In the Market for a 10 TB+ Server, Need Some Advice

[webby88]

So I recently had a catastrophic failure of a 5TB NAS (Cisco NSS6000 - I know... I know... utter crap...), Thankfully there was nothing of major importance on it and the loss was only some videos etc, nothing that cannot be replaced.

So I am a photographer by profession and I had planned on using this NAS as my main backup, but it being slow and me not being sure of how safe it is I never used it, and how lucky I was...

Basically, I have accumulated around 12TB of photos over the last ten years and I need to set up a proper storage and management of all my Digital Assets.

I was looking into buying a Dell Power Edge T series with their PERC 710 card and a chassis that can hold 12 hot-plug SATA drives and run them all on a RAID 6. I was thinking of using 2TB drives - which would give me around 18TB useable, or 3TB drives...

I know I can get away with much cheaper by building my own, but I don't have the time - nor the capacity for the stress of worrying if I did everything right, something that can be mitigated by buying an enterprise, off the shelf kind of solution.

I guess what I am wondering is what do you guys think? Am I thinking on the right track? Which HD's are recommended, 2 or 3TB? Brand? Etc etc.

Usage would be pretty simple with just myself up to 3 or 4 people ever accessing files at the same time.

 

[hotcrandel]

I'm assuming your store your pictures somewhere else, other than this "back" server. Or its not really backup.

If you want to throw money at it, and keep it simple and easy to put together, I'd suggest a 6 (or more) bay QNAP server.
I see one on the egg for $700 with 6 bays.
I've heard a lot of good things about those products.

Fill it with 6x4TB disks made by hitachi (bandhphoto has good deals on these usually) and run it in RAID6, should be like 16TB useable.

Are you comfortable building a whitebox (build-your-own) solution?
What operating system are you most comfortable with? OSX? Linux? FreeBSD? Windows?

Do you have a fast internet connection with a decent upload speed (10mbps+)?

The dell might work but I think I would recommend SAS disks to go with the PERC card. Some SATA disks will more than likely work, but mixing PERC cards and SATA disks, most "cheap" SATA disks may give you more trouble.

There are probably a lot of cheaper, quieter and lower power options available. Some ideas are a windows system that uses disk pooling software like stablebit or flexraid, Another is a solaris or freeNAS based system with the "ZFS" filesystem. Linux software RAID is another viable option. A good quality multi-bay pre-built NAS by a reputable company would work, too. I would also highly suggest a good quality UPS unit with voltage regulation built in.

As always, RAID isn't a backup, and if this is as important as it is your business you should consider some sort of backup system. Even backups to high-quality Blu-ray disks per project might really pay off in the future for you.

 

[webby88]

I'm assuming your store your pictures somewhere else, other than this "back" server. Or its not really backup.

If you want to throw money at it, and keep it simple and easy to put together, I'd suggest a 6 (or more) bay QNAP server.
I see one on the egg for $700 with 6 bays.
I've heard a lot of good things about those products.

Fill it with 6x4TB disks made by hitachi (bandhphoto has good deals on these usually) and run it in RAID6, should be like 16TB useable.

Are you comfortable building a whitebox (build-your-own) solution?
What operating system are you most comfortable with? OSX? Linux? FreeBSD? Windows?

Do you have a fast internet connection with a decent upload speed (10mbps+)?

The dell might work but I think I would recommend SAS disks to go with the PERC card. Some SATA disks will more than likely work, but mixing PERC cards and SATA disks, most "cheap" SATA disks may give you more trouble.

There are probably a lot of cheaper, quieter and lower power options available. Some ideas are a windows system that uses disk pooling software like stablebit or flexraid, Another is a solaris or freeNAS based system with the "ZFS" filesystem. Linux software RAID is another viable option. A good quality multi-bay pre-built NAS by a reputable company would work, too. I would also highly suggest a good quality UPS unit with voltage regulation built in.

As always, RAID isn't a backup, and if this is as important as it is your business you should consider some sort of backup system. Even backups to high-quality Blu-ray disks per project might really pay off in the future for you.

Thanks for the detailed response!

So right now my Digital Assets are one big mess, multiple computers and multiple hard drives all over the place. Much of it is duplicated - taking up much more space then is nessacerry etc etc.

So what I am looking to do is a two part solution, part organization and centralized storage and part backup, with a major emphasis on both... Once I get organized then it would be for backup purposes. I would even consider getting two of these server to act as a failover and backup - if that can be considered a practical solution.

I am very familiar with Windows with a lot of experience with building my own computers. I have little to no background in *nix or any of the other OS's.

From what I have read about ZFS, it seems that would be what I want to go with, but again I have no idea how to go about it.

As per internet, I have a solid cable connection and I would purchase some kind of disaster backup plan as a final most last resort option.

 

[bbenz33]

As for the NAS, if you want to look into a home grown solution then I would recommend looking into using FreeNAS. This is actually a pretty easy solution that uses a web interface to manage once installed and installation I felt was pretty simple to walk through. For hardware you can look into one of the HP microservers which gives you 4 bays immediately and there are many threads that document how to add 2 more drives. Or for the complete DIY, I used an AMD 350 APU based board that provided 6 sata6 ports and installed FreeNAS onto a USB drive.

I would suggest setting up two identical solutions and having a backup solution that allows you to create a differential in order to transfer between the two NAS units. One NAS should be kept locally and the other "off-site" (ie not at the same building as your main unit) once you have completed the initial setup.

My father is intending on doing a low-scale version of this as he doesn't have quite as many pictures yet (roughly 6Tb) and will store two drives at my house as the off-site backup location. At this point in time he is still researching the differential backup solution as the one he tried to implement isn't working properly.

 

[sun_bean]

Interesting Thread.

 

[webby88]

As for the NAS, if you want to look into a home grown solution then I would recommend looking into using FreeNAS. This is actually a pretty easy solution that uses a web interface to manage once installed and installation I felt was pretty simple to walk through. For hardware you can look into one of the HP microservers which gives you 4 bays immediately and there are many threads that document how to add 2 more drives. Or for the complete DIY, I used an AMD 350 APU based board that provided 6 sata6 ports and installed FreeNAS onto a USB drive.

I would suggest setting up two identical solutions and having a backup solution that allows you to create a differential in order to transfer between the two NAS units. One NAS should be kept locally and the other "off-site" (ie not at the same building as your main unit) once you have completed the initial setup.

My father is intending on doing a low-scale version of this as he doesn't have quite as many pictures yet (roughly 6Tb) and will store two drives at my house as the off-site backup location. At this point in time he is still researching the differential backup solution as the one he tried to implement isn't working properly.

I am wary of the homegrown solutions since I dont really have the time for the required overhead and concern...

But at the same time I am not ready to spend $5k per server. More like $2k plus the HD's making it to something like $3500, which is why Dell's are winking at me.

 

[bbenz33]

Does the Dell solution come preconfigured with the OS as a NAS or simply Windows Server?

If it is just running Windows Server I don't think you would have a significant increase in overhead management using the Dell solution. If you are really concerned then I would look at a true NAS solution like a QNAP or one of the other recommended options.

It took me roughly a week tinkering with my FreeNAS setup to get it functioning the way I liked, however most of that was due to the WDTV Live SMP I was connecting to it and the issues it had until the firmware fixes came out. The FreeNAS setup worked like it was supposed to.

**Also just remembered that you could look into a solution that comes with FreeNAS pre-installed. I can't remember who exactly it is, but they have an add on the bottom right of the FreeNAS website.

 

[webby88]

Does the Dell solution come preconfigured with the OS as a NAS or simply Windows Server?

If it is just running Windows Server I don't think you would have a significant increase in overhead management using the Dell solution. If you are really concerned then I would look at a true NAS solution like a QNAP or one of the other recommended options.

It took me roughly a week tinkering with my FreeNAS setup to get it functioning the way I liked, however most of that was due to the WDTV Live SMP I was connecting to it and the issues it had until the firmware fixes came out. The FreeNAS setup worked like it was supposed to.

**Also just remembered that you could look into a solution that comes with FreeNAS pre-installed. I can't remember who exactly it is, but they have an add on the bottom right of the FreeNAS website.

So after looking into FreeNAS a little more it seems like something I can get into. Most importantly its ability to replicate itself onto an identical second system for catastrophic failure recovery.

Though has this been proven to work?

If I do decide on the home-brew + FreeNAS, what would you suggest in terms of hardware? Case, board, processor, ram, RAID card (?), hard drive type, etc etc? Obviusly this will be an duplicate purchase...

 

[bbenz33]

Well the HP Microserver I mentioned earlier is a favorite if you only need 4 bays. If you need more, which you seem like you probably do then take a look at this thread for details on adding the ability for a 5th and 6th drive to the HP Microserver.

If the above doesn't fancy you then here is what I built:
ASUS E35M1-I Fusion (onboard 6 SATA6 ports)
8GB Ram
PSU (I had a 650 on hand that I used)
Case (Used an old Antec case)
Drives (currently have 2x 500Gb and 2x 250Gb migrating to 6x 1Tb this week)

Recommendations:
MB - Any dual core Fusion or Atom based setup with 6+ SATA2/3 ports
For added protection you can look into a Super Micro board with ECC support

Ram - 8Gb should be more than enough unless you plan to do something other than straight file sharing (ECC capable if using Super Micro board)

Case - May look for a case that will allow for removable drive bays or 3x5 hotswap bays

PSU - Any decent 500+ should be fine

Drives - Most recommend WD Reds as they are designed for this purpose

USB Drive - 8GB drive for installing the OS onto so you don't sacrifice a SATA port just for the OS

** You don't have to have an optical drive but you may want one for initial installation. I just hook up an ext one to install.

 

[GeorgeHR]

I am wary of the homegrown solutions since I dont really have the time for the required overhead and concern...

But at the same time I am not ready to spend $5k per server. More like $2k plus the HD's making it to something like $3500, which is why Dell's are winking at me.

A homegrown solution should cost less than $500 plus hard drives. Pay some kid to do the work.

 

[webby88]

A homegrown solution should cost less than $500 plus hard drives. Pay some kid to do the work.

I am quite capable on my own in the building dept.

Any suggestions for hardware?

I need a case that can take 9 5.25 external bays so that I can stick in 4x3 hot swap trays.

Good MoBo Processor combo.

SATA Card to handle 12 drives running SATA III

Suggestions for 3TB drives

Power supply

any other items I left out.

 

[-Dragon-]

If you do photography as a job you probably really want to invest in offsite/cloud backups of anything you can't afford to lose. Amazon glacier is pretty cheap compared to most and ideal for your kind of backup as photos are backup once retrieve never unless something awful happens. If you only have a few hundred GB worth of vital data it's only a couple bucks a month but if the full 12TB is vital, well, that'll get costly...

 

[webby88]

If you do photography as a job you probably really want to invest in offsite/cloud backups of anything you can't afford to lose. Amazon glacier is pretty cheap compared to most and ideal for your kind of backup as photos are backup once retrieve never unless something awful happens. If you only have a few hundred GB worth of vital data it's only a couple bucks a month but if the full 12TB is vital, well, that'll get costly...

First things first, I need a proper and centralized place to store all my data, which like I wrote earlier - is all over the place and completely unorganized. Second, I would set up two of these boxes to copy to each other and maintain two images of my data and in the future even store them in different buildings and completely apart. That is the end goal.

But first I need to figure out (with your help) what would be the best setup and hardware configuration for my endeavor.

 

[bbenz33]

I am quite capable on my own in the building dept.

Any suggestions for hardware?

I need a case that can take 9 5.25 external bays so that I can stick in 4x3 hot swap trays.

Good MoBo Processor combo.

SATA Card to handle 12 drives running SATA III

Suggestions for 3TB drives

Power supply

any other items I left out.

First how much space do you really need? You originally stated 12Tb of space... If that has changed can you update what you think you will need.

I posted earlier the suggestions for systems that should get you 6x3Tb that even with a raid 5 or zfs raid solution would leave roughly 15tb usable.

 

[blinkenflamingo]

How about the bigger sized Synology's? Enclosures like the 2413 and 1812 can house a lot of disks, can be expanded and sport a very user-friendly GUI.

If you really want to DIY, get a Norco 24bay, Supermicro motherboard, Xeon CPU, a lot of RAMz and start the game with ZFS. ZFSguru for example is pretty straight forward but the GUI lacks stuff if you compare it to, let's say, Synology. With disks as big as 2TB and up for high volumes, I'd never go for RAID5. Rebuild times are so long that you are exposed for a long time during copy-to-HS, equalize or just parity rebuild.

 

[webby88]

First how much space do you really need? You originally stated 12Tb of space... If that has changed can you update what you think you will need.

I posted earlier the suggestions for systems that should get you 6x3Tb that even with a raid 5 or zfs raid solution would leave roughly 15tb usable.

I currently have 12TB of data that needs a new home. So realistically I would need something to the tune of 24TB to give me room for growth. I was thinking that something along the lines of 12x3TB hard drives would be good for quite some time into the future in any RAID configuration (I was leaning towards RAID6).

I am not set on the OS or any of that yet, still stuck on hardware and what to get.

How about the bigger sized Synology's? Enclosures like the 2413 and 1812 can house a lot of disks, can be expanded and sport a very user-friendly GUI.

If you really want to DIY, get a Norco 24bay, Supermicro motherboard, Xeon CPU, a lot of RAMz and start the game with ZFS. ZFSguru for example is pretty straight forward but the GUI lacks stuff if you compare it to, let's say, Synology. With disks as big as 2TB and up for high volumes, I'd never go for RAID5. Rebuild times are so long that you are exposed for a long time during copy-to-HS, equalize or just parity rebuild.

I dont plan to make any changes to the system I create, aside for any failures etc., I want to build something future proof for the foreseeable future.

I was curious about the Norco, but I don't have a rack and don't really plan on getting one, my server closet is pretty small.

I saw a pretty sweet setup in the 'showoff thread', he had a 9 bay tower with 4x3s packing 12 HD's, that would suit me real nice. I could build two of those and have them clone to each other (dont know how yet, but I guess I'll figure that out when we get there).

I guess again it is all down to hardware followed by choosing the correct system.

In choices like ZFSGuru and FreeNAS do we always use software based RAID? Or can we do hardware based? Which is better and more reliable?

 

[bbenz33]

I'll answer the hardware question in a seperate post in a min.

The general conscensus is that ZFS utilizing a software based RAID is able to protect your data against bit rot where other RAID solutions are not as resiliant against these issues.

Additionally ZFS allows for cheaper HBA solutions vis hardware RAID cards. These hardware RAID cards do come with additional challenges should they fail.

 

[GeorgeHR]

I am quite capable on my own in the building dept.

Any suggestions for hardware?

I need a case that can take 9 5.25 external bays so that I can stick in 4x3 hot swap trays.

Good MoBo Processor combo.

SATA Card to handle 12 drives running SATA III

Suggestions for 3TB drives

Power supply

any other items I left out.

I will pass on giving you component recomendations. You seem to "know" too much for me to be of assistance.

You wrote "I don't have the time - nor the capacity for the stress of worrying if I did everything right." Hire a local kid. Pay him well. Let him build something for you.

 

[bbenz33]

I will pass on giving you component recomendations. You seem to "know" too much for me to be of assistance.

You wrote "I don't have the time - nor the capacity for the stress of worrying if I did everything right." Hire a local kid. Pay him well. Let him build something for you.

In his defense he started that way then after some suggestions he changed his mind...

 

[webby88]

I'll answer the hardware question in a seperate post in a min.

The general conscensus is that ZFS utilizing a software based RAID is able to protect your data against bit rot where other RAID solutions are not as resiliant against these issues.

Additionally ZFS allows for cheaper HBA solutions vis hardware RAID cards. These hardware RAID cards do come with additional challenges should they fail.

From what I have read, and all your suggestions, I get that ZFS is the obvious way to go in term of data protection and peace of mind. So that is settled.

Now all that is left is to put together to correct components, put an OS over it, and rock and roll.

I will pass on giving you component recomendations. You seem to "know" too much for me to be of assistance.

You wrote "I don't have the time - nor the capacity for the stress of worrying if I did everything right." Hire a local kid. Pay him well. Let him build something for you.

Hay, whats with the hostility?! Since I started this thread I have learned more about RAID OS's, hardware and insight into them all then I have ever known - and this is just scratching the surface.

I originally came at this thinking that I want to be as hands off as possible and any solution I come up with should work straight 'out-of-the-box'.

As I progressed I figured that I am fooling myself into thinking like that and I should change my approach. So here we are. I am ready to get my hands dirty and make this my own build from scratch, with all the help I can get from people who have experience.

In his defense he started that way then after some suggestions he changed his mind...

Exactly! Thank you!

 

[Neb]

How about the bigger sized Synology's? Enclosures like the 2413 and 1812 can house a lot of disks, can be expanded and sport a very user-friendly GUI.

If you really want to DIY, get a Norco 24bay, Supermicro motherboard, Xeon CPU, a lot of RAMz and start the game with ZFS. ZFSguru for example is pretty straight forward but the GUI lacks stuff if you compare it to, let's say, Synology. With disks as big as 2TB and up for high volumes, I'd never go for RAID5. Rebuild times are so long that you are exposed for a long time during copy-to-HS, equalize or just parity rebuild.

I agree that a simple Synology box would be the easiest solution. I'm not sure that learning ZFS would be a good idea for a server that will be used to back up/host critical/work-related material.

Buy a Synology or QNAP unit, stuff it with WD Red 3TB drives or Seagate 4TB drives and call it a day. If something breaks on the unit you have someone to call to fix it, which is important since the data deals with your profession.

I have my own Norco 4224 for a hobby server but use a Synology for the stuff that matters. I like having the peace of mind and convenience of the Synology backend provides.

 

[bbenz33]

NAS Build:

Motherboard: $180 SuperMicro MBD-X9SCL-F-O
Memory: $65 Kingston 8GB KVR16N11S8K2/8
CPU: $135 Intel Core i3 2120T
HBA: $150 IBM M1015 (ebay)
Case: $200 Rosewill RSV-L4411
PSU: $130 Corsair HX 750
USB Drive: $10 8GB USB Thumb Drive
Sub Total $870

Drives*x $170 WD Red 3TB

Notes:
HDD cost is $170 (currently Newegg has a $20 off code and Amazon is $160)
Case selected offers 12 Hotswap bays and is cheaper than a case with 9 5.25 bays and then purchasing 3 5.25 to 3.5 Hotswap bays
The IBM M1015 is a popular HBA controller that offers 8 SATA/SAS ports combined with the 6 ports onboard you will have a total of 14 ports for your needs.

I have been using a USB Drive for mine for over a year so far, but you may wish to buy a cheap regular hard drive as the OS drive but that is up to you.

 

[bbenz33]

I agree that a simple Synology box would be the easiest solution. I'm not sure that learning ZFS would be a good idea for a server that will be used to back up/host critical/work-related material.

Buy a Synology or QNAP unit, stuff it with WD Red 3TB drives or Seagate 4TB drives and call it a day. If something breaks on the unit you have someone to call to fix it, which is important since the data deals with your profession.

I have my own Norco 4224 for a hobby server but use a Synology for the stuff that matters. I like having the peace of mind and convenience of the Synology backend provides.

I did a quick check for NAS units that support 10+ drives and they seemed to start around $2k vs less than $1k for the DIY build. Also I'm not sure what you mean by "learning ZFS", last I checked it was just a file system that you used. Not a whole lot of learning to do with it. Now the OS choice may require some learning but I felt that FreeNAS was simple enough that the learning curve wouldn't be much more than setting a Synology/QNAP unit. As for the what happens when something breaks, well a NAS is just a PC that has a special purpose, they aren't that hard to troublshoot, along with the fact that he is planning on purchasing two identical units.

 

[GeorgeHR]

Since I started this thread I have learned more about RAID OS's, hardware and insight into them all then I have ever known - and this is just scratching the surface.

I originally came at this thinking that I want to be as hands off as possible and any solution I come up with should work straight 'out-of-the-box'.

As I progressed I figured that I am fooling myself into thinking like that and I should change my approach. So here we are. I am ready to get my hands dirty and make this my own build from scratch, with all the help I can get from people who have experience.

You might look at the threads where people who have built their own systems have had problems. Then you might understand why I said you "know" too much.

Remember that those who are giving you advice now, will not be around when your system has issues. If they are around and you have a problem, they most likely will silently walk away.

---

So far you have not told anyone enough about your business to get reasonable help with either the software or hardware.

Hire someone.

 

[Neb]

Cost for commercial units does go up with slots, but you can get a 8 drive unit for less than $1k. You can reach the 10+ tb requirement easily with 3tb or 4tb drives.

By "learning ZFS" I meant learning ZFS and it's associated host OS. Setting it up may be easy but personally speaking from a business perspective, when something breaks the time spent researching how to fix it yourself costs money.

NAS is just a PC that has a special purpose, they aren't that hard to troublshoot

That's a bit of a generalization isn't it?

That being said I'm just presenting an opinion. Commercial units cost more but you have the safety net of support. DIY is cheaper and more flexible but it's up to you to figure it out.

You might look at the threads where people who have built their own systems have had problems. Then you might understand why I said you "know" too much.

Remember that those who are giving you advice now, will not be around when your system has issues. If they are around and you have a problem, they most likely will silently walk away.

---

So far you have not told anyone enough about your business to get reasonable help with either the software or hardware.

Hire someone.

I agree that the best solution is to refer to a consultant, but the second best would be a commercial unit with support. My least recommended option would be a DIY build with an unfamiliar OS/file system.

 

[InsanePerson]

Not sure what you are leaning towards at this point, but please keep in mind that having two servers mirroring the data is not a backup if they exist in the same place.
You may be protected from certain levels of hardware failure, what happens in the event of fire, flood, theft or otherwise anything that could impact both servers.

A single server, with appropriate redundancy where it counts and a solid offsite/online backup would be better.

 

[-Dragon-]

The Synology DS1812+ is 8 drive bays for $1k and can have 2 more 5 bay units added @ $500 each, with 3TB drives the base unit is 24TB total and 18TB with 2 drive redundancy which is more than you said you need, then at any point in the future you could add another unit and either use the built in backup feature where one box backs up to the other or even setup a HA cluster where both units sync in real time. With RAID-6 and SHA you'd need at least 6 drives to fail at the same time before you could possibly lose data, which should protect you against pretty much anything other than your house being destroyed (and both units with it).

 

[Bigdady92]

You can pickup a Dell Powervault 3200i with 30TB of space for $11,000. I have to say this is one of the best inexpensive enterprise SAN devices I've used. Very easy to use/manage and the support from Dell is great.

 

[Riccochet]

I'm also looking for a cost effective solution to add 20TB to our network. Trying to keep costs down to around $6k.

 

[ashman]

As others have pointed out, you need a backup solution as well as primary storage solution for your 12TB of photos. I'll tell you what I do, its pretty simple.

I have a 6 bay Qnap NAS with 6x3TB drives in RAID 5, it gets backed up to an Antec 1200 tower that has four drive enclosures in it, each enclosure has 4 drives, there are two Dell Perc 5i raid controllers,then there is a motherboard with a core 2 duo CPU, 8GB of RAM, a small internal drive for the OS, Server 2012, done. I use a simple windows program that runs on server 2012 called second copy. I have a drive mapped to the Qnap NAS that second copy watches, every time I copy something to it, its replicated back to the server 2012 box. What have is my data in two places, simple. It would be better if the second data set was offsite or in the cloud but that gets expensive fast.

In your case its going to be expensive to buy the drives and the NAS to create to data store locations, you could go with 2TB drives for your backup and 3TB drives for your primary data store. Going with a 12 bay solution is putting all your eggs in one basket, I have considered one too, and if the power supply fails (highly unlikely, but possible) then you are down and have to ship it back to the manufacturer for replacement. Having your data in two physical locations is a better solution but more costly.

 

[bbenz33]

Well the idea of having two identical systems, one onsite and the other offsite allows for there to be a backup and not colocating your data at one place. Then the only thing required is on a regular schedule (daily, weekly, etc) you run a backup program that creates a diff of your files onto a portable drive and then you take that to the other location and copy those files to your backup. Now the one thing this does not provide is the ability to restore to an earlier copy of the files.

Seeing as how he is a photographer and if he is anything like the ones I have known they generally have a large number of files to store, but only change a small number on any given day/week. With the exception of a photoshoot which then generates 1k or so files. Therefore having the ability to recall older versions probably isn't necessary.

 

[bbenz33]

I'm also looking for a cost effective solution to add 20TB to our network. Trying to keep costs down to around $6k.

For a basic solution see the post I made higher up that details the H/W for building such a system. The base system was $870 and 12x3TB drives was roughly $2k.

 

[Bigdady92]

I'm also looking for a cost effective solution to add 20TB to our network. Trying to keep costs down to around $6k.

Production? Development? Staging? Scratch space?

Does it need to be up all the time? ISCSI? NAS? SAN? what are your requirements?

 

[-Dragon-]

concurrent users/IOPS requirements would also help

 

[webby88]

I agree that a simple Synology box would be the easiest solution. I'm not sure that learning ZFS would be a good idea for a server that will be used to back up/host critical/work-related material.

Buy a Synology or QNAP unit, stuff it with WD Red 3TB drives or Seagate 4TB drives and call it a day. If something breaks on the unit you have someone to call to fix it, which is important since the data deals with your profession.

I have my own Norco 4224 for a hobby server but use a Synology for the stuff that matters. I like having the peace of mind and convenience of the Synology backend provides.

I think I am leaning for the Synology route, I dont see much complaints about them and they seem to be able to do exactly what I need out of the box. I think I would still do a DIY job for hobby and testing purposes.

NAS Build:

Motherboard: $180 SuperMicro MBD-X9SCL-F-O
Memory: $65 Kingston 8GB KVR16N11S8K2/8
CPU: $135 Intel Core i3 2120T
HBA: $150 IBM M1015 (ebay)
Case: $200 Rosewill RSV-L4411
PSU: $130 Corsair HX 750
USB Drive: $10 8GB USB Thumb Drive
Sub Total $870

Drives*x $170 WD Red 3TB

Notes:
HDD cost is $170 (currently Newegg has a $20 off code and Amazon is $160)
Case selected offers 12 Hotswap bays and is cheaper than a case with 9 5.25 bays and then purchasing 3 5.25 to 3.5 Hotswap bays
The IBM M1015 is a popular HBA controller that offers 8 SATA/SAS ports combined with the 6 ports onboard you will have a total of 14 ports for your needs.

I have been using a USB Drive for mine for over a year so far, but you may wish to buy a cheap regular hard drive as the OS drive but that is up to you.

Thanks! I think I am going to go ahead and build this system just to see how it goes and learn it well. In the meantime I think I am gonna go with the 8-bay synology unit.

Not sure what you are leaning towards at this point, but please keep in mind that having two servers mirroring the data is not a backup if they exist in the same place.
You may be protected from certain levels of hardware failure, what happens in the event of fire, flood, theft or otherwise anything that could impact both servers.

A single server, with appropriate redundancy where it counts and a solid offsite/online backup would be better.

Two synology units seems to be the way I will be going. Ill get one, then centralize my data, then get a second one and clone them, then relocate offsite and allow them to mirror over the internet at nights (if that is possible).

The Synology DS1812+ is 8 drive bays for $1k and can have 2 more 5 bay units added @ $500 each, with 3TB drives the base unit is 24TB total and 18TB with 2 drive redundancy which is more than you said you need, then at any point in the future you could add another unit and either use the built in backup feature where one box backs up to the other or even setup a HA cluster where both units sync in real time. With RAID-6 and SHA you'd need at least 6 drives to fail at the same time before you could possibly lose data, which should protect you against pretty much anything other than your house being destroyed (and both units with it).

How did you get to 'six drives failing at once'?! Do you mean with two expansions and a total of 18 hard drives?

Well the idea of having two identical systems, one onsite and the other offsite allows for there to be a backup and not colocating your data at one place. Then the only thing required is on a regular schedule (daily, weekly, etc) you run a backup program that creates a diff of your files onto a portable drive and then you take that to the other location and copy those files to your backup. Now the one thing this does not provide is the ability to restore to an earlier copy of the files.

Seeing as how he is a photographer and if he is anything like the ones I have known they generally have a large number of files to store, but only change a small number on any given day/week. With the exception of a photoshoot which then generates 1k or so files. Therefore having the ability to recall older versions probably isn't necessary.

I dont need older versions, all I need is the files in a central place, then have them clone to a second server so that there is always a second set of the files in case of a major failure.

Regarding natural disasters and fires I would move one of the units nearby and then keep them syncing overnights in order to maintain exact copies.

 

[-Dragon-]

How did you get to 'six drives failing at once'?! Do you mean with two expansions and a total of 18 hard drives?

I meant if you use them in an HA cluster where you have 2 units acting as one, when you write something to your NAS it doesn't return success until the data is written to both units, and if one unit goes down completely the other unit keeps serving files until the first unit comes back up then resyncs the drives. So with RAID-6 you have to lose 3 drives in order for the RAID to fail, so with a HA cluster Unit 1 could have 3 drives fail completely taking down the whole unit and the cluster would fail over to unit 2 which would then be able to lose 2 drives for a total of 5 failed drives and your NAS would still be 100% functional from a user standpoint, you'd need a 6th drive to fail before you could replace the 2 drives in unit 2 and rebuild before you had complete failure, and even then as long as the 3 drives that failed in each unit weren't the same ones you could probably mix and match the drives in a PC with r-studio and still get the data back.

Basically RAID-61, you're talking act of god levels of chaos to lose data due to hardware failure.

 

[bAMtan2]

step 1: email synology, qnap, etc sales department, tell them what you need to accomplish and ask what to buy, and what hard drive configuration to use.
step 2: answer their phone call request and go over it by voice
step 3: come back here and discuss your findings. the monkeys here will judge them. red flags will be if they suggest high performance features you dont need for picture backups, or a hard drive configuration that isnt mirror.

IMO you should probably just get a NAS and used mirrored enterprise drives. maybe save money pairing an enterprise drive with a desktop drive since the performance difference is irrelevant. 4tb ultrastar $400 + 4tb wd black $300. run this by the NAS companies.

and IMO you dont need to create your own offsite backup unless you really want to. just use crashplan or whatever. if you do need to download 20TB in the next 10 years, just buy an upgraded internet connection for the download. or get a dual-wan router for $300 and subscribe to a second internet service temporarily. plus, presumably you only need a small amount of files right away, and the rest can wait.

 

[bbenz33]

I dont need older versions, all I need is the files in a central place, then have them clone to a second server so that there is always a second set of the files in case of a major failure.

Regarding natural disasters and fires I would move one of the units nearby and then keep them syncing overnights in order to maintain exact copies.

If my dad ever figures out the sync issue I'll let you know as this is what he will be doing. He plans to use a smaller drive (1TB to move files to my house for offsite keep). He won't be doing this nightly which is the reason for a decent sized drive. I would image you could use something as small as 100GB or even a large thumb drive would probably work.

 

[webby88]

If my dad ever figures out the sync issue I'll let you know as this is what he will be doing. He plans to use a smaller drive (1TB to move files to my house for offsite keep). He won't be doing this nightly which is the reason for a decent sized drive. I would image you could use something as small as 100GB or even a large thumb drive would probably work.

But then I would have some considerable overhead... Having to check which are new and then copy... Is there any way to make it do it automatically every night?

 

[-Dragon-]

Synology has a built in backup where it can sync 2 units on whatever schedule you tell it to, probably would want a vpn setup to do this but easily doable