Mulling over options for Low-Power DIY NAS

[germ]

Would like to build a NAS with at least 4 HDDs. Price is not a top priority, but low power is. It should be reasonably high performance within the power constraints. Here's what I am thinking:

1. Case: Chenbro ES34069. No escaping this one. It's *nice*. $175...

2. Atom-based ultra low power mobo. The MSI IM-945GC is nice because it has 4 SATA ports, GbE, and comes with the Dual core Atom 330 CPU for $153. Power figures are amazing according to the manual, less than 20W.

There is also the IM-945GSE, which is supposedly even lower power... and $185 . But it only has 2 SATA ports. So it would need a PCI card (which the Chenbro case can accomodate, but which I have not identified yet) with SATA ports. This mobo is new and MSI's website does not have power figures.

Q1. Do I need the 330 Atom vs. 270?
Q2. Would there be a speed penalty using SATA ports on PCI vs. on the mobo?

3. Ubuntu server with Netatalk 2.03 as OS. I was looking at OpenSolaris: The ZFS file system looks excellent, but I am not sure if I can run AFP. Has anybody actually built a NAS with OpenSolaris? What is the performance?

4. WD green power drives, 4x1 TB will give me 3 TB in RAID5. RAID6 would be nice with such large drives.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

 

[br14]

The MSI board looks nice - much better than Intel with 2 extra SATA ports and passive chipset cooler (is it actually available anywhere?)
Also, check out anandtech article "The Cost of Running Your PC" - unless you have non-monetary criteria, the marginal power savings at the low end do not save much money.
A1. Definitely dual-atom - 50-80% performance boost for about $10 and a couple of watts more.
A2. Integrated SATA ports "should" be both faster and less troublesome as no extra drivers are needed.
A3. You will not not know about Solaris compatibility for a while - I only remember finding one post on Solaris and Intel D945Gclgf2, and Intel board has been out for a while.
IMHO, a setup without a CD/DVD drive is too difficult to build/maintain, but I appear to be in a minority on this one.

 

[sphere.ch]

depending on your requirement for network perfomance, you might check other resources for infos about atom boards.
in a recent german article about diy nas using atom-boards they were not even close to saturate a gigE network...and adding another pci nic doesn't help, you'd need a pci-e/x connected nic.

 

[bliko]

Atom 330 wouldn't hurt...

Take a look at:
http://www.tranquilpc-shop.co.uk/acatalog/BAREBONE_SERVERS.html

I haven't heard much about them...however on first glance look pretty kl.

 

[germ]

Thanks for the replies

@br14: The first MSI board is available at several stores. The second is expected 2/21. I am aware that I will not recoup the money spent on low-power mobo in electrical bill savings. I will go the with dual core Atom then. There is no space for an optical drive in the Chenbro case, I will have to use an external USB unit.

@sphere.ch: I will be content with something that does not saturate GbE. Few of those boards have PCI-e.

@bliko: Those cases look very good, but it looks like I can save some money building my own.

A couple of other questions.

Q4. How much RAM? Is 1 GB enough or should I go for 2 GB?
Q5. How about RAID6 vs. RAID5? Ubuntu server supports RAID6, which is more secure for large HDDs. The penalty is reduced capacity (2x vs. 3x for a 4 drive setup), and reduced write speed. Anybody knows how much the write speed is reduced in RAID6 vs. RAID5? Will RAID6 work fine (it seems far less common than RAID5)?

 

[br14]

I myself went for 2GB:
1. no option to add memory later
2. only approx. $10
3. little Atom can use all the help it can get
4. 2GB give you some interesting options, like running without swap file

 

[bliko]

For 4 drives only, raid 5 will be sufficient. Raid 6 will only give u 2 usable drives - 50% space... If ur happy to use only half ur space... Raid 10 will be much more efficient... And the controller will be cheaper.

Def go for 2gb...it's pretty cheap these days so will be fine if u only occasionally require it.

 

[00Roush]

You might check out this article http://www.silentpcreview.com/mCubed_HFX_Micro Has three different Atom platforms shown in the results. Also take a look at this article... http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-atom-efficiency,2069.html

I personally would go with a Core 2 Duo setup as it allows room to grow. With the correct setup, power consumption is on par with an Atom system at lower loads. Being that a NAS spends most of its time idle the extra few watts used by the Core 2 when it is busy would not be noticed. Along with that I tend to believe a Core 2 Duo setup would allow for higher performance and in turn return to a idle state sooner than an Atom system. Especially for RAID 5 or 6. But this is just my opinion. So far I have not seen much performance data on the Atom cpu let alone in a server role so I tend to stick to what I know works. Then again I look at this from more of a performance point of view and room to grow in the future.

00Roush

 

[germ]

For 4 drives only, raid 5 will be sufficient. Raid 6 will only give u 2 usable drives - 50% space... If ur happy to use only half ur space... Raid 10 will be much more efficient... And the controller will be cheaper.

I realize that both RAID6 and RAID10 will give me only 50% of capacity. That's OK, I really do care about my data. I see why RAID10 will have better performance, but the point of RAID6 is that *any* 2 drives can fail at the same time. If both drives of the same mirrored set fail, my RAID10 4-drive system will be hosed.

Also, I am not using any controller. Ubuntu server will be the software "controller."

 

[germ]

Alternative processors

You might check out this article http://www.silentpcreview.com/mCubed_HFX_Micro Has three different Atom platforms shown in the results. Also take a look at this article... http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-atom-efficiency,2069.html

Thanks 00Roush for the very interesting articles. Certainly there are more efficient chipsets than the 945. I did only a cursory survey of low-power Intel and AMD chipsets/mobos, and I saw that power consumption is generally in the 40s W. The MSI Atom mobo is <20 W. Also, I am constrained to the mini-ATX form factor. Any G31 in this form factor?

However, the added power of a Core2 or Athlon processor is attractive. Will do some more research.

 

[bliko]

You will also be 'horsed' if any of the other hardware component(s) fail... Going for raid 6/10 won't necisarily make your data much more secure. Do u plan to have a full backup of your data?

Also are you looking for it to be silent?

 

[zedpol]

Listen to bliko , I personally think raid is nice to have around but most of the time not worth the money. Invest in a good back up solution. I'm not sure why you want raid 6 as 2 drives failing in a small raid array has a hugely small chance of happening. You are much more likely to have a mobo/psu fail, or heck have a unicorn step on your computer.

My vote, at max go raid 5, raid 1 makes more sense unless you have huge data requirements.

Spend some money on a good backup system.

Z

 

[germ]

Backup....

All right, I am planning 4x 1TB. I thought that with large drives there is a probability of an error occurring during rebuild of one drive, therefore RAID5 is not good enough and there is a need for RAID6.

I agree that I cannot rely on RAID for backup, and that I need a backup solution. I was in fact thinking of building TWO NAS units, and backup one onto the other (for example once every night). Any other suggestion for backup?

Using the fanless MSI mobo and WD Green power drives will go a long way towards making the system as silent as possible. I do not require it to be absolutely silent, just barely audible in a quite room.

BTW, today WD released 2 TB Green power drives....$300 each.

 

[zedpol]

the 2 tb drives are exactly why i think going raid 1 is a better idea. Look how fast capacities are increasing. In a year you are going to look at your 3tb raid 5 array or 2tb raid 6 array and think, well crap. Wish it wasn't so expensive to upgrade. Why not just buy one 2 tb hard drive and then back it up..or if you are really worried about drive failure do a 2 tb raid 1 array. It will be cheaper, draw less power, quieter, etc etc...anyways, best of luck with what you choose.

z

 

[00Roush]

Thanks 00Roush for the very interesting articles. Certainly there are more efficient chipsets than the 945. I did only a cursory survey of low-power Intel and AMD chipsets/mobos, and I saw that power consumption is generally in the 40s W. The MSI Atom mobo is <20 W. Also, I am constrained to the mini-ATX form factor. Any G31 in this form factor?

However, the added power of a Core2 or Athlon processor is attractive. Will do some more research.

Your welcome.

In another thread I recommended reading this article... http://www.silentpcreview.com/article869-page1.html it is for a mini ITX Intel board based on one of the latest chipsets. Pay attention to the power usage with the E7200 CPU. I have not heard back on whether this board is a good option. Some of the reviews on Newegg noted some problems so it might not be the best fit.

Also Tim just posted up a review that tests out a Atom setup. http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30717/79/ I don't think the CPU is dual core but it does give a good idea what might be possible using the Atom CPU.

00Roush

 

[germ]

the 2 tb drives are exactly why i think going raid 1 is a better idea. Look how fast capacities are increasing.

But today the 2 TB drive costs 3 times the 1 TB drive. That's exactly the idea behind RAID. The I stands for "inexpensive". I get more storage for the same money by buying three 1 TB drives.

In a year you are going to look at your 3tb raid 5 array or 2tb raid 6 array and think, well crap. Wish it wasn't so expensive to upgrade.

No, I won't. I am looking for a solution today and I will get the capacity that is available now for the best price/GB, being well aware that a year from now I will be able to get almost double capacity for the same price.

Why not just buy one 2 tb hard drive and then back it up..or if you are really worried about drive failure do a 2 tb raid 1 array. It will be cheaper, draw less power, quieter, etc etc...anyways, best of luck with what you choose.

You are right that if I have a backup I can use a less redundant form of RAID. In that case, a reasonable compromise is a RAID5 with 3 TB for $400. For the backup, I could use a simpler, 2-drive enclosure with 2x 1.5 TB RAID0.