Small Business Storage Server

L

Lipe

n00b
Joined
May 4, 2010
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Hi mates,

Im an old reader of HardForum but this is the first time im posting.

In the last couple of days i learned a lot about storage looking for the best way to implement a NAS on the company i work for - but so far, not good.

Storage:
I feel like the more i learn the less i know. I would not trust all my files to Raid-5 because of some scary logs i found about read errors while restoring arrays. Raid-6 seems more trustable but im not sure. ZFS is a lot more complex than others but looks great. As im going for a Software raid i can pick any of them, even more than one.

System:
FreeNas -> Already offer ZFS support wich will be improved in later versions, looks great for a Software raid.
FreeBSD pure -> My unix know-how is average, i would probably be able to setup and mantain a Storage server but FreeNas would be easier.
OpenSolaris -> Same as above.
WHS -> Looks great but i couldnt find much info about Raid, seems like it only duplicates ? Not sure.

I dont have a big budget to start but the server will slowly grow as we migrate data so i dont need to expend tons with discs at this time - but if i pick ZFS, i need to start with a average size sinze the pools cannot be resized. Hardware Raid is impossible at this time because of controller prices, unfortunately i live outside-us.

From all the motherboards i picked as 'compatible and well succeeded' with NAS, only one has ECC Support and its a old Asus model (M3A76-CM). I never had problems with corrupted files because of memory issued but Murphy doesnt like me at all.

Im planing to start with 8-10Tb wich will last at least 6 months. This file server will store basically Adobe files, mostly 2~3Gb PSD files containing artworks. Users will probably access these files direcly from the server.

Any suggestions ?
 
Business has different requirements than home use.

What OS are your client machines? How many users? How important is uptime? Do you have a backup strategy? What is the budget?

For a business, I would be looking at for a minimum, a SuperMicro chassis w/redundant PSUs and a SM motherboard like the X8SIL-F that supports ECC and remote management. You could then do use Linux Software RAID or ZFS to make your RAID.

With limited Unix know-how, Linux of some variety is possibly the better choice, do to the sheer number of users. There is a lot more information out there. Some will disagree, I'm sure. :)

For hardware RAID, you could also look into getting an older 3ware card like the 9650se series. They're decent cards and usually fairly cheap in the used market. This would be a good choice for Windows Server or WHS and Linux/FreeBSD as well.
 
Hey Lizard, thanks for the feedback !

What OS are your client machines?
Most clients use Windows XP/Vista but there are some OSX too.

How many users?
Only 6 users will direcly access this server. No heavy activity like video editing but the files are still big.

How important is uptime ?
As their work files will be stored on it, the uptime must be 100% during commercial time. I can easly shutdown it for maintence at lunch time or in case of emergency, its not critical as it seems but the data is very valuable.

Do you have a backup strategy?
ZFS snapshots would do the trick ? Still reading.

What is the budget?
Not much at this time, something around US$1.500,00 - isnt much considering our importing taxes (a US$90,00 motherboard might cost US$150,00 here).

For a business, I would be looking at for a minimum, a SuperMicro chassis w/redundant PSUs and a SM motherboard like the X8SIL-F that supports ECC and remote management. You could then do use Linux Software RAID or ZFS to make your RAID.
I would not be able to buy this Motherboard here but i can surely import it, the price looks ok at eBay and the specs are great ! Actually the main issue with FreeNas seems to be chipset compatibility, not sure if SM would work too - need to research.

With limited Unix know-how, Linux of some variety is possibly the better choice, do to the sheer number of users. There is a lot more information out there. Some will disagree, I'm sure.
I agree with you, but that would exclude FreeNas (unix ?) from my possibilities - wich have a pretty huge support community too. What else do you suggest for a Software Raid ? Ive seen some big NAS running Gentoo here at HARDForum.

For hardware RAID, you could also look into getting an older 3ware card like the 9650se series. They're decent cards and usually fairly cheap in the used market. This would be a good choice for Windows Server or WHS and Linux/FreeBSD as well.
Thank you very MUCH for the suggestion, their price are good but too much for my current budged. Ive added some eBay links to my watch lis cause im sure i will purchase one as soon as i get more money.

:p
 
If you're low on budget then your demands would be very similar to a home user or "poweruser". If you will be doing most stuff yourself, you have complete control of what you buy and what you run.

If you want to go the ZFS route, with snapshots acting as partial backup solution (not a real backup but at least you got some history to cover additional risks that RAID alone cannot), you would want a "dumb HBA" or normal SATA controller. In that case i recommend this card instead, also much cheaper:
http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-USAS-L8i.cfm

Supported by both FreeNAS and FreeBSD.

If you are interested in running FreeBSD, you can look at my site for tutorials on how to install, setup and configure the system for use with ZFS:
http://submesa.com/data/bsd

If you require any personal assistance with that you can always email me or meet on IRC. You also may want to try this solution in a Virtualbox setup first to judge whether it suits your needs. The screenshots on my site were all taken with Virtualbox - a free virtual machine emulator.
 
Thanks for the reply sub.mesa .
Your tutorials are great, very well writen ! Congrats.
Except for the AD Integration i feel like everything i need is there.

The Dumb HBA would connect more HD's to store snapshots, right ? Would you recommend to also create a Raid/Pool for the Snapshots ? The price is great.

So far this is the config:
SuperMicro X8SIL-F rev1.02
Intel Xeon X3440 (i3 but doesnt support ECC :()
2x Kingston KVR1333D3E9S/2G (ECC Unbuffered)
6x WesternDigital WD15EADS (32Mb Cache) or WD15ERDS (64Mb Cache)
(Maybe HD154UI if i run out of money, almost US$50 cheaper)

ERDS (64Mb cache) cost US$30,00 more than EADS, not sure if the cache difference worth it. What do you think ?

Thank you very much. Especially for allowing me to contact you by mail if i need :)
 
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You might be able to use a X3430 instead and save a few dollars. Nothing it looks like you are doing will be CPU constrained. You could reallocate the $30 or whatever difference to getting two more sicks of RAM.

The X8SIL-F I'm still waiting to get swapped for v1.02 (I got a 1.01 last week)... but I really like it. I do want to use an i3-530 in the board eventually, so hopefully SM will come through.

If you are going to have 6 drives, and a lot of ram, I would suggest getting the cheaper 32MB drives. Cache is good, but at $240 you could have three more drives (waiting for a sale), more RAM, or two X25-V's in raid 0.
 
Couldnt find X3430 anywhere, only X3440 :(

Bought the X8SIL-F today, it should arrive in 25days or so :)mad:).

Thanks for the feedback about drivers, i will stick with 32MB cache. Looking for a sale right now.
 
You don't really need ECC RAM if you opt for ZFS; you can cope with limited RAM errors now that you have both redundancy and file checksums.

However, business implies that you want a high level of data security, more so than the casual home user. I'm running without ECC on my home zpool, and even using ZFS on a system with RAM errors didn't permanently corrupt my pool; it did corrupt but it repaired it after a subsequent access or scrub.
 
Lipe said:
Couldnt find X3430 anywhere, only X3440 :(

Bought the X8SIL-F today, it should arrive in 25days or so :)mad:).

Thanks for the feedback about drivers, i will stick with 32MB cache. Looking for a sale right now.
Click to expand...

Wow!!! That's forever! Supermicro is advance RMA'ing my v1.01 and their RMA/ Support response time is like 24 hours via e-mail. Can you just not find the board in stock anywhere?
 
what about a SM board that is AMD... as most AMD CPUs, even athlons and Phenoms, support ECC RAM?

I have not looked recently at super micros inventory of current boards... but if they have a nice motherboard that is AM3 as a workstation type board that might fit the bill
 
Im just curious. After all the stuff arrives here, where should i install the SO ?

In the same ZFS Pool ? A separated HD ? Flash memory ?

Not sure if FreeNAS is going to work, but i know it fits even on a pendrive. Not sure about FreeBSD/OpenSolaris.

I will test all of them today in a Zotac mini-ITX

pjkenned said:
Wow!!! That's forever! Supermicro is advance RMA'ing my v1.01 and their RMA/ Support response time is like 24 hours via e-mail. Can you just not find the board in stock anywhere?
Click to expand...
Unfortunately im out-side US :(
Here in Brazil they only sell SuperMicro Chassis - no motherboards.

Just to mention, a chassis that costs US$100,00 in USA is sold by BRL$2100,00 here, almost US$1166,00. Lol.

sub.mesa said:
You don't really need ECC RAM if you opt for ZFS; you can cope with limited RAM errors now that you have both redundancy and file checksums.

However, business implies that you want a high level of data security, more so than the casual home user. I'm running without ECC on my home zpool, and even using ZFS on a system with RAM errors didn't permanently corrupt my pool; it did corrupt but it repaired it after a subsequent access or scrub.
Click to expand...
Good to know ZFS saved your data, ive been looking for logs like this.

As the data ZFS is going to keep isnt mine, and im not going for a Hardware Raid so soon, best to improove every other specs to avoid headaches :(

Thanks mate !

Adidas4275 said:
what about a SM board that is AMD... as most AMD CPUs, even athlons and Phenoms, support ECC RAM?

I have not looked recently at super micros inventory of current boards... but if they have a nice motherboard that is AM3 as a workstation type board that might fit the bill
Click to expand...
That would be good, i have some spare Phenoms here. Anyway, any other SM boards would take the same time to arrive here :(
 
Hey there! Just thought to bump your thread. Have you tried ZFS, any more questions?

It may be of interest to know that i'm working on building a clone for FreeNAS, dedicated to ZFS. You can already try a test version to get a sense on how it works. Eventually this will also allow you to install directly to your ZFS array, making it bootable. Then you do not need a separate system disk any longer. Any HDD that is part of the ZFS pool will be bootable by the BIOS. This also means your system disk enjoys the same protection as your data; which is nice.

It's not usable for real yet; so focus on FreeNAS for now. But if you go ZFS, you should be able to switch between the two projects. I still have to test that, though.

Let me know about your experience with ZFS; i'm very interested!

Cheers!
 
Hi Sub !

Yea, im using ZFS with Nexenta - FreeNAS doenst support my Mobo chipset (yet).

I remember your project from my 1st post here at HF - i loved the "simple webgui" idea as an addon to FreeBSD, looks like things are getting bigger now, awesome ! Im subscribing to your topic !

So far im an uber fan of ZFS, specially because of snapshots, very handy. Our 6 disks raidz3 maxout Gigabity easily, the only limitation (bottleneck) is our employees hard disk speed - nothing to do with my server.

So far, so good. Except for the Harddisks issue - i dont have much to review yet.
 
Nice to hear your good experiences! Please do note that ZFS versions beyond 15 are less matured and may still have bugs. It also means you cannot switch to my Mesa project or FreeNAS. If you keep the version at 13 or 14 it will be more portable between different OS and ZFS versions.

FreeNAS: ZFS version 6 / 13 (last time i checked)
FreeBSD 8.0: ZFS version 13
FreeBSD 8.1: ZFS version 14
FreeBSD 9-C: ZFS version 15
Solaris: ZFS version 15

I recommend you avoid de-duplication feature for now.

If you want to try my project, try the LiveCD first. Should be easy to boot and you can see if your chipset is supported right away. It should be! Would love to know if you're able to test. Please note that it may not be able to import your pool due to the higher pool version used, but you can at least test the network and serial ata controller working, which is all you need really.

Cheers!
 
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