BUILD Designing a server for cold storage, low availability?

[star]

Cool, thanks again for all the help guys.

I'm currently thinking about this setup for hardware:

• Case: U-NAS NCS-400 Available for $99 without the power supply, this case is tiny (and comes with the caveat of no English documentation and hardly any reviews), but this guy seems to have had some success with outfitting the case with a PicoPSU.
  
• Storage: 4x HGST drives TBD, 1x SSD for OS
• Mobo: ASRock C2750D4I Mini ITX Seems a little expensive at $399... Are there any other options out there that are cheaper but still provide enough performance?
• Mem: Plenty of ECC DDR3 8GB dimms around, shooting to get 16gb, anyone know where I can find the recommended RAM for this motherboard?
  
• PSU: PicoPSU or U-NAS built in PSU?

Does anyone here have any experience with PicoPSUs? Would 160W be enough for this 4 disk setup?

 

[Bidule0hm]

Does anyone here have any experience with PicoPSUs? Would 160W be enough for this 4 disk setup?

This a very bad idea, I wouldn't use a PicoPSU for a server.

 

[Ericloewe]

this case is tiny (and comes with the caveat of no English documentation and hardly any reviews)

And the airflow looks absolutely drive-frying awful.

Mobo: ASRock C2750D4I Mini ITX Seems a little expensive at $399... Are there any other options out there that are cheaper but still provide enough performance?

Avoton/Rangley is damned expensive. A C2550 should be cheaper and still fast enough for this application.

Mem: Plenty of ECC DDR3 8GB dimms around, shooting to get 16gb, anyone know where I can find the recommended RAM for this motherboard?

The Crucial DIMMs on the QVL are rather easy to find.

PSU: PicoPSU or U-NAS built in PSU?

I wouldn't trust either, to be honest.

 

[star]

This a very bad idea, I wouldn't use a PicoPSU for a server.

Why? My power consumption shouldn't be above ~120W. Are PicoPSUs notorious in practice, or in concept?

And the airflow looks absolutely drive-frying awful.


Avoton/Rangley is damned expensive. A C2550 should be cheaper and still fast enough for this application.


The Crucial DIMMs on the QVL are rather easy to find.


I wouldn't trust either, to be honest.

Is there a motherboard with the C2550 people recommend?

And as far as the U-NAS chassis, yeah, the lack of filtering options and rear-mounted fan is kinda a deal breaker. I *really* wish this was just a standard 5.25" bay, so you could put an IcyDock in it or something.

Otherwise, I'm between a Thermaltake Suppressor F51 (much better filtering than the Fractal Design, but I really don't want to stoop to Thermaltake's level), some cramped Lian Li garbage (I really would prefer to never have to buy another Lian Li case again), Caselabs (bye bye budget), or wait around for the Silverstone TJ-08PRO or PS-07E (I don't know why people fawn over the DS380, because personally, they look like junk).

 

[pirateghost]

Why? My power consumption shouldn't be above ~120W. Are PicoPSUs notorious in practice, or in concept?




Is there a motherboard with the C2550 people recommend?

And as far as the U-NAS chassis, yeah, the lack of filtering options and rear-mounted fan is kinda a deal breaker. I *really* wish this was just a standard 5.25" bay, so you could put an IcyDock in it or something.

Otherwise, I'm between a Thermaltake Suppressor F51 (much better filtering than the Fractal Design, but I really don't want to stoop to Thermaltake's level), some cramped Lian Li garbage (I really would prefer to never have to buy another Lian Li case again), Caselabs (bye bye budget), or wait around for the Silverstone TJ-08PRO or PS-07E (I don't know why people fawn over the DS380, because personally, they look like junk).

Asrock makes the exact same board as the 2750 you have picked out in a 2550 model

 

[Ericloewe]

There's also Supermicro's version, which needs SO-DIMMs but uses less power.

 

[Bidule0hm]

Why? My power consumption shouldn't be above ~120W. Are PicoPSUs notorious in practice, or in concept?

Because you'll need about 100 W for the drives to spin-up alone. Plus the PicoPSUs are designed for embedded systems in cars for example, not for 24/7 servers with important data on them...

 

[star]

Because you'll need about 100 W for the drives to spin-up alone. Plus the PicoPSUs are designed for embedded systems in cars for example, not for 24/7 servers with important data on them...

According to this document: http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/tech...6A273D0862577D50024EC1D/$file/DS5K3000_ds.pdf

I would need 120W for four disks for however long the startup sequence is. Then the disks should operate at <50W at load.

The PicoPSU's are pretty efficient according to this review from 2010.

I doubt because this is designed for embedded systems that it is somehow inadequate to deliver power 24/7...

 

[Bidule0hm]

It's just an advice, you can do whatever you want, no problem ;)

 

[gpsguy]

Perhaps @jgreco or @marbus90 will join the conversation. PSU's are one of their specialities. [emoji3]


Sent from my phone

 

[maglin]

If you are only backing up to 2.5TB and want to only power up once a week why not look into LTO4 tape drives? They are plenty fast enough and use almost no power just sitting in your case. I've been looking around and you can get a SAS LTO4 drive from $200-$300 on ebay. Then just pick up 4 tapes and rotate your back-ups. I'm willing to put money on it that it will be faster than waiting for the NAS to boot up, run maintenance tasks, and then back up your data. Oh and I imagine all that for %50 of the costs.

I imagine more and more of these tape drives will be showing up for sale as NAS/SAN backup solutions become the norm for medium and small businesses. There is also cloud based back-up solutions as well to be had for as little as $10/month. I was wanting to back-up my entire NAS on tape but after looking at it another NAS end's up being more economical in the long term as well as doing other tasks when it's not working as a back-up solution.

I'm new around here but these are just some thoughts. If you want to play with freeNAS and also end up with a back-up solution then have at it. If you are just looking for reliable back-up solution then tape seems to fit your small data back-up needs. Also if this data is something that needs security you can kept a set of tapes off site for the event your house/office burns down or is flooded. You can rotate those every quarter so you will never lose more than 3 months of data.

 

[star]

It's just an advice, you can do whatever you want, no problem ;)

Hey, I appreciate the advice! I hadn't considered the start up power requirements of the drives before. I still think the PicoPSU could be worth something in a very small form factor server. I am leaning more towards a larger case, however.

Perhaps @jgreco or @marbus90 will join the conversation. PSU's are one of their specialities. [emoji3]


Sent from my phone

More PSU advice would be awesome! I really just want something quiet and reliable. I've had terrible luck with noisy PSU fans and coil whine.

 

[anodos]

If you are only backing up to 2.5TB and want to only power up once a week why not look into LTO4 tape drives? They are plenty fast enough and use almost no power just sitting in your case. I've been looking around and you can get a SAS LTO4 drive from $200-$300 on ebay. Then just pick up 4 tapes and rotate your back-ups. I'm willing to put money on it that it will be faster than waiting for the NAS to boot up, run maintenance tasks, and then back up your data. Oh and I imagine all that for %50 of the costs.

I imagine more and more of these tape drives will be showing up for sale as NAS/SAN backup solutions become the norm for medium and small businesses. There is also cloud based back-up solutions as well to be had for as little as $10/month. I was wanting to back-up my entire NAS on tape but after looking at it another NAS end's up being more economical in the long term as well as doing other tasks when it's not working as a back-up solution.

I'm new around here but these are just some thoughts. If you want to play with freeNAS and also end up with a back-up solution then have at it. If you are just looking for reliable back-up solution then tape seems to fit your small data back-up needs. Also if this data is something that needs security you can kept a set of tapes off site for the event your house/office burns down or is flooded. You can rotate those every quarter so you will never lose more than 3 months of data.

I was actually thinking the same. LTO5 and LTO6 support ltfs, which makes them somewhat more flexible for one-off things.

 

[star]

I was actually thinking the same. LTO5 and LTO6 support ltfs, which makes them somewhat more flexible for one-off things.

If my budget were unlimited, I would probably look into tape drives, but for now I'll stick with cheap-o Deathstars.

 

[anodos]

If my budget were unlimited, I would probably look into tape drives, but for now I'll stick with cheap-o Deathstars.

On ebay you can get an LTO5 drive for around $700, which is less than you are budgeting for your NAS. This will also use significantly less power.

Tapes are relatively cheap and store well for long periods of time. If you use LTFS, then you don't have to worry about configuring bacula / amanda or fiddling around with mt. You can simply copy your data onto the tape like an external hard drive. It's not as sexy as building a NAS, and they both have their trade-offs. For long-term cold storage, it's hard to beat tapes (as long as you don't do silly things like wearing them out and not realizing it). In short, it's not a ridiculous proposal. It protects against some fail modes (you can stuff the tapes in a safe deposit box, at parents house, etc.), but not against others like bit rot. It is also somewhat slower to retrieve data.

 

[star]

On ebay you can get an LTO5 drive for around $700, which is less than you are budgeting for your NAS. This will also use significantly less power.

Tapes are relatively cheap and store well for long periods of time. If you use LTFS, then you don't have to worry about configuring bacula / amanda or fiddling around with mt. You can simply copy your data onto the tape like an external hard drive. It's not as sexy as building a NAS, and they both have their trade-offs. For long-term cold storage, it's hard to beat tapes (as long as you don't do silly things like wearing them out and not realizing it). In short, it's not a ridiculous proposal. It protects against some fail modes (you can stuff the tapes in a safe deposit box, at parents house, etc.), but not against others like bit rot. It is also somewhat slower to retrieve data.

I don't want to derail this thread any further with tape drive recommendations...

• $300-700 per drive is far out of my budget
• Recommending a single tape drive as an equivalent replacement for a FreeNAS server? Does FreeNAS suck that bad? :p
• I will get far more utility out of a NAS server should its use become redundant

I know there is some great defense for tape drives out there, but for the purposes of this thread, let's assume I will be using hard drives.

 

[cyberjock]

I don't want to derail this thread any further with tape drive recommendations...

• $300-700 per drive is far out of my budget
• Recommending a single tape drive as an equivalent replacement for a FreeNAS server? Does FreeNAS suck that bad? :p
• I will get far more utility out of a NAS server should its use become redundant

I know there is some great defense for tape drives out there, but for the purposes of this thread, let's assume I will be using hard drives.

Bold is mine. You only need one drive! You may want multiple tapes.

No, FreeNAS doesn't suck that bad. But it does suck if you take FreeNAS and try to bend it into things it's not designed for. For example, FreeNAS would make a very crappy desktop!

Honestly, I think the tape recommendation really is the way to go with this. FreeNAS doesn't handle well to being turned on and off on-demand. Tapes are designed for exactly that function.

But hey, you don't want to derail this thread with tape drive recommendations...

 

[mjws00]

I actually think it is primarily the thread title and first post that muddies the waters. The reality is OP is NOT concerned with leaving the server running. He thought it was smart and would increase longevity.

So the topic is really: I need a small backup server to store less than 3TB very reliably.

Correct me if I'm wrong, OP.

 

[star]

Bold is mine. You only need one drive! You may want multiple tapes.

No, FreeNAS doesn't suck that bad. But it does suck if you take FreeNAS and try to bend it into things it's not designed for. For example, FreeNAS would make a very crappy desktop!

Honestly, I think the tape recommendation really is the way to go with this. FreeNAS doesn't handle well to being turned on and off on-demand. Tapes are designed for exactly that function.

But hey, you don't want to derail this thread with tape drive recommendations...

To be clear, I don't necessarily want this server to be off all of the time, I was just wondering if FreeNAS could handle this, and if it would benefit the longevity of the system.

The last time I looked into tape drives I came to the conclusion that they have just as many pitfalls as hard drives. I wanted to go the FreeNAS route because of ZFS and the looming scepter of 'bit rot', whatever the hell that is, but it seems that FreeNAS doesn't really compete in the long-term backup realm(?).

I do have an old tape drive, let me see if I have anything that would be worth buying a couple of tapes off eBay. I wouldn't mind further diversifying my backups (please note this is not an invitation to recommend cloud storage/lock box/mailing drives to the moon/etc -- these are already part of my backup solution. I just need a 'home base').

I actually think it is primarily the thread title and first post that muddies the waters. The reality is OP is NOT concerned with leaving the server running. He thought it was smart and would increase longevity.

So the topic is really: I need a small backup server to store less than 3TB very reliably.

Correct me if I'm wrong, OP.

Yes! Exactly! Sorry for the confusion. Please keep in mind this is new territory for me and I probably have some key terminology ('cold storage' 'low availability' etc) wrong.

 

[maglin]

I apologize if I misunderstood what you said in your initial posts. I wasn't derailing but actually answering the questions you asked and also analysed some of the possible background data not mentioned such as (power usage, long term storage, and simplicity).

And don't take it as FreeNAS is bad. Quite the opposite. It's just designed for a few specific purposes and turning it off for long periods of time actually isn't helping with bitrot. Because that will happen while drives are powered down and it won't be fixed until the server is brought back online and Either that data is read or the vPool is scrubed. Read time intensive in comparison.

So maybe it might better to look into a SuperMicro 1U or 2U case from Ebay that already has a parallel backplane and redundant PSU's instead of getting a case and cheap single PSU. It's a tad bit more ($30-70) but if left on full time will use far less power and pay for it's self. If the size is the main issue then just look into getting a better PSU. Cheap (sub $80) PSU's are always suspect and can just all of a sudden not work until you remove all the load (HDD's) and then start to work again. These issues can cause you to pull your hair out when troubleshooting and does lead many people to replace good hardware with the end result being actually more total cost in hardware. I hope I explained that correctly. It's not the output I'm talking about but the actually build component quality and efficiency. Also the DS380 is a great solution as it uses large QUIET fans and supports hot swapping HDDs. But again you need a decent PSU and I would look at Silver and Gold efficiency PSU's for it as they use far less power when at idle.

And if budget is on the table I'll break down barebones system.
Case- DS380 $150 or your initial for $99
CPU/MB- : ASRock C2550D4I $299
RAM- 2x Crutial DDR3 1600 ECC 8GB $75ea.
PSU- Some Good Bronze PSU Silvertek (sp?) for instance $60
Total: $608 + shipping + HDD's

Another route
Case- SuperMicro 2U enclosure w/PSUs $200 on ebay (also don't have to worry about cooling as it's already installed)
MB- SuperMicro X10SLL-F $159
CPU- Intel Xeon Processor E3-1220 v3 3.1ghz Quad Core $190
RAM- Crutial DDR3 1600 ECC 8GB x2 $75
Total: $699 + shipping + HDD's

So the second system for $91 more is going to be far more powerful for future expansion and will work great out of the box. You'll also have 2 PSU's that have fail-over redundancy not to mention they are server grade power sippers at idle and will report to the system power usage and various statistics. Still it's your build but I was thinking of the same MB which is $100 more than the one I put in here and just cost analysis and future upgrade's the choice was clear to go with a rack mount solution. You also don't have to have a rack to mount it in as it can live under a desk (with ventilation) just fine.