RAID Storage

Chris_83

Chris_83

Chris_83

Associate
Joined
6 Apr 2007
Posts
306
Location
Hull, UK
Since buying my iMac I've realised I don't have anywhere near the amount of storage space I need. I've decided I need something with RAID 1 and for the moment 500gb will probably be a nice ball park figure, however I may want more later. I've looked at a few NAS devices ( in the £200 range ) and they look fine but upgrading them seems like their downfall. I also want something that is near enough silent.

I've been thinking about getting a mini-itx board and processor (fanless), sticking it in a full size case and sticking something like Linux or FreeNAS on it, perhaps booting from a CF card or USB stick.

Anyone ever done this? Any thoughs? Pitfalls?
 
Mini ITX is one option, I've been playing with a EPIA 533 board. Downfalls include network speed under freenas, typically 6 MB/sec though the onboard 10/100 nic or 10 MB/sec with a gigabit interface. Unfortunately it's not USB bootable so that leaves 2 IDE drives sharing a channel.

I did get a better Spec EPIA -SP board from an auction site but it's faulty so can't comment.

Trouble with a lot of the EPIA boards is they only have 10/100 lan and only a few have SATA and they cost a lot.

Currently I'm setting up an old opteron 165 in a A8V-VM SE mainboard. I didn't have much luck with freenas and this setup, the onboard 10/100 was fine, could get 8MB/sec but the PCI-E gigabit card was bery slow 1-2MB/sec. obviously an issue.

I've got as far as setting up XP so now need to configure the two SATA ports for raid 1 with a couple of 250G sata drives I have lying about. I'm betting this will be a lot faster than freenas for throughput and somewhat amazingly with a single drive it idles at ~40W vs the EPIA which sits at 35w on the same psu with a single drive.

My advice would be don't get hung up on mini ITX or freenas, they are ok but an matx mainboard with a cheap processor could give you some valuble options.

1W = approx £1 per years assuming 24/7 running.

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Well, my first thought would be why MiniITX? MiniITX is much more expensive and more restricting than a larger board. If your going for a full case, get a cheap full ATX board off the bay, with SATA ports galore.
 
Chris_83 said:
Since buying my iMac I've realised I don't have anywhere near the amount of storage space I need. I've decided I need something with RAID 1 and for the moment 500gb will probably be a nice ball park figure, however I may want more later. I've looked at a few NAS devices ( in the £200 range ) and they look fine but upgrading them seems like their downfall. I also want something that is near enough silent.

I've been thinking about getting a mini-itx board and processor (fanless), sticking it in a full size case and sticking something like Linux or FreeNAS on it, perhaps booting from a CF card or USB stick.

Anyone ever done this? Any thoughs? Pitfalls?
Click to expand...


ooooooooops - I know of a large PC shop that has a 500GB NAS box for £99!!!!

khushy
 
Last edited:
Oh dear with the competitor in there. I'd remove that sharpish if u dont want a slap on the wrist.

Must be that Monday feeling
 
I was thinking mini-itx purely for the power consumption and noise. I already have a linux server with a 250gb drive thats running samba shares, however it sounds like a vacuum cleaner on turbo charge.
I'll investigate the mATX route with a slow desktop cpu.

Cheers
 
All you need then is an upgrade on the Linux server.

New case with a couple of slow 120mm fans

New CPU cooler - zalman

A selection of HDD's for a nice raid array

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