Accessory "SFF" NAS recommendations?

[zovc]

Hey folks!

I think I'm about ready to build a dedicated NAS. I've done some homework into this a few times and I doubt the landscape has drastically changed, but I like having folks weigh in to either reassure me or help offer new viewpoints.

Primarily, I am hoping you can offer me some new or interesting suggestions on the case I go with. Besides that, I like the idea of using a server board with a low-wattage soldered-on chip but I also don't know if there are any strange drawbacks to doing that.

So, the case I'm looking at is the Silverstone DS380. It seems like it's one of the most compact options out there for how many drives it can contain and it even uses hot swap bays. I don't currently have any expected number of drives, but I like the idea of having plenty of extra room on top of the ~4-5 drives I start with. I do plan to get as large of drives as I can swing as I am a pretty big digital pack rat and am hoping to start doing content creation in the near future.

The motherboard I'm looking at is the AsRock Rack C2550D4I. I believe this is the lowest-end board like it in terms of performance, but I don't suspect that will cause any serious problems with what is primarily local file storage.

Besides that, I haven't been able to find/get much info on whether or not SSD Caches matter or how much I should aim for. Also have no idea how much RAM is appropriate for a NAS.

I expect to use Unraid, or possibly oVirt.

 

[Soul_Est]

The DS380 definitely a good case. You should also take a took at the U-NAS NSC-800. As for the board, Intel has issues with them bricking themselves currently. Cisco warned about the issue, it happened to Synology devices too, and Intel confirmed it. For RAM and SSD caches, it depends on your use case. For unRAID you can use this guide. If you wish to have each individual drive readable, you can use SnapRAID and MergerFS as LinuxServer.io did.

 

[Phuncz]

What @Soul_Est said. Though I prefer ZFS because I haven't fooled around with Unraid. I can recommend NAS4Free, install it on a USB stick and let 'er fly.

Another hardware choice could be the ASRock Rack C236 WSI. It's priced about € 260 (the C2550D4I is about € 380) so that would leave you with € 120 for a CPU and cooler. You could go from a Pentium G4400 (€ 60) up to a Core i3-6100 (€ 120) and still break even. Although that Atom is "semi passive" since it still needs airflow. But as Intel said, they fudged up that generation and it's still uncertain how this will turn out.

Other variants with up to 6 SATA ports, but a PCIe x16 port for an additional storage controller (HBA):
ASRock Rack E3C236D2I
ASRock Rack E3C232D2I
ASRock Rack E3C226D2I

>>> http://www.asrockrack.com/general/products.asp#Server

 

[nox]

Sorry, but someone has to say it...

HP Microserver Gen 8. £150 ish, 4 bays, 2 network ports, ilo.

I was looking at the avoton boards too, then worked out all the cost and could not justify anything other than the HP.

But all these options are not really NAS options - they are full on server options. For a NAS I would get two single bay or one dual bay Synology.

Nox

 

[Phuncz]

That could work too, if the 4 bays is not an issue. I'm sure an SSD could also be installed somewhere, maybe with a PCI bracket adapter if there are no apropriate holes.

But with this comment I wouldn't recommend someone a 4-drive system:

I don't currently have any expected number of drives, but I like the idea of having plenty of extra room on top of the ~4-5 drives I start with.

What is considered a server isn't the shape, size or hardware, but the purpose. At work we have a Microserver doing server duties, I have a NUC doing home server duties and I used to have a Raspberry Pi do some server stuff too. Similar with a NAS, you can turn a Raspberry Pi into a NAS without even having an HDD attached. Considering the Quad-core Atom the topic starter has mentioned, a G4400 would be a serious performance upgrade but for the same price. I'm pretty sure if someone can find a ASRock Rack C2250 board, he already thought about a NAS device like Synology.

I can also recommend a Synology, but they get expensive fast when 4 bays aren't enough.

 

[nox]

That could work too, if the 4 bays is not an issue. I'm sure an SSD could also be installed somewhere, maybe with a PCI bracket adapter if there are no apropriate holes.

There's an on board MicroSD slot if you want to install your OS there, there's a slimline DVD slot, so you can install a 2.5" disk there. You can also get an unofficial bracket to mount an additional 2 drives internally but you don't have enough internal sata ports, so would need to add a sata raid card in the pcie expansion slot. I went down the route of +2 nic ports here. I also seem to remember a internal usb port on the board, but don't quote me on that. You can also upgrade the cpu/ram if you ever need to - I have an 8 core LV xeon in mine and 10GB ram now.

 

[EdZ]

I'm also looking at NAS options, moving away from a Microserver Gen 7, mainly due to looking to use more than 5 drives. Less than 2 parity drives with modern drive capacities is madness if you care about keeping your data, and for the moment price/capacity works out better using more smaller drives than fewer larger drives (e.g. 8x 3TB drives gives 18TB usable capacity, as does 5x 6TB drives, but the 8x drives will cost ~£200 less). The existing 5x3TB ZFS RAIDZ2 array is pretty much full.

Using 2.5" drives is kind of under consideration, but the only 2.5" drives close to price-competitive with 3.5" drives are those shucked from portable drive caddies, which means losing warranty and potentially using lower binned drives. And needing to dodge the SMR minefield. And tolerating lower read/write speeds and higher latencies. Though it's tempting just to be able to stick the whole array in a single 5.25" bay.

In addition to the Silverstone DS380 there is the Norco ITX-S8 which also has 8 hotswap 3.5" bays. It's taller than the DS380, but 'shorter' with a smaller footprint due to the motherboard sitting under the bay stack rather than behind. Doesn't look as nice as the DS380, requires a 1U PSU rather than SFX, and is harder to find for direct sale (in the UK at least).

 

[zovc]

While I agree that 8x3TB is great value, it limits my ability to expand without tossing old drives. (Which, that is probably good practice.) I can settle for a few large drives--maybe even just two--and scavenge a few 1-3TB drives from old builds or wherever else until I can upgrade those.

Here's another question: I've heard it's wise to 'split up' your drives between different manufacturers or generations or even just retailers to help avoid getting all of your drives from a 'bad batch.' If these drives are from pretty significantly different times/series/use cases, will I end up suffering in terms of performance when I'm using software 'RAID'/pairity solutions like Unraid?

 

[HansWursT619]

HP Microserver Gen 8. £150 ish, 4 bays, 2 network ports, ilo.

Or the good old Gen 7, they are dirt cheap now. In my opinion it can still hold its ground. Even if the Processor is not the fastest, it is more than fast enough for a NAS. In 14.5L it can hold 6x 3.5" drives, 4 in hot swap and 2 in the ODD bay. And with an extra controller card, you can throw at least two more 2.5" drives below the ODD^^

 

[Phuncz]

Here's another question: I've heard it's wise to 'split up' your drives between different manufacturers or generations or even just retailers to help avoid getting all of your drives from a 'bad batch.' If these drives are from pretty significantly different times/series/use cases, will I end up suffering in terms of performance when I'm using software 'RAID'/pairity solutions like Unraid?

That's mainly enterprise hoodoo-voodoo, although there is logic behind it. You could always get 3 drives from one shop and 3 identical ones from another a week or two later, that would give you some odds of getting a different batch. The failing batch thing is a rare occurance in itself. Just make sure you have either quickly buy a replacement drive or have one stored somewhere. I have had a 2TB drive in my desk drawer for quite some years now, never went out of it's packaging. But atleast I can quickly replace a failing one and plan ahead if another starts failing/

 

[zovc]

Okay, here's an update and a few new questions stemming from what I found:

I was poking around on pcpartpicker hoping to find an inoffensive case that had lots of 5.25" bays, since I could just install my own hot-swap bays in said slots. I actually found something.

iStarUSA has two interesting cases, a 7-bay mini-ITX case and a 9-bay micro-ATX case. (They also have a 5-bay mini-ITX case and a few sff cases that might pique some of you folks' interest.)

These cases look pretty appealing and I like how conservative they look compared to the tower cases that accommodate several 5.25" bays. Obviously they take up a fair amount less space than a tower case would, too. I'm a little concerned with heat, having HDDs in there with only one exhaust fan. On to the questions that these cases rise:

• Is it feasible to hook more than ~8 HDDs up to a motherboard? Most boards seem to have headers for somewhere between 4 and 9-10 drives.
  • Trying to figure out if it's better value to go with a separate CPU/Mobo or just get one of those Atom boards. I think it was U-NAS or one of the other 'OEM' NAS manufacturers who extended their warranty by a year saying they're confident in the Atom chips/boards they are using.
  • I know there are controller/RAID cards, but they seem pricey. The best value I saw after a short bit of looking was 4-SATA III headers for $30. (Which that's pretty good value, I think. Just "only" adding 4 ports with one expansion slot feels bad.)
• The iStarUSA cases look roomy enough that it seems like extra fans could be added to the case.
  • How hard is that to do? It seems pretty basic.
• Do you have any recommendations on 5.25" drive bay solutions?

 

[Phuncz]

This is a popular HBA (Host Based Adapter):

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0034DMSO6/?tag=theminutiae-20
Known as the IBM ServeRaid M1015 or LSI SAS9220-8i. They come standard in IR-mode (RAID), but can be flashed to IT-mode (independent drives). You want the latter for ZFS and other more resilient file systems

It uses SFF-8087 connectors that can either go to a backplane with another SFF-8087 connector or just plain ol' SATA. You can find these new quite cheaply and used even cheaplier ! Just an idea if you run out of motherboard ports

 

[zovc]

Hey cool!

So, would that come with two of those 4(?)-connector SATA cables? Is the flashing process complicated or is it as simple as a program run in Windows?

 

[Phuncz]

The cables aren't included, though in the Amazon link you can see them "bundled" below and that they're not expensive. The firmware tutorials are available online, one example: https://www.servethehome.com/ibm-serveraid-m1015-part-4/