Network Attached Storage - prebuilt or DIY?

[InorganicMatter]

Looking to do this for less than $2000.

I need a good, scalable NAS array. Starting capacity needs to be roughly 2TB, expandable a good ways up. I want something that I can just connect to my network, and it integrate seamlesslesly into Active Directory. I can get something from Dell powered by MS Windows Storage Server, but those things are expensive! Would it be possible to build a server/array, and install the software onto it myself? I'm open-minded to suggestions, but just remember that it has to integrate seamlessly into Active Directory. Would something powered by MS software be the solution, or is there maybe 3rd party software that can do this?

 

[unhappy_mage]

What do you mean by "integrate into AD"? Is it going to provide space for home directories? What aspect of integration into AD do you want?

How many users are on this system? What are the users doing?

My suggestion is probably going to be a Linux machine with Kerberos; this is the same protocol AD uses, so getting it to integrate shouldn't be *too* hard. That way you can build whatever hardware you want, and get it to integrate fairly easily.

 

[InorganicMatter]

By integrate into AD I mean be able to set permissions on the NAS by using the users and groups portion of my AD. You know: go into the NAS, right-click a folder, go to security, and have it so that I can allow/deny access based on the AD groups.

EDIT: Group Policies! That's the word I was looking for. I want to be able to use my existing group policies to manage access to the files on this NAS device.

 

[Brahmzy]

I just installed a $350,000 NetApp clustered SAN/NAS using CIFS on the NAS volumes. As long as whatever you build can support either NTFS or CIFS, you can apply/migrate all proper AD file permissions.
2TB for under $2,000? Hmmmm. Just a Windows Server OS is going to cost $600+, yet alone any proper RAID controller hardware. I'm sure it's possible, just takes more thought than I'm willing to research.

Good luck and let us know what you come up with. High availability, redundancy and performance (or lack of any of those) will determine the total cost.

 

[arkamw]

You might take a look at FreeNAS and see what you think. It'll do a number of different protocols and has several user management options. I didn't take a too hard a look at the permissions, etc. when I played with it last so I am not exactly sure if it'll do what you are looking for, but the price is right and the setup / functionality is fantastic.

 

[GeorgeHR]

$175 Antek 180 case & power supply
$200 motherboard
$200 2 GB memory
$200 Dual core CPU
$800 8 WD 320Gb hard drives RAID 5

$425 for OS

----

Looks easy on paper

 

[unhappy_mage]

$175 Antek 180 case & power supply
$200 motherboard
$200 2 GB memory
$200 Dual core CPU
$800 8 WD 320Gb hard drives RAID 5

$425 for OS

----

Looks easy on paper

Where do you put 8 hard drives in the p180? What do you plug the hard drives into? What's doing the raid calcs? Looks not-very-well-thought-out on paper.

Here's my list:
$260 Lian li PC-V2000A or a similar V2000 case. Enough room for up to 12 drives.
$110 Enermax EG651P-VE or Silverstone ST56ZF or another large single-rail PSU. Check PSU forum for more details.
$940 Areca 1260 - you want expandability, you're gonna need more than 8 disk capacity. If you want the newer ML version, that's just as good.
$220 Pci express capable board, with ecc support and onboard video, of your choosing.
That's $1430 so far, and you still need drives, cooling, a processor, and memory. I think the correct adage here is "buy it nice or buy it twice".

Where can you save money? Buy a smaller raid card, but beware - you probably won't be able to drop in an additional card when it fills up, you'll need a replacement. Buy a Pci-X board and motherboard, but it's going to get expensive to get new cards in the future.

Where do you not want to cheap out? Power supply - if it supplies unclean power to your system, everything dies. Case - if airflow is bad, everything overheats. ECC support - look up the statistics on how often bits get flipped in non-ecc memory, and then tell me why. Fans - you might manage to spend $50 on fans in this project. It's not worth skimping on.

Building home servers is easy as pie. For business, where reliability matters, not so much.

 

[Madwand]

DIY storage servers in business situations aren't very CYA-compliant. And when you start factoring in potential costs such as downtime, data risk, support requirements, you can usually justify a significantly higher initial outlay than what you'd think based on bottom-end consumer / DIY sort of pricing.

The cost can be still be brought down in couple of ways without seriously impacting CYA-compliance: E.g. (1) Using 500 GB drives (which can be not much more expensive per GB than 320 GB drives at this point, and let you use a cheaper 8-port RAID controller, smaller case, PSU, cooling fans, etc. (2) Sourcing the drives and storage controller yourself.

(2) Possibly impacts service and CYA-C, so needs to be considered in that light as well.

FYI, (going still further down CYA-C for cost reduction) one possibility for a cheaper Windows OS and basic platform is to get one of the bottom-end advertised price-leaders and re-build part of it.

E.g. a Dell PE 840 for $1000.

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=04&kc=6W300&l=en&oc=war840&s=bsd

Such deals should arise regularly and elsewhere. You might have get even larger HDs or change the case to make these work (yuck), but as intended, they're a starting point for consideration at the bottom end. (Possibly a very bad idea if some of the components are custom and not relocatable / easily replaceable).

And to repeat for emphasis, the typical CYA-C strategy is to throw a fair amount of money at an OEM+service provider for a minimally DIY solution.

 

[u2slow]

How about recycling a server-grade P3 dually?

You may be able to pick up two 8-port cards for less $$$ used. Many P3 servers have the PCI-x slots.

 

[TeeJayHoward]

$100 Motherboard (Pick somethin' stable)
$100 Processor (Pick somethin' with low heat/power consumption)
$050 RAM (Who needs more than 512MB on a NAS?)
$100 Power Supply (Get a good one. It's important)
$150 Case (CM Stacker)
$250 Controller (HighPoint RocketRAID 2320)
$925 Hard Drives (5x 500GB drives)
______________________________________
$1775 Total
Leaves you a little money to uprade the components of your choice. The 2320 is PCIe, which'll save you a bit on motherboard costs, and give you a wider range to choose from. It's "only" an eight port card, but it has the capability to span arrays across multiple cards. I'm not sure why everyone is recommending a dual core or dual processor server for something as simple as a NAS box. It's not like you'll stress out even a single P3. The case will serve you well until you get to 12 drives, at which time I'd invest in a couple 5in3 bay devices. The resulting product should be a NAS which will consume low amounts of power, produce little heat and noise, and should last you quite some time.

Edit: Jeesh, I just tried to price together something from Dell - Notice anything wrong here?

 

[u2slow]

I'm not sure why everyone is recommending a dual core or dual processor server for something as simple as a NAS box. It's not like you'll stress out even a single P3.

I suggested the dual because there's the ECC ram; plus the PCIx slots, and the matching raid cards seem to come up along with all the other P3-era stuff that is regularly getting liquidated on eBay, Craigslist, etc.

 

[Taken]

I been looking at a lot of NAS units myself. I would suggest you look at products from Synology. Specificly the CS-406(e) units.

http://www.synology.com/enu/products/CS406series/index.php

They run about $600 on newegg and all you would need is put in your 4x500gb hd and you should be set to go. If cost is a concern then you might want to get 4x400gb hd since the 400gb run about $100 less then the 500gb at most etailers.

These units support Raid 0,1, and 5 and performance is not bad with all the extras that you are seeking.


Good luck

 

[Madwand]

I would suggest you look at products from Synology. Specificly the CS-406(e) units.

[...]

These units support Raid 0,1, and 5 and performance is not bad with all the extras that you are seeking.

Have you done any performance testing yourself? While Synology's published ftp read numbers look OK, the other performance numbers are not great, and Tom's numbers would pretty much put it in the "fakegigabit" class if they're right.

http://www.synology.com/enu/products/CS406series/perf.php
http://www.tomsnetworking.com/2006/09/15/synology_cs406_cube_station_nas/page8.html

For perspective, Synology's numbers aren't competitive with cheap modern desktop hardware running single drives. IMO, a consumer NAS box is nothing more than a cheap, cute box with a customized free OS with some support, so if you're going this path, then it would make sense to get a better server box from a major HW player, and source a decent Linux OS somewhere for it instead.