DIY NAS Server RAID5

[Jim.Roberts]

DIY Ubuntu NAS Server - Soft RAID5

Hi Everyone, I'm new to this forum so please excuse any mistakes I make!

I was looking at buying a NAS for a long time and decided to build my own as it might not be cheaper but at least it will provide a good learning platform for me into the world Linux as I only have limited experience with SUN OS (good old init0) and HP UNIX.

After reading this:

Build Your Own Atom-based NAS - Part 2

And:

How To Build a Really Fast NAS - Part 4: Ubuntu Server

Many thanks Tim, this is the best resource I've found on the web for this subject and this project! You might be interested in this by the way.

I decided to build my own NAS using:

Asus P5N73-CM
Intel 1.8GHz Celeron Dual Core
2GB DDR2
3 x 1TB Samsung F1 (Software RAID5 using mdadm)
RakMax RM-223 S/S SATA/SATA back plane for RAID array
30Gb SATA SSD for OS
Silverstone SG01B-F case

Using the onboard Gbit LAN to connect to this which seems like the perfect SOHO router / VoIP / DECT / ect...

I do a lot of photography and have about 12,000 (65GB) photos on my workstation and want to have a backup drive I can access remotely as well as store the collection of films and TV series I have. Both Windows Vista and Mac OSX will have to be able to access this so after first looking at FreeNAS I decided to try Ubuntu Server with the Webmin administration GUI and mdadm Linux RAID utility.

I'll be building and testing this weekend before I have to go back to work, so I'll keep you all updated and any problems (probable!) I have.

Jimbo

 

[Pyrroc]

You might also look at OpenFiler. It might be a little more feature rich than you need, but is based on a RedHat derivative and has a nice web GUI.

 

[Jim.Roberts]

Pyrroc:

I had a look at OpenFiler, I even downloaded an ISO so if the Ubuntu doesn't work out I can install that instead. I decided on Ubuntu because it will give me more of a chance to learn Linux than sticking to a purely web based distro.

Jimbo

 

[Jim.Roberts]

It's Up and Running

The system is up and running, many thanks to Tim, without who's guide Build Your Own Atom-based NAS I wouldn't have been able to get going!

EDIT: Next weekend I'll set it up properly with my router and speed test it. At the moment it's doing about 2.6Mbs (SLOW) read and write. This is probably due to the wireless router I was using to transfer the files (all 12,500 of them) which took about 7-8 hours overnight. With the new router It'll probably be a lot faster. Would a dedicated Gigabit LAN card make any difference to the speed? Any thoughts would be appreciated

Jimbo

 

[eon]

Eon

Jim,

Please give EON a try. With that hardware should perform really well in 32 or 64-bit.

http://eonstorage.blogspot.com

 

[Jim.Roberts]

EON, could you provide more information about EON, how does it work? can it stream media? what architecture is it based on?

Thanks,

Jim

 

[eon]

Eon is based on

Hi Jim

EON (embedded Operating System/Networking) is RAM based live NAS on opensolaris + ZFS for intel/AMD. There is no DLNA server as yet. I'm looking at mediatomb.

 

[Jim.Roberts]

EON: Thanks, I'm getting along fine with Ubuntu Server and Webmin so I think I'll stick with that as it does a lot more then just NAS and media streaming. As EON is run from RAM would it be possible to run it from a USB stick to try it out without it messing with my current system? I now have lots of data on a RAID 5 array in the server and I wouldn't want it to mess that up.

Jimbo

 

[eon]

Eon

Understood Jim,

Yes EON is intended to be installed and run from CF or USB. The iso is really to demo it and serves as a installer to CF or USB.

Booting any of these will allow you to get a feel of EON recognizing your hardware. It won't do anything to your disks unless you run cmds to build a zpool etc.

 

[Jim.Roberts]

EON: Thanks, I might give it a go to see if it likes my hardware and see what it's like. It's nice to have plenty of options when building a new system. If I burn the ISO it works like a 'live disk' then?

 

[eon]

EON on CD

Jim,

That's correct, works like a live cd and serves as a installer to usb. You can create pools also but most of the info will not survive a reboot.