Your solid NAS + Network configurations

[Michael Scarn]

I'm looking to sample the population of successful NAS and network configurations people are running. I've come to a frustrating halt with my current "in progress" NAS setup. I currently use the following hardware:
AMD Regor X2 250 CPU
BIOSTAR A880G+ Motherboard
4GB G Skill DDR3 RAM
Corsair CX430 PSU
3x Samsung F4 2TB HDD
1x Western Digital 640GB Black HDD
Linksys WRT54G Router

I'm currently using the onboard Realtek 8111DL LAN chipset and stock firmware on the Linksys router. I've installed Nexenta Community Edition with no luck in finding a username and password to log into the Web interface (after successfully registering and configuring the install "in computer"). I know virtually nothing about networking, and have had to follow barebone user guides to get as far as I have gotten. I know Nexenta has the features I want, but realized early on that it isn't for someone of my networking knowledge.

For the most part, I have a definite path for my NAS and utilizing it's capabilities. For the sake of time, however, I just want to be able to access a NAS hard drive for now. Setting up ZFS, SMTP and deduplication is further down the road. I just need to get past this god forbidden wall I am currently at. With the NAS build I have, what steps and resources should I be using to get to first base with this configuration?

I was hoping those that have successfully implemented their configurations, would be willing to share their learning process and their current setup. What router and firmware has been the easiest to setup, particularly for someone as dumb as I? What resources have you used along the way to outmaneuver any setbacks?

I want to avoid starting over from scratch, but I've felt like if I had a degree in networking administration, this wouldn't be so damn stressful and confusing. I can't even access a FreeNAS install I tried, even after FreeNAS telling me what IP address to use. I really want to learn this stuff, but feel like I've plotted myself into the thick of a battle I didn't sign up for.

I have secured my router with a password before and that has gone well, albeit from a step-by-step Linksys guide. I've just gotten to the point that I would rather copy another successful NAS configuration done by someone else (from hardware to firmware configurations), than continue with this struggle.

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[s0rce]

The router shouldn't really have anything to do with the NAS, if you can see the web interface of your NAS from another computer on the network then that means the network is working. You can try to ping the NAS computer from another computer on the network.

The router really just acts as a switch to allow the multiple computers on the network to connect to the NAS, the routing part is just to connect to the internet.

I run Tomato firmware on my WRT54g which makes it easy to monitor the IPs of the connected computers and also assign static DHCP leases to the computers on the network.

 

[CiscoInside]

I have not had great dealings with onboard nics and realtek cards. This prob wont have anything to do with your problem but from a networking perspective I suggest intel nics all the way. Right now I have my iSCSI traffic from my ESXi box traveling to my SAN which has an intel nic card. The ESXi box is using the realtek card as I cannot use it for regular lan traffic, due to vmware's support for it (it works but its limited traffic and has problems). But it drops my iSCSI traffic and I have to have a redundant link on my lan which is an intel nic.

Sorta off topic, but again for high speed access and reliable links, look at intel nics. They are a bit more pricely, but there is a reason for that.

 

[Dangman]

With the NAS build I have, what steps and resources should I be using to get to first base with this configuration?

Have you tried asking on the NexentaStor forums to figure out your login issue?:
http://www.nexentastor.org/projects/site/boards

Also are you absolutely sure that you've recieved a registration email?

I want to avoid starting over from scratch, but I've felt like if I had a degree in networking administration, this wouldn't be so damn stressful and confusing. I can't even access a FreeNAS install I tried, even after FreeNAS telling me what IP address to use. I really want to learn this stuff, but feel like I've plotted myself into the thick of a battle I didn't sign up for.

Did you make sure that the FreeNAS install was configured with the right gateway and network? Also did you make sure that it was actually connected to the network? Connected as in it was getting an IP address from the router?

 

[farscapesg1]

Pretty sure the default login and password for Nexentastor CE is
Root
nexenta

Personally, I had Nexentastor running and I'm now testing out OpenIndiana + napp-it for ZFS storage. Nexenta worked, but the ZFS pools I had seemed slow and the interface was "kludgy" in my opinion.

 

[af22]

what you described was one of the reasons why i decided to go with a windows based file server, in addition to why windows home server is so popular.

The problem with the unix based solutions is that they do not offer out of the box easy file sharing with windows based computers, there are several protocols you can choose to share files with windows, non which support windows permissions/security.

In addition is the steep entry of getting familiar with basic unix, i have no idea how to install a driver for a network card in solaris. i decided to go with the windows route for simplicity in familiarity. Outside of installing windows and drivers, I only had to setup my folder permissions and sharing (or just use homesharing) and it was good to go.

The only network tweaks I had to play with was disabling or enabling jumbo frames to get better transfer speeds.

The only true benefit i see from using a unix based solution is the ZFS file system, which offers excellent software "raid" performance without the requirement of a $300 raid card. Other then that, i have not seen any real reason for me to not use windows server. Windows home server 2011 can be often found on sale on newegg for $50.

In addition, looking at the file transfer speeds of freeNAS and unRaid are not very appealing to me.....

 

[danswartz]

Pretty sure the default login and password for Nexentastor CE is
Root
nexenta

Personally, I had Nexentastor running and I'm now testing out OpenIndiana + napp-it for ZFS storage. Nexenta worked, but the ZFS pools I had seemed slow and the interface was "kludgy" in my opinion.

I found the GUI for Nexentastor to be heavyweight and prone to glitches and hangs. I'm running OI+napp-it too and no regrets.

 

[kidchunks]

I'm running OI+napp-it too and no regrets.

+1

Tried a few others (eon, freenas to name a few) and OI just works. Took less than 40 mins for a new install and napp-it setup. Still running some test but so far I'm liking it.

Setup:
AMD x4 965
Asus mobo
8gb kingston ecc
8x1TB HD103SJ (mirror/raid10 testing)
1xTB HD103SJ (spare)
2x160gb seagate (os mirror)

 

[Michael Scarn]

The router shouldn't really have anything to do with the NAS, if you can see the web interface of your NAS from another computer on the network then that means the network is working. You can try to ping the NAS computer from another computer on the network.

The router really just acts as a switch to allow the multiple computers on the network to connect to the NAS, the routing part is just to connect to the internet.

I run Tomato firmware on my WRT54g which makes it easy to monitor the IPs of the connected computers and also assign static DHCP leases to the computers on the network.

I will be upgrading my router eventually, as I will be saturating the Gigabit interface as best I can with video backup and retrieval. I've heard that getting a switch like a cheap Trendnet is a good solution, though I can't see myself dealing with yet another network device in the mix. I've heard of Tomato and DD-WRT for router firmwares; I may have to investigate those options.

I have not had great dealings with onboard nics and realtek cards. This prob wont have anything to do with your problem but from a networking perspective I suggest intel nics all the way. Right now I have my iSCSI traffic from my ESXi box traveling to my SAN which has an intel nic card. The ESXi box is using the realtek card as I cannot use it for regular lan traffic, due to vmware's support for it (it works but its limited traffic and has problems). But it drops my iSCSI traffic and I have to have a redundant link on my lan which is an intel nic.

Sorta off topic, but again for high speed access and reliable links, look at intel nics. They are a bit more pricely, but there is a reason for that.

An Intel NIC has been on my purchase list for the NAS. I was hoping to get things working well without it first, and then toss in the NIC once I was comfortable with the NAS. iSCSI and ESXi are all terms I've heard many times, but I still am clueless about there purpose. I just haven't been able to categorize their function in a way that places them in the workflow of a network configuration.

Have you tried asking on the NexentaStor forums to figure out your login issue?:
http://www.nexentastor.org/projects/site/boards

Also are you absolutely sure that you've recieved a registration email?

Did you make sure that the FreeNAS install was configured with the right gateway and network? Also did you make sure that it was actually connected to the network? Connected as in it was getting an IP address from the router?

I have searched the forums, but have not yet posted on them. I did receive the registration email. After rereading the email (I was too excited I was having no setbacks yet) I found that the default administrative password is nexenta. I had no idea I was going to need several different passwords and usernames for all this.

I know the NAS was connected to the router, because my initial Nexenta install was accessible on the network. FreeNAS was telling me, after entering in a static IP and subnet in the form of 192.168.1.50/24, FreeNAS told me to connect to it through the network using http://192.168.1.50/ It would send the request but I would get no response, simply timing out. I had tried several IP addresses with no success. I got my router info from using cmd under Windows 7 and typing in ipconfig /all.

If I get Nexenta or OpenIndiana working, I will have no need to FreeNAS hopefully.

Pretty sure the default login and password for Nexentastor CE is
Root
nexenta

Personally, I had Nexentastor running and I'm now testing out OpenIndiana + napp-it for ZFS storage. Nexenta worked, but the ZFS pools I had seemed slow and the interface was "kludgy" in my opinion.

After rereading the registration email I got from Nexenta, I found the password mixed in with some other notes I normally don't take time to read (and I really should ) I will be giving OI a try once I have Nexenta doing its basic tasks. I still have another spare hard drive I can use to swap in and out. How many people are using a USB stick for either OI, Nexenta, OpenSolaris or the like? I have FreeNAS on my 2GB flash drive but Nexenta is on a HDD.

what you described was one of the reasons why i decided to go with a windows based file server, in addition to why windows home server is so popular.

The problem with the unix based solutions is that they do not offer out of the box easy file sharing with windows based computers, there are several protocols you can choose to share files with windows, non which support windows permissions/security.

In addition is the steep entry of getting familiar with basic unix, i have no idea how to install a driver for a network card in solaris. i decided to go with the windows route for simplicity in familiarity. Outside of installing windows and drivers, I only had to setup my folder permissions and sharing (or just use homesharing) and it was good to go.

The only network tweaks I had to play with was disabling or enabling jumbo frames to get better transfer speeds.

The only true benefit i see from using a unix based solution is the ZFS file system, which offers excellent software "raid" performance without the requirement of a $300 raid card. Other then that, i have not seen any real reason for me to not use windows server. Windows home server 2011 can be often found on sale on newegg for $50.

In addition, looking at the file transfer speeds of freeNAS and unRaid are not very appealing to me.....

I originally didn't go for a Windows system because I didn't see the support for snapshots and ZFS. I guess there is a trade off between easy of setup and feature set. My NAS has a primary purpose of backing up my stuff so I don't have to think about it. I do lots of work on my computer over the course of a week, and if I don't routinely backup, I love over 40 hours of work or worse. Eventually I would like FTP access and synchronization between the NAS and all of my work computers. I'll have to give WHS another look again and see if my needs have changed after getting Nexenta working.

I found the GUI for Nexentastor to be heavyweight and prone to glitches and hangs. I'm running OI+napp-it too and no regrets.

+1

Tried a few others (eon, freenas to name a few) and OI just works. Took less than 40 mins for a new install and napp-it setup. Still running some test but so far I'm liking it.

Setup:
AMD x4 965
Asus mobo
8gb kingston ecc
8x1TB HD103SJ (mirror/raid10 testing)
1xTB HD103SJ (spare)
2x160gb seagate (os mirror)

I will be giving OpenIndiana my attention once I've had a feel for Nexenta. I will also be giving napp-it a try. How necessary is a mirror for the OS and is one able to image the OS after install and configuration? Also, what guides or resources have you used to setup and configure OI. Nexenta's guide was very barebones, I felt.

Thanks to everyone for their help and experience!

 

[hotcrandel]

If you're sticking to a solaris based OS, you would save yourself a lot of head-ache and gain speed by buying an Intel gig nic for $30.. the realtek's just don't seem to perform.

 

[TheLastBoyscout]

And another one:

I'm running OI+napp-it too and no regrets.

+1

Setup:

ASUS E35M1-I
2x4GB Kingston
4x2TB 5K3000 (RAIDZ)
2x250GB Samsung 2.5" (rpool mirror)
CHENBRO ES34169-BK-120​

Once I receive the PCIe riser 'card', I'll add a low-profile Intel NIC to the system.

-TLB

 

[jay2472000]

So out of curiousity I looked at that Nexenta stuff.............wow, you have to be an OpenSolaris employee, a Linux diehard bleed penguin blood, or a huge glutton for punishment.....seriously, the FAQ is longer than most NAS OS whole friggen site.


SInce you asked what has worked, I am running a Freenas box on OLD (like as in 256 Mhz , MMM, not GGG hertz ) hardware. It boots from cd, stores config details on a thumbdrive and uses 3 old ide drives in JBOD. I mainly built it just to see how Freenas worked, but once I got it all working, I figured Ive got a free 500 gig NAS thats useable so I kept it. The hardware is too old to do anything else with.


I also have now a WHS box using an older P4, a Supermicro SATA card ( 8 port, dumb card no raid), a Netgear Gig NIC, and 4 2 Tb drives. I had the same setup minus Mobo installed with an Atom, but honestly the P4 feels faster than the atom.


And I can recommend the Trendnet switches, got a green one in a nice metal case for like 24 bucks from the egg a while back and it performs flawlessly.

 

[kidchunks]

How necessary is a mirror for the OS and is one able to image the OS after install and configuration? Also, what guides or resources have you used to setup and configure OI.

Don't you mirror/backup your data? Why not do the same to the os letting you access your data? Just another layer of redundancy that helps me sleep at night. Also it's super easy to replace the drive! Just a few commands and you're done.

rpool mirroring
See the checked solution. Also be sure to set the label of that second disk as SMI. Can't stress that enough!

I can recommend the Trendnet switches, got a green one in a nice metal case for like 24 bucks from the egg a while back and it performs flawlessly.

+1 I recently purchased one and they're really nice switches for the price. The D-Link DGS-2205/2208 are great too. Shame they stopped making them.

 

[Michael Scarn]

Don't you mirror/backup your data? Why not do the same to the os letting you access your data? Just another layer of redundancy that helps me sleep at night. Also it's super easy to replace the drive! Just a few commands and you're done.

I always backup my data, but don't always actively mirror it. With an OS, I'm fine with taking half an hour to reimage a new hard drive should the OS drive go down. I'm not trying to maintain 99.9% uptime, so half an hour is OK for a rare occurrence. I only have 4 sata inputs on my motherboard at the time, so dedicating 3 of them for data and 1 for OS would be ideal, or even a USB flash OS drive and 4 data drives.

Thanks for the link! As my needs grow in time, I can see myself needing more and more drives and less NAS downtime.

 

[Michael Scarn]

So I went ahead and installed OpenIndiana. While booted from my hard drive install and in the GNOME desktop interface, where do I go from here? I haven't seen much specifically on OpenIndiana, but want to use Napp-it. At what point do I start using napp-it? I don't even know where to go to setup an IP address and network configuration.

 

[kidchunks]

I didn't install a gui on my box so these links are command line based.

napp-it install guide
configuring physical interfaces
TCP/IP Configuration Files

Also note that opensolaris changed to Openindiana so the guides for opensolaris apply.