Storage advice please: data/server/NAS?

alexkyriak said:
Am I missing something here in terms of assessment of price to performance and considerations for redundancy, different number of disks, usage, etc?
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Yes that RAID5 is generally a bad idea at larger drive sizes, due to the time taken to rebuild, or the risk of trying to back the data up when a drive has failed (due to the increase I/O).

Personally I'd either be looking at a 5 bay and running it in RAID6, or 5 bay with a 3 disk RAID5 and a 2 disk RAID1.

Either that or buy a cheaper 2 bay NAS and run it in RAID1 for irreplacable data, and a separate 4 bay NAS in RAID5 for your less important media etc to maximise capacity.

Another option could be to look at an Unraid DIY nas build, which gives RAID5 levels of data recovery i.e. via a parity volume, but will less of the complexity and risk
 
I'm never happy with using RAID5 or 6 with the minimum number of drives as, if one fails, the RAID is then below the the minimum level and I don't see how it doesn't lose data. I have a recollection that the Microsoft documentation for SBS that I was installing for a customer many years ago said not to do it. But I have a spare NAS, a few 3TB HDDs so it wouldn't take long to set it up and find out.....
 
Snapshot said:
I can give you a choice of two if you'd like to put something in the Wanted section.
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Thanks but I want a board with 10 Gb Ethernet and plenty of cores and RAM for VMs. I was looking at an Asrock Epyc 3521 board or a Supermicro X12 SDV but neither are actually available.

Spec me a server ITX motherboard with 10 Gb ethernet that isn't Asrock

I've just been told that Asrock have a supply problem getting Intel 10gbe chips and none of their boards are currently available. I was looking at the ASRock Rack EPYC3251D4I-2T (8 cores, 16 threads) for a TrueNAS server but that's obviously out now. So what else is available? I also need 6 SATA...
forums.overclockers.co.uk forums.overclockers.co.uk
 
Armageus said:
Either that or buy a cheaper 2 bay NAS and run it in RAID1 for irreplacable data, and a separate 4 bay NAS in RAID5 for your less important media etc to maximise capacity.
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Quartz said:
Don’t. Mirror or RAID 6 / Z2. The problem is the Uncorrectable Bit Error Rate and the rebuild time. Today’s high capacity drives leave RAID 5 vulnerable to errors during the rebuild process which can take a very long time.
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Ok, I'm getting a strong whiff of "RAID5 = bad". I have been reading up on this, I can see the point. Is 8tb/10tb classed as "high capacity"?

@Armageus I quite like the concept of 2 bay nas for RAID1 and 4 bay NAS for RAID5, partly on the basis I'd quite like to use my existing drives from the WD duo for a RAID1. I think I have read that in a 6 bay station I could run two RAID volumes, is that correct? Ie out of 6 disks, 2 in RAID1, and 4 in another RAID config: 5,6,etc? Or, at this juncture, I could go the DIY route and set up a small dedicated PC build running as a NAS box.
 
Considering a self build nas box around an i3 intel BX8070110100 or a 10th gen i5 10400. Any opinion on these CPUs? And a decent motherboard? Will need 6x sata ports, and two m.2 nvme. Finding it hard to work out what’s the best motherboard for this type of setup. Also thinking to have the cpu with iGPU capabilities Thanks guys :)

Will need 2x m.2 slots. One of them I could populate with a SATA IO daughterboard to achieve the SATA ports required. Thinking a 5 drive system running RAID6.
 
Having a hard time finding a good combo of either intel or amd. I wanted to get a cpu with display abilities (either an igpu intel cpu, or g-type amd cpu), and a mini-itx mobo with 2 m.2 slots (1 for cache, 1 for sata riser io), relatively minimal on power consumption, and relatively cheap. Can't seem to find anything that ticks all the boxes, and in stock, at the same time! Ideally after an i3 10th gen, or, equivalent amd spec. Any pointers most appreciated, cheers. To fit in an N1 Jonsbo mini itx 5 disk chassis.
 
There are very few mITX boards with two M.2 slots as there just isn't the space for them. The only place for the second slot is underneath which is not ideal.
Do you have plans for the PCIe slot as you could add a SATA card there. I have an 8th/9th gen mITX board (ASRock H370M-ITXac) with six SATA ports which I keep thinking I might build into a NAS in my In-Win MS04 but then not bothering. It's the only mITX board I've ever seen with more than five SATA ports.
 
Great idea on the PCIe SATA cards. Just checking these out, not all support RAID it seems, though? Or at least, some seem to support "soft" RAID, and some support RAID1, but not RAID6. Will keep checking but can't see anything that states it'll do RAID6.

Edit: Aaaanddd... RAID6 needs to be specifically supported by the motherboard? Yikes, that makes it harder again. Hadn't realised some boards only support RAID0/1/5/10
 
alexkyriak said:
Great idea on the PCIe SATA cards. Just checking these out, not all support RAID it seems, though? Or at least, some seem to support "soft" RAID, and some support RAID1, but not RAID6. Will keep checking but can't see anything that states it'll do RAID6.

Edit: Aaaanddd... RAID6 needs to be specifically supported by the motherboard? Yikes, that makes it harder again. Hadn't realised some boards only support RAID0/1/5/10
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Generally if you are doing a "self-build" NAS, then you don't want cards that support RAID at all - you just want cards that are just dumb SATA ports. You also don't use any RAID functionality from the motherboard.

You'd then run an OS designed specifically for NAS use such as Unraid (JBOD with Parity) or TrueNAS (ZFS - RAIDZ = RAID5, RAIDZ2 = RAID6 equivalent) that take care of managing the disks and the required data protection.
 
Hey thanks for that. Hadn’t fully appreciated how the management side works. Yes was planning to run TrueNAS and as you say it has its own system. Need to read up more on the set up clearly! But Z2 is what I’ll opt for. Much appreciated.
 
Couple more questions please lads:

1. For a NAS is there any benefit of going to an nvme drive for the OS, or is standard SSD fine? I assume the latter?

2. Does a home NAS benefit from a cache disk? If so, nvme or ssd? Have read that for consumer media use, it's not necessarily a benefit. Linus Tech Tips added an optane 32gb nvme as a cache to their N1 NAS build, but didn't really explain why. Mu intended usage will be for media server and a file storage (photos, some light work, general files).

3. My disks arrived, but won't be assembling the rest of the NAS until I sort out the motherboard and cpu selection. I presume good practice is that I should test them first in a caddy on another pc.

4. Any technical reason why it would be bad to run an 11th gen z590 motherboard but with 10th gen i3 cpu? EDIT: some z590 boards running 10th gen cpus seem to limit the ram speed

EDIT: Eyeing a H510M-ITX/AC Asrock H510M-ITX motherboard.

Cheers.
 
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1. Yes, no real need for NVME as the OS is pretty small and it's not as if you'll be rebooting it often. The only advantage of NVME is that it saves a SATA port.
2. I don't think cache is likely to be of much benefit. I took the NVME card out of my new NAS to make space for a 10GbE NIC.
3. Yes, good idea.
4. I have a 9th gen mobo with a 8th gen CPU and it's fine. If in doubt, have a look at the CPU compatibility list on the mobo manufacturer's web site. Don't wonrry about RAM speeds - you're building a NAS, not a gaming PC. Save money and buy 2400MHz RAM.
 
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