 SATA ports from disk space.

I see, so in theory i just find the right distro for linux mdadmn and install on the hdd or usb key (or in the vm if i choose to virtualize under 2012 server)..

What options exist for mdadm distro wise.. i looked at turnkey file server .. unclear if its the right fit for this.. i've seen people using ubuntu and centos (i'm a newb with linux so its unclear what the best fit is here). I'd like to get a gui working as well (with alert ability).

As far as full blown bluray rips go.. i believe the base requirement is around 40-55 MB/sec depending.. so two streams could just barely make it, with any degree of overhead on gigabit ethernet.. i should probably test with flexraid before diving into that or mdadm to be sure. This all assumes I dont go ssd later on and migrate, in which case flexraid would be fast enough for 2 streams.
 
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As far as full blown bluray rips go.. i believe the base requirement is around 40-55 MB/sec depending..

No. The maximum bitrate for a bluray stream is 54Mbps, bits, not bytes. A single 4TB HDD can easily stream several of those at once. It is crazy to choose mdadm over snapshot RAID because you think you need more performance for streaming blurays. And in most cases, if you have snapshot RAID and multiple HDDs, the chances are that some of multiple streams will be coming from different HDDs anyway.
 
No. The maximum bitrate for a bluray stream is 54Mbps, bits, not bytes. A single 4TB HDD can easily stream several of those at once. It is crazy to choose mdadm over snapshot RAID because you think you need more performance for streaming blurays. And in most cases, if you have snapshot RAID and multiple HDDs, the chances are that some of multiple streams will be coming from different HDDs anyway.

Ah very good correction there, i had my bits and bytes mixed up.. two streams piece of cake in theory then.

That would indeed make flexraid the best choice overall.. unless i had an intense windows server 2012 need here.. which i dont at this point.. so it pushes me back to getting a cheap quad core for now (just for ffmpeg decoding at least) and doing flexraid under windows.
 
Just curious as to why you are planning on doing decoding on your NAS? Assuming your are building your HTPC wouldn't it perform all the decoding?
 
I'm a novice, so please take this with a grain of salt.

However, I went through this same process for myself. I outgrew my 2 bay Synolgoy NAS and wanted to try my hand at a custom server. I picked up an HP N40L Microserver to play around with. I had a lot of trouble getting FreeNAS configured the way I wanted. The way plugins work leaves a lot to be desired.

In the end, I decided to go with straight Ubuntu Server 12.04. I've got software RAID set up with 3x3TB Hard Drives, set up to share as CIFS and AFP. (I use a jailbroken Apple TV to playback media.) It's also set up as a time machine target for the mac laptops in the house.

I set up webmin, which makes basic administrative stuff easy from a web browser. (Configuring the RAID, setting up new shares, ect.)

It's been working great, I'm quite happy.
 
Just curious as to why you are planning on doing decoding on your NAS? Assuming your are building your HTPC wouldn't it perform all the decoding?

Well, this is mainly zumocast streams or orb.. it hogs the i3-540 in my htpc when in use to 100% almost.. though rarely ever used, i figure get a slightly better proc than what is in the htpc and it could do the handling when rarely used.

I could also just live with the way its set up on the htpc and stay cheap dual core, but i like to plan ahead :)
 
I'm a novice, so please take this with a grain of salt.

However, I went through this same process for myself. I outgrew my 2 bay Synolgoy NAS and wanted to try my hand at a custom server. I picked up an HP N40L Microserver to play around with. I had a lot of trouble getting FreeNAS configured the way I wanted. The way plugins work leaves a lot to be desired.

In the end, I decided to go with straight Ubuntu Server 12.04. I've got software RAID set up with 3x3TB Hard Drives, set up to share as CIFS and AFP. (I use a jailbroken Apple TV to playback media.) It's also set up as a time machine target for the mac laptops in the house.

I set up webmin, which makes basic administrative stuff easy from a web browser. (Configuring the RAID, setting up new shares, ect.)

It's been working great, I'm quite happy.

Did you ever give flexraid a shot, or did you go mdadm straight after freenas
 
Well, this is mainly zumocast streams or orb.. it hogs the i3-540 in my htpc when in use to 100% almost.. though rarely ever used, i figure get a slightly better proc than what is in the htpc and it could do the handling when rarely used.

I could also just live with the way its set up on the htpc and stay cheap dual core, but i like to plan ahead :)

I think I would build a stand alone NAS unit that is low powered since it will be on all the time and then leave the HTPC to perform then streaming when necessary.

For my edification, is there any streaming software that utilizes the video cards to decode the files? I would think that this would greatly reduce the CPU overhead.
 
I had this same problem here lately. After looking I decided to go with Linux/mdadm solution.
The main reason for this is I've just got 1 partition for all my data. Movies/TV/Programs/Backup/ETC
With mdadm, I can pop in a new drive in my external chassis, add it to the RAID5 array, and then expand the XFS partition. Presto, 2T more, and I didn't even have to power down, or take the array offline.I'm even able to change it over to a RAID6 array. I'm going to do that the next drive I get.
 
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