Current PC or new one for NAS build.

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nbat58

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 12, 2009
Messages
170
Hi Everyone, first post,

Desperately needing guidance on which way to go, I am intending to build a NAS machine which will be used primarily for streaming HD content via a Popcorn hour C200.

The NAS will be hard wired via cat 5e to the media player and hopefully gigabit streaming through a switch.

Requirement would be future expansion from 4 HDD X 1.5 TB to a possible 20 HDD's (added as and when required, do I need raid5 for this?) using 8P controllers via PCI Express x16 if this is at all possible. WOL would be an advantage.

Option 1:
Using my current PC parts as follows:
ABIT AN8 SLI http://techreport.com/articles.x/9078/1
AMD Opteron 165 (overclocked if needed or not?)
3GB of Crucial Ram

If I use the above and it is suitable then I will upgrade my day to day PC to something better, maybe Intel based core 2 quad Q8200 and suitable motherboard and ram.

Option 2:
Biostar A760G-M2+
Suitable low energy processor
Suitable DDR2

Option 3:
Any other that you would kindly suggest although budget not that high but willing to stretch a little ($200 - $250).

For the case I would use a standard MATX case until I am ready to expand beyond the 4 HHD that I am starting with.

Many thanks for all your help.
 
Have you decided on an operating system to use for this? WHS may be a good choice for you, in which case you don't need to worry about RAID at all. Your idea of using multiple 8 port SATA controllers should work fine, but see if you can find some reports of people doing this with this motherboard - some don't like non-video cards in the PCIe slots. Otherwise what you've got is more than enough - if anything I'd recommend you replace it with something less power hungry, but that's definitely not necessary, your described setup will run WHS or FreeNAS/OpenFiler just fine.
 
I was thinking FreeNAS or similar bought software if it works any better.
Greatly appreciated.
 
FreeNAS is great, but watch out for two caveats: it can't do online array resizing (adding disks to an existing array), and probably doesn't support the Supermicro card that's often recommended with the Marvell chipset (AOC-SASLP-MV8). Supermicro AOC-USAS-L8i should work well, however. The other often recommended option is the Dell PERC 5/i RAID card which can sometimes be had cheap on eBay.

OpenFiler can do online array resize (though it's not part of the GUI, you need to get into the command line).

I'm not aware of any commercial software for this, other than WHS, which isn't actually RAID but has some nice advantages for the average Windows-using home user.
 
You don't need to OC the Operteron at all. In fact, downclock it as much as possible and it'll still be a suitable CPU for NAS duties. Motherboard wise, you're gonna need to find a PCI-E x1 video card, PCI video card, or open the PCI-E x1 slot(s) to fit a PCI-E x16 card if you want to use two 8Port PCI-E storage controller cards.

Also it would be a bad bad idea to upgrade to any C2D based setup unless you already have a socket 775 mobo and DDR2 RAM on hand. Right now, the best bang for the buck CPUs are AMD's Phenom II based CPUs, Intel Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs.

For option 1, what PSU are you using?

OS wise, try out the WHS 120 day trial and see if it suits you. FreeNas and Openfiler are also good free choices.
 
keenan said:
FreeNAS is great, but watch out for two caveats: it can't do online array resizing (adding disks to an existing array), and probably doesn't support the Supermicro card that's often recommended with the Marvell chipset (AOC-SASLP-MV8). Supermicro AOC-USAS-L8i should work well, however. The other often recommended option is the Dell PERC 5/i RAID card which can sometimes be had cheap on eBay.

OpenFiler can do online array resize (though it's not part of the GUI, you need to get into the command line).

I'm not aware of any commercial software for this, other than WHS, which isn't actually RAID but has some nice advantages for the average Windows-using home user.
Click to expand...

I think this will rule out the freeNAS in that case as adding disks to an existing array is highly desirable. Is WHS used solely for NAS streaming or HTPC purposes?

In your opinion which card suit my set up better, I should imagine throughput speed is required for streaming over the network?

Keep it coming learning ever so fast here :D, a hell of a crash course this is;)

You don't need to OC the Operteron at all. In fact, downclock it as much as possible and it'll still be a suitable CPU for NAS duties. Motherboard wise, you're gonna need to find a PCI-E x1 video card, PCI video card, or open the PCI-E x1 slot(s) to fit a PCI-E x16 card if you want to use two 8Port PCI-E storage controller cards.

Also it would be a bad bad idea to upgrade to any C2D based setup unless you already have a socket 775 mobo and DDR2 RAM on hand. Right now, the best bang for the buck CPUs are AMD's Phenom II based CPUs, Intel Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs.

For option 1, what PSU are you using?

OS wise, try out the WHS 120 day trial and see if it suits you. FreeNas and Openfiler are also good free choices.
Click to expand...

Maybe I can use my single core Opteron 149 instead without overclocking, I didn't think I would need a video card at all, but it seems that I am wrong there, PCI-E x1 or PCI-E video card, I should be able to pick one of those from somewhere hopefully, I wish this board has AGP as I have got one of those sitting around doing nothing (16mg).

Open the PCI-E x1 slot? what did you mean by that? do you mean cut an opening in the slot so that the PCI-E x16 card would fit? is this possible, if it is I am willing to give it a go.

I'll wait for you reply before getting the hack saw out of the tool box though:D.

I will look into the AMD's Phenom II based CPU, Intel Core i5 and Core i7 CPU options for my PC upgrade.

Many thanks
 
I think this will rule out the freeNAS in that case as adding disks to an existing array is highly desirable. Is WHS used solely for NAS streaming or HTPC purposes?
Click to expand...
WHS is just a 'NAS' for home use. You plug storage in (of any size) and Windows makes it available in a centralized pool. If you want you can have it duplicate part or all of your data on multiple disks to handle failure, but it isn't RAID. It seems to work well for most home users, and looks really simple, but I haven't used it myself.
In your opinion which card suit my set up better, I should imagine throughput speed is required for streaming over the network?
Click to expand...
It really doesn't matter at all. Any solution available is more than fast enough for any home streaming need.

Open the PCI-E x1 slot? what did you mean by that? do you mean cut an opening in the slot so that the PCI-E x16 card would fit? is this possible, if it is I am willing to give it a go.
Click to expand...
Yep. It's a bit risky, but if you cut the slot to allow the PCIe x16 card to fit physically in the x1 slot, it will almost always work. Obviously getting a $5 PCI video card from eBay or a proper PCIe 1x card is preferable. You may not need a video card at all once the box is up and running (though some consumer motherboards get angry if you try), and it can probably be worked around to get the box set up as well, but it makes life easier to have a video card (no matter how crappy) installed.
 
keenan said:
Yep. It's a bit risky, but if you cut the slot to allow the PCIe x16 card to fit physically in the x1 slot, it will almost always work. Obviously getting a $5 PCI video card from eBay or a proper PCIe 1x card is preferable. You may not need a video card at all once the box is up and running (though some consumer motherboards get angry if you try), and it can probably be worked around to get the box set up as well, but it makes life easier to have a video card (no matter how crappy) installed.
Click to expand...

I think I agree with you there keenan, I think I will keep the hack saw in the tool box just for now.:D

So adding disks to an existing array would work with WHS?
Can I install WHS trial on my current PC (another hdd) to try out, will this be ok to do?

thanks keenan, greatly appreciated.
 
WHS doesn't have arrays, it works more like JBOD where as you add storage it just tacks it on to the end of the virtual disk (not quite, but almost). It has the added ability to keep duplicate copies of the same files on different disks automatically.

Not sure about dual-booting with WHS, like I said I haven't used it.
 
FreeNas is great, you really don't need much horsepower and you can use a thumb drive to boot the OS. Your opteron system is probably actually overkill.

My Nas is an opteron 154 with 1GB ram, never really uses more than 40% of the memory
 
nbat58 said:
Is WHS used solely for NAS streaming or HTPC purposes?
Click to expand...
Pretty much NAS/file server duties. Some people have used WHS as their HTPC OS but it's not an optimal solution due to some compatibility with TV tuners and hardware decoding of HD content. The best solution will continue to be a seperate file server and HTPC.

nbat58 said:
Open the PCI-E x1 slot? what did you mean by that? do you mean cut an opening in the slot so that the PCI-E x16 card would fit? is this possible, if it is I am willing to give it a go.
Click to expand...

It's definitely possible but as keenan said, it is a bit risky. Just google "open PCI-E x1 slot" and you'll get some results.

nbat58 said:
Oh forgot to say, my PSU is an Antec, hope this is good enought.
Click to expand...
Which Antec? There are spectacularly crappy Antec PSUs and spectactcularly great Antec PSUs.

nbat58 said:
So adding disks to an existing array would work with WHS?
Can I install WHS trial on my current PC (another hdd) to try out, will this be ok to do?
Click to expand...

Yes adding and expanding the drive pool does work in WHS. I would not recommend dual booting WHS for simplicity's and security sake. Besides, the whole point of a server/NAS is that it's suppose to serve content to other PCs and laptops.

I highly recommend reading the stickied WHS FAQ that we have here on the forums.
 
Thanks for the the brilliant feedback, my comment regarding the dual booting of WHS was on my current PC not the NAS, just to try the software.

Thanks for the heads up I will definitely check out the stickies, it looks like I have a lot to learn, I feel that I need to do a lot reading pretty quickly.

The antec PSU more than likely is a crappy one seeing I had this when I purchased my last case, so probably a new PSU like the Corsair is in ordedr?

Many thanks for all the help, really appreciate it.
Great community.
 
nbat58 said:
The antec PSU more than likely is a crappy one seeing I had this when I purchased my last case, so probably a new PSU like the Corsair is in ordedr?
Click to expand...

If the case is as old as those specs you listed, yeah, probably one of Antec's crap ones. Considering that you want 20 hard drives, I'd recommend nothing less than the Antec Truepower New 750.
 
Danny Bui said:
If the case is as old as those specs you listed, yeah, probably one of Antec's crap ones. Considering that you want 20 hard drives, I'd recommend nothing less than the Antec Truepower New 750.
Click to expand...

I assume with all that power the NAS drive powers down and goes to sleep when not needed and hopefully WOL works to brings it out of it's slumber?
 
nbat58 said:
I assume with all that power the NAS drive powers down and goes to sleep when not needed and hopefully WOL works to brings it out of it's slumber?
Click to expand...

That's dependent on the settings you use in WHS and whether or not the NIC on your mobo supports WOL.
 
nbat58 said:
I seem to remember seing WOL in my motherboard bios, will this be related to the NIC WOL?
Click to expand...

Yes it would have to be enabled here, after that it should 'just work'.

Pretty much every NIC made in the past 5+ years supports WoL.
 
Hmm, in case it's not clear (doesn't seem to be), WoL requires a 'magic packet' be sent to wake up the PC. You need to do this manually somehow before you try to access the NAS, and wait a bit while it comes out of sleep/hibernate/shutdown.
 
hey man use that opteron and enable CnQ and you are set

use your whole budget on a Norco 4020 or 4220 and some Supermicro cards for Sata ports;...... all that is left is install WHS (that trail sucks, have to reinstall when the time is up PITA)

then add the drives :D
 
keenan said:
Hmm, in case it's not clear (doesn't seem to be), WoL requires a 'magic packet' be sent to wake up the PC. You need to do this manually somehow before you try to access the NAS, and wait a bit while it comes out of sleep/hibernate/shutdown.
Click to expand...

Could the 'magic packet' be sent when I switch the media player on and access files on the NAS drive?


hey man use that opteron and enable CnQ and you are set
use your whole budget on a Norco 4020 or 4220 and some Supermicro cards for Sata ports;...... all that is left is install WHS (that trail sucks, have to reinstall when the time is up PITA)

then add the drives
Click to expand...

So CnQ works well then? I just remember that the advice then (when I set up my PC) was to disable it in the bios when overclocking, having said that, I am not overclocking now so hopefully CnQ will work well.

Any idea how well the Supermicro works on this mobo, connected on the SLI slot (abit an8 sli)?

Thanks for the advice people.
 
nbat58 said:
Could the 'magic packet' be sent when I switch the media player on and access files on the NAS drive?
Click to expand...

You'd have to devise some scheme to do it, it won't happen automatically. An entry in your startup scripts or something like that.
 
Thanks for all your help and feedback everyone ;), the only thing to find out now is whether the PCIe x16 slots on the Abit an8 sli mobo will work ok with a supermicro 8p card.
 
nbat58 said:
So CnQ works well then? I just remember that the advice then (when I set up my PC) was to disable it in the bios when overclocking, having said that, I am not overclocking now so hopefully CnQ will work well.

Any idea how well the Supermicro works on this mobo, connected on the SLI slot (abit an8 sli)?

Thanks for the advice people.
Click to expand...

yeah CnQ works great.... ondemand power honeslty is the best if not OCing.

dont even need drivers for vista/W7

WHS shouldnt need drivers either... just enable in bios and then select min power plan and it will enable it... not many power options in server 2003. 2008 and W7 have much more control over power use.

that Abit an8 should be fine with a non-GPU in the 2nd slot.... sometimes the first slot 'needs' a GPU in and will not work with another card. I have seen gigabyte boards do this.
 
Adidas4275 said:
yeah CnQ works great.... ondemand power honeslty is the best if not OCing.

dont even need drivers for vista/W7

WHS shouldnt need drivers either... just enable in bios and then select min power plan and it will enable it... not many power options in server 2003. 2008 and W7 have much more control over power use.

that Abit an8 should be fine with a non-GPU in the 2nd slot.... sometimes the first slot 'needs' a GPU in and will not work with another card. I have seen gigabyte boards do this.
Click to expand...

CnQ all the way for me then, thanks for that piece of info, it will save on our planet burning up and my wallet will be better off too. :D

I think the only way to find out how the Abit will behave with a non GPU is to try it, I will go for the second slot first and see how that goes, this won't be till I buy new bits to build a new PC to replace this one though.

I can't wait...all the excitement.
 
For your OS, have you considered unraid? I'm using it for a few reasons.
1) it's a "protected" JBOD. 1 parity disk = n-1 capacity.
2) each disk is its own, standalone reiserFS file system, meaning that you can mount them in any other system for data recovery using any recent linux distro. There are Windows tools for mounting reiserfs as well.
2a) unraid only accesses the disk with the data on it (the rest sleep)
3) you can mix & match any HDD, as long as none are larger than your parity drive.
4) boots from a USB stick
5) admin from a remote client via web interface
6) sleeps HDDs that aren't currently accessed
7) grow the pool by just adding new drives
8) free if you have 3 drives or fewer

Cons:
1) not free if you want to use more than 3 drives (unRAID Server Pro is $119, allows 21 drives (19 data, 1 parity, 1 cache) )
2) write speeds are horribly slow (in the 15-20MB/s) range, though a cache drive helps.
3) not as many add-ons as WHS

Might be worth checking out the free version just to evaluate it. For a media server, I think the combination of features is perfect. The only time you'll cry for better write speeds is when initially loading it up. Now, I rip directly to the server - as long as it writes at least as fast as my bd-rom can rip, I'm happy.
 
Jay_S said:
For your OS, have you considered unraid? I'm using it for a few reasons.
1) it's a "protected" JBOD. 1 parity disk = n-1 capacity.
2) each disk is its own, standalone reiserFS file system, meaning that you can mount them in any other system for data recovery using any recent linux distro. There are Windows tools for mounting reiserfs as well.
2a) unraid only accesses the disk with the data on it (the rest sleep)
3) you can mix & match any HDD, as long as none are larger than your parity drive.
4) boots from a USB stick
5) admin from a remote client via web interface
6) sleeps HDDs that aren't currently accessed
7) grow the pool by just adding new drives
8) free if you have 3 drives or fewer

Cons:
1) not free if you want to use more than 3 drives (unRAID Server Pro is $119, allows 21 drives (19 data, 1 parity, 1 cache) )
2) write speeds are horribly slow (in the 15-20MB/s) range, though a cache drive helps.
3) not as many add-ons as WHS

Might be worth checking out the free version just to evaluate it. For a media server, I think the combination of features is perfect. The only time you'll cry for better write speeds is when initially loading it up. Now, I rip directly to the server - as long as it writes at least as fast as my bd-rom can rip, I'm happy.
Click to expand...

Many thanks for the information, I will definitly give it a try, so far three softwares to try out, WHS, FreeNas and unRaid.

Anyone with anymore info on the for and against with the above three softwares would be greatly appreciated.
 
nbat58 said:
CnQ all the way for me then, thanks for that piece of info, it will save on our planet burning up and my wallet will be better off too. :D
Click to expand...

Dynamic clock scaling makes a fair difference, but you're still looking at 50+w vs 1W with it off and waking it up with WoL. If you care about power consumption and aren't going to be using it constantly, turn it off. Also, in addition to CnQ, undervolt and underclock the CPU to reduce consumption further.

2) each disk is its own, standalone reiserFS file system, meaning that you can mount them in any other system for data recovery using any recent linux distro. There are Windows tools for mounting reiserfs as well.
Click to expand...
Didn't you hear? ReiserFS has been renamed KillerFS :D

unRAID is sort of cool (and FlexRAID is a free alternative that does the same thing), but it's always seemed like a kludge and I've never really quite trusted it. Seems to work for some folks though, and I think I'd prefer it to WHS...
 
Gee must have been all that programming that frizzled his brain and do what he did, humm will I trust KillerFS software, well we'll see when I give it a whirl.
 
keenan said:
Dynamic clock scaling makes a fair difference, but you're still looking at 50+w vs 1W with it off and waking it up with WoL. If you care about power consumption and aren't going to be using it constantly, turn it off. Also, in addition to CnQ, undervolt and underclock the CPU to reduce consumption further.
Click to expand...

So are you saying that WOL is better than CnQ for power saving? if that is the case I must look more into WOL.

Turning it physically off would be a bit of a hassle seeing I intend to set it up in the loft, can you imagine me going out to the shed in the middle of the night to get the ladders out so that I can turn the NAS off. :D
 
nbat58 said:
So are you saying that WOL is better than CnQ for power saving? if that is the case I must look more into WOL.
Click to expand...
Yes. CnQ still has the system running, just at a lower clock speed. It consumes a lot more power than when it's off or in standby.

Turning it physically off would be a bit of a hassle seeing I intend to set it up in the loft, can you imagine me going out to the shed in the middle of the night to get the ladders out so that I can turn the NAS off. :D
Click to expand...

The computer can turn itself off or put itself in standby, and with WoL you can wake it up again without physically touching it. Test it well first before you hide it away where you can't access it easily though :p
 
keenan said:
The computer can turn itself off or put itself in standby, and with WoL you can wake it up again without physically touching it. Test it well first before you hide it away where you can't access it easily though :p
Click to expand...

Will do thanks for the good advice. :)
 
keenan said:
FreeNAS is great, but watch out for two caveats: it can't do online array resizing (adding disks to an existing array)...
Click to expand...

With ZFS and some scripts, you can set FreeNAS up to be like a Drobo. It'll automatically adjust partitions and arrays and stuff when a new disk is added to maximize disk space and still do parity on the whole thing. It's not a perfect solution, but it's an option.
 
What software are the aready built bought NAS (QNAP, Buffalo etc...) using as a software? their own modded versions of WHS or a bespoke software especially built for their own purpose?
 
Most of the time, it's a highly customized version of linux.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
Danny Bui said:
Most of the time, it's a highly customized version of linux.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
Click to expand...

Of course no royalty payments on Linux, it does make sense, I should imagine this is the software of choice even for most of the self build NAS as well?

It probably also depends on the application the self builders are using as well.
 
InvisiBill said:
With ZFS and some scripts, you can set FreeNAS up to be like a Drobo. It'll automatically adjust partitions and arrays and stuff when a new disk is added to maximize disk space and still do parity on the whole thing. It's not a perfect solution, but it's an option.
Click to expand...
Do you have more information on this? I'd definitely be interested to learn more; last I read ZFS still didn't support online resize, but I imagine with some creative scripting you might be able to hack around this limitation.

What software are the aready built bought NAS (QNAP, Buffalo etc...) using as a software? their own modded versions of WHS or a bespoke software especially built for their own purpose?
Click to expand...
Most of them are not customized much at all :p.

Of course no royalty payments on Linux, it does make sense, I should imagine this is the software of choice even for most of the self build NAS as well?
Click to expand...
A lot of people don't understand and/or are unwilling to try a Linux-based solution to this problem. IMO it is the superiour solution, but for those steeped in the Windows ecosystem, WHS may make more sense.
 
InvisiBill said:
With ZFS and some scripts, you can set FreeNAS up to be like a Drobo. It'll automatically adjust partitions and arrays and stuff when a new disk is added to maximize disk space and still do parity on the whole thing. It's not a perfect solution, but it's an option.
Click to expand...

Can you elaborate more please?
 
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