Linux, USB, NvRaid and NAS

[hardwarekid9756]

A little background: Ok, so, i did some sleuthing on the boards, but haven't found anyone with my exact question. I've got an nForce 650i that's soon to hit retirement when I upgrade to an i7. I'm going to be stripping the processor out to use in a new 9300 rig (as soon as I can find one!) and turn it into an HTPC. That leaves me with some extra ram (I'm keeping 1 2GB stick for my HTPC, donating 2x 2GB sticks to my bro's rig, and that'll give me 1 2GB chip left for this build). I was thinking of buying a cheesy GFX card and Celery or something and dorking around with liquid PC cooling and deep-freeze refrigeration (essentially, submersing the rig in a dielectric oil, running cables out of a deep-freeze freezer and then overclocking. Haven't seen it done yet and thought it'd make a nice Youtube video). But this brought about my question. I am currently housing a 1TB backup drive in my current PC, and with all the videos I download, and my roomies all store their music and movies on my drive, It's getting full. I was thinking of just slapping another 1TB drive, mapping it as a video folder and having it house just videos, etc. But then I got the idea: Maybe I can use the Mobo for a NAS. I could slam a cheapo GFX in there, a cheap proc (805Ds are going for remarkable prices these days and overclock really well on air) and then run a Linux SAN/NAS server off a USB key. I'd need to use the on-board nvRaid (probably would do 3x 1TB drives with either bit-parity or spare-drive, not sure yet). I can't find any linux distros that adverstize this ability, nor can I find any forums or walk-throughs for places to start.

Now the question: Does anyone know if there is a linux distro that can boot off a USB drive, handle nvRaid in either Raid 3 or 5 (preferably RAID5) and function in the capacity of an NAS or SAN?

 

[malveaux]

Heya,

So what you need is USB bottable, has RAID capability, and supports RAID5, and basically work as a NAS for you. But you're thinking Linux? Linux is not needed my friend. Even more simple. FreeBSD. Thus -> www.freenas.org "FreeNAS". Completely free. Stupid simple to setup. Video, click by click tutorial for all of this too. You don't even need video once you set it up. It operates completely headless and without inputs once setup, so you can just have the box plugged in and nothing else and forget about it. It just powers up, boots, serves. You don't need a heavy operating system like Linux to do this function. A simple, very simple operating system is better. FreeNAS does this. FreeNAS even will do RAID for you, albeit software, but it's pretty damn good.

If you're hellbent on Linux though, Ubuntu is popular, can be installed and booted from USB, has native RAID support and will certainly use your nvRAID and handle RAID5. It's going to take a lot of command line work to set up the NAS/access for the network, but if you're willing to commit, it will work and is a very functional operating system. Way more than what you need for this task.

Ultimately, I'd suggest you use FreeNAS or unRAID. Google them both. FreeNAS is 100% free. unRAID is free, but to enable use of 6+ drives with it, they require a fee. But it's really good and the name gives you a clue that it's built for making a RAID NAS.

Personally, I use FreeNAS in an old ass dell shell on a dinky old celeron. It serves several drives and works perfectly fine. It's quiet and doesn't take up much power to run itself in standby so it only really uses power when it's under full load--which isn't all that often, kind of the nature of NAS anyways. Takes like 5~10 minutes to setup after you install it to your booting device (cdrom, floppy or USB). You can even add USB harddrives and they will be added to the NAS. Complete WebGUI for configuring, so you just turn it on and set things up from any other computer with access on the network you've got it on. It's easy and fantastic.

Cheers,