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Moving to new NAS

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Legion.X

New Around Here
First of all, hi there. I've been a lurker at SNB for a year or so, I guess it's time I posted something, so here's this.

Currently I'm using a DIY NAS that I've assembled from re-purposed old PC parts I had lying around (except ofcourse the WD Reds, those were new...)
  • Intel D945GCLF2 (Atom 330)
  • 2 GB Ram
  • Dawicontrol DC154 4 x SATA Raid controller (only 150 Mbps/channel)
  • 3 x 3 TB WD Red

On the software-side, I run Ubuntu Server w/ webmin as GUI. HDDs are configured as a Raid0 (don't even mention it...), with weekly backups to a bunch of 1.5 - 2 TB disks connected over USB cradles. It's a bomb waiting to go off, really, but that's what backups are for, right? Also it's just a temporary solution until something better comes along, which hopefully is... now.

Right now, this setup only serves as a NAS. However, I want to expand that further in the future:
  • WAN accessibility (Owncloud?)
  • Music streaming
  • Download clients (pyload, torrent, dc++?)
  • Wifi router replacement - need to find compatible hardware first, ac would be fine, but no master mode ac wifi cards yet?
  • Media streaming/HTPC? - Not really, but might be fun to see how Ubuntu has evolved. Last time I used it for media playback, that feature was still in its infancy...

The hardware upgrade I have in mind would bring in three major bonuses:
  • Less useless energy consumption (the southbridge of the old mainboard eats 5 times more than its CPU, and gets me nothing...)
  • More CPU/RAM horsepower. With the Atom, I really didn't want to try a Raid5 setup. Initially, I had thought of a FreeNAS Raid5 using ZFS, but then again I want to go for the lowest cost/GB and a "simple" Raid5 under Ubuntu would also do the job. I'm not too paranoid, and I'm not NASA either. Data loss is not cool, but no lives depend on it.
  • More room for HDDs. I want to expand this system to (ideally) 12x3-4TB WD Reds over the next 2-3 years using 4 port Raid cards, ideally with 300 Mbps/channel (unlike the DC154). For that, I'd need either 4 x SATA on the mainboard + 2 PCIe or 0-2 SATA on the mainboard and 3 PCIe.

I had an idea of using an AMD 5350 with an ASUS AM1M-A mainboard (2 x PCIe, 2 x SATA), with 35W TDP for this purpose. However, it only has a maximum of 10x SATA2 using two PCIe cards, and it eats more energy.

An alternative I just found is the Intel Celeron J1900, as somebody suggested it a few threads ago. It's as strong as the AMD according to Passmark, with only 10W TDP. Problem is, I can't seem to find a mainboard/CPU combo that has at least 2 x PCIe or sufficient SATA2 connectors.

So, I realize this is a lot to read, so here's a TL;DR version:

Want new DIY NAS with up to 12 HDDs for lowest cost per GB in a software Raid5 using Ubuntu Server. Need mainboard with 2+ PCIe and a low TDP CPU.
 
Don't do RAID5, just don't. It is not data backup, it is an uptime convenience. Data backup is seperate volumes physically and logically. RAID5 does not get you that.

You are still going to want, ideally, 2 backups. Whether your data is in RAID5 in the primary or not. If you want speed, go RAID0 (of course if you are serving stuff over a 1Gbps network link, no point really unless you are serving lots of tiny files. Might as well just put things in JBOD and then you have a bit more data resiliance in case a drive dies). But you need the back-ups no matter what.

If you want a low power consumption system that is flexible, just a uATX or mITX H97 board with an Intel Haswell Celeron processor. Fairly cheap and the overall system power consumption is going to be low. My current Ivy Celeron based system with uATX board and 8GB of RAM runs 21w with a pair of discrete NICs in it and an 80+ bronze rated PSU. If I went with the integrated NIC and had a gold rated PSU that would probably be down around 14-16w (this is idle with drives spun down).

At most you might save 3-5w by going with something like the J1900, unless it is an all integrated system like an Intel NUC where the board and components are going to draw a heck of a lot less. At idle I am sure my Celeron Ivy Bridge processor is probably drawing all of 2-3w.

Again, don't use RAID5. Unless you are planning on expanding things now...don't and/or don't worry about it. In another 1-2 years, odds are good the best price per GB is going to be in the 5-6TB range instead of 3-4TB. If you aren't doing RAID at all, no worries about mixing and matching capacities and, again, there is no good reason you should be using RAID. If you have 10GbE, or switch over to Windows and leverage SMB Multichannel for faster network transfers (or are doing LAG and hitting the server with a BUNCH of connections), then you have no reason to need RAID for performance and it is not a data back-up mechanism (if anything happens to the volume, your data is TOAST. Something gets deleted, your data is TOAST. You need a viable back-up mechanism for all of that data, preferably something that is not physically attached to that server. Or at worst a seperate phyiscal and logical volume).

Do you really think you might need 36-48TB of storage in the next couple of years? Even if you were planning on duplicating everything and a single drive lost to RAID5 parity, that is 15-20TB of storage. That is a huge amount of stuff!

Anyway, if you do, you are going to want to probably look at a uATX solution and you'll probably need to look at a Z87/97 board, as there ain't much (anything?) in the H87/97 range that has 2+ PCI-e 16x slots (or 8x, or even a 16 and a 4). Though I guess you could get some RAID cards that are 1x slot cards, but those are likely to be pretty crappy cards (and most likely just HBAs, which I guess would be fine using Linux softRAID, or better just doing JBOD).
 
Nice setup considering your modest needs, beware with Baytrail motherboards, it's 32bit mode is not compatible with most Linux distribution (as long I know only Ubuntu 14.10 not lts), decide to save 5wh or save setup time.

There are now available AC cards with Master mode (look at hostapd docs), you only need to configure parameters for each radio on hostapd.

I estimate this it's an 150-200$ setup depending on which nic you choose and the amount of ram and of course what parts you can recycle from your old system (case, psu, etc), so you'll finish investing about 200$ plus 10 hours dealing with the os configuration.

I suggest if you can work 10 hours on some job wich will give you 200$ more, instead to spend this time with this build, earn a bit more cash and get some Ready to use NAS (I suggest drive empty Synology) and some cheap router/ap instead, you'll get an better solution that will last longer and give you what you really deserve (torrent), with less supervision (and saves power too) .

Consider good NAS with 4 bays from Synology cost from 250 to 350$ empty, plus 50$ on a cheap router, just drop your wd red on it, you will not spend more than half hour configuring the setup.

I consider an DIY NAS as an educational exercise, but unless you need some extraordinary solution, you go better with an ready to use solution, just do the math...
 
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I didn't mention Synology has an new Router-Nas ala "Apple Time Capsule", first because usually those setup trade something for such dual purpose, (besides it's only dual drive), either it's not an good Nas or not an good router, I'm sceptical on it to be an solid solution nowadays, maybe on 2 years.
 
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