Networks Ideas for a NAS+ - suggestions more than welcome!!!

I remember Mashie making udat There are several clones with project logs if you look around the modding sites.
Something like that would be ideal for what I want, but these days I have no time for modding projects like that. I did find a case http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_1450.html but it's a bit big for what I wanted.

Anyway I've now placed an order for the VIA board and Chenbro case.

 

Cool! good luck with that. Keep us (or at least me lol) posted on the results of your system. I am specifically interested in the RAID performance if you go the software route.

I guess it's my turn to figure out my rig and get off my butt eh?

 

Haha, the DG45FC I have been growing more and more attached to isn't out yet! No wonder I couldn't find decent reviews/specs of the thing.

That said, I DID find that with a E7200 it draws about 53W of power playing back Blu-Ray encoded material (none of which has anything to do with my intended use, but the HTPC guys are drooling all over themselves for this one)

Very interesting stuff. At this point I am toying with the idea of rebuilding my current PVR setup around this (or something like it) and add the NAS stuff I have been mentioning here to that.

So many choices

 

what about this? http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=258223

Ive been considering this for my own project, so if anyone has any thoughts on it id be interested to know

 

Well, it doesn't mention RAID-5, which usually requires more processing power, which in turn usually makes the card more expensive. This looks like a "fake" hardware raid card and probably relies on offloading some of it's processing to the host computer. This would be very similar to RAID offerings on current motherboards.

From my little bit of looking, hardware RAID cards start at about 300USD and go up from there, which is why I was trying to avoid them.

 

If you click on the "special features" link at the bottom it does say "software RAID supported" so it's not hardware based, but it does look like a useful card for future projects.

I'll let you know how I get on with Linux software RAID when I get the funds to buy some 1TB hard drives (probably next month some time). I intend to get the operating system and the server stuff set up on a laptop hard drive first.

 

Sorry sir but you are wrong. This only effects windows boxes because of weird tricksy drivers which trick windows into believing you have a real raid card. On linux machines the software is contained in the kernel and core software and is nearly hardware agnosic. Ive swapped raids from one motherboard to a completely different one many times. As the only windows options are windows home server (which corrupts files), and windows xp/2000/9x unless you willing to pay ££££ for a proper windows server licence, im guessing this guys going to use linux.

 

Yes, I am at least 90% sure this will be a linux box. I have been through several iterations of hard drive partitioning and formatting in Linux OSs so far (mostly supporting the aforementioned MythTV box) so I am familiar with LVM, ext2/3, JFS and XFS - but no RAID, yet

I did do a bit of reading a few months back about ZFS. Does anyone know if the main Linux distros support ZFS yet? Last I read it was mostly (or entirely) an OpenSolaris deal.

 

Yeah, its not proper hardware raid, but it would do for me probably, the system id put it on for a server has dual 3.2ghz xeons but no onboard sata, so i could use ide for the system drive, its in a Tt Armour case, so i could put 2 of those 4drives in 3 x 5.25 bay caddy things in 8 x 750GB drives in raid 5 i could get 1TB drives i suppose, but they are around £100 whereas scan have 750GB drives for £60, so i could get 3 now and add more as needed.

 

Why not try OpenSolaris then? ive heard some good things about it, that way you can let me know how you get on with it before i take the plunge

 

If I got the NAS+ bittorrent route I just might. If I add PVR capabilities, chances are MUCH lower.

I was just investigating the possibilities of adding Azureus/Vuze to Opensolaris...

 

OK I have learned 2 things this afternoon.

One, ZFS is very cool and should be the main filesystem for every platform, period.

Two, Azureus is only available on OpenSolaris up to version 2.5.x officially. Bummer.

 

I was about to give in and go with a microATX sized board. Obviously, there are way more choices for cases, CPU and motherboard combos and such.

HOWEVER, I found a sweet looking little miniITX board that can sport an AM2 processor - meaning cheap 45w goodness!:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813153114

or better yet here:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/05/20/jetway-jnc62k-geforce-8200-mini-itx/1

For those not wanting to follow the linky its a Jetway JNC62K. It supports Dual Gig-E lan, 4xSATAII, and is on the Geforce 8200 chipset. Pretty cool. The best part is that I don't have to spend a ton of dough on a CPU and can get my pick of dual core CPUs in the 45w range from AMD.

Very cool. I think I might be using this motherboard with the Chenbro chassis mentioned above. More to follow.

 

Nice one there, make sure you update how it goes. Especially how that board performs for you.

 

My Chenbro chassis arrived today so if you need to know anything about it just ask.

 

Bozzy -

Well one thing come to mind at the moment.

What sort of clearance do they leave for the motherboard? Do you think higher chipset heatsinks would clear?

 

I haven't fitted the Motherboard yet but there's no more than 2 1/8" between the side panel and the Motherboard risers.

Just finished fitting the 2 1/2" hard drive and laptop DVD drive and things are getting cosy inside already.

 

UPDATE: It lives!

Was it really July when I first started thinking about this? Wow - talk about procrastination.

Anyway, I have a few things to add to the discussion again as I have purchased and assembled my NAS v.1. It has already been taken apart due to the swapping of a few key items, but more on that below.

I ended up convincing myself that what I needed was an LGA775 socket solution. This isn't as straightforward as it might sound as Intel did in fact improve the specs on their mini-itx Atom systems to include a dual-core CPU and GigE LAN - the D945GCLF2. On the face of it, this seems like a great board and by all accounts it is. It would be low power, low heat and low cost. The only trouble then became working out the storage considerations. I would have had to add a PCI-90deg riser and a 4-port SATAII card.

For around $50 more, I found that getting into LGA775 was totally feasible - so I did. About 2 weeks ago I purchased the following:

• Chenbro ES34069 Home Server case (like Bozzy, how is your's doing?)
• Intel DQ45EK mini-itx motherboard
• Intel e5200 Dual-Pentium CPU
• (1) G.Skill 2GB DDR2-800 RAM DIMM
• Dynatron P199 2-ball 1U CPU cooler
  
• (4) Samsung HD103UI "ECOGREEN" 1TB 5400 RPM HDs

The system assembly was straightforward. Chenbro tried to make the case as easy to use as possible and I think they have a pretty good layout right off the jump. They include locking SATA cables already installed. I had a bit of an issue with the motherboard not wanting to accept the CPU heatsink backplate (Dremmel) but everything else went together smoothly and quickly. Then the big problem - no where to install my OS.

Somehow, after months of planning, watching and researching it escaped my attention that the Intel boards DO NOT have an ATA connection or a 5th internal SATA (they DO have eSATA though). Umm...ok so I will just use USB to install and run the server. So for the next 2 days I fiddled with every version of Solaris and Xbuntu that I could. OpenSolaris was never able to run from USB, but Xbunutu did - in both LiveUSB and standard install using a USB HD. I finally got my system fully up and operational with RAID-5 across the EcoGreens.

I love these drives. They are cool and quiet and require very little power. Once I got files moving, I used hddtemp to show the drive temps every now and again. Even under load in a small case the drives never got above 30C (ambient room temp was something like 72-75F). (The Chenbro has 2 60MM fans on the back, that quite frankly may be overkill for these drives - tests to follow) Transfer speeds were also good with a few big file transfers in the 40-55MB/sec range from a Thinkpad with a crossover cable.

So, I met my budget and space requirements. The case itself looks great and doesn't take up much room at all. I am in the process of replacing the Intel parts with AMD - mostly to get some semblance of normality (the new board HAS ATA) and because the current LGA775 mini-itx motherboards get REALLY hot. Even with the CPU reading around 30C, I saw temps in the 90C range for the ICH10 and around 55C for the mobo in general. Adding a heatsink to the ICH10 helped drop its temps 15 degs C, but that's still too much - and it got me worrying about 24/7 operation.

A few other things for anyone else wanting to attempt this. OpenSolaris should allow you to use ZFS - which on paper at least looks like a VERY promising filesystem. It's easy to set-up and administer and its not likely to be outgrown soon. Torrentflux is a very cool app that allows you to download/upload bittorrents from any web browser, any where in the world, but it doesn't have enough scheduling/throttling features for my tastes. When I rebuild I plan to use Vuze and just upload torrents to it via Samba or even WebDav.

Any other questions or suggestions, I am here. Thanks!

 

Hi Shomann, I can't believe it was July either.

I've been getting on fine with the Chenbro, though i've still got to fit the 4 SATA disks in it. I've been running Ubuntu off a laptop IDE hard drive fitted under the optical drive. I'm still messing about getting all the server side stuff sorted first. Installing Firefly is proving to be a bit of a headache to be honest and has slowed things down until i've got a bit more spare time to spend on it (Probably be Xmas now ).

How are you running your RAID, software or hardware and how is it performing?

 

The Intel chipsets are built to last, that's for sure, even at 90C (or + heatsink) it should be fine.