Overview of my Home NAS 2011 Project
I’ve currently got no decent storage at home and I’m in need of a professional, mature storage solution. I’ve got a ton of data I need to store and keep safe. I want to build a solution that will last for years. I’m a network engineer and have rack in my basement this solution will go in. So, on to the project! I’ve got an older AMD board w/ a 4600+ cpu & 8GB of DDR2 installed that I’m trying to recycle into a NAS build. The hardware for the build is listed below.
EVGA 122-M2-NF59-TR AM2 NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI MCP ATX AMD Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188016
I’ve already got this board, it’s in a system not being used. The CPU is a 4600+, 8GB of DDR2 G.Skill & a 750watt PSU.
NORCO RPC-3216 3U Rackmount Server Case - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811219034
Planning on this NAS Server case. It’s got 16 hot-swappable sata I/II HD chassis and 4 internal reverse 8087 mini-sas connectors.
LSI MegaRAID Internal Low-Power SATA/SAS 9240-8i 6Gb/s PCI-Express 2.0 RAID Controller
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118127
Most importantly, this is a PCIe 2.0 card. Note that my board does not have any PCI 2.0 slots, but it has 2 PCIe1.0x16. It has 2 8087 connectors, which provide connectivity for 8 sata II drives. I’m planning to buy one of these cards to start, and a second sometime in the future if I ever need more than 13TB of storage.
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F4 HD204UI 2TB 5400 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152245
These seem to be a good buy.
Here are my questions & concerns:
1. PCI2.0 card in a 1.0 slot
The biggest question I have is: Can anyone confirm that the PCIe2.0 Raid Controller will work in my MB’s PCIe1.0x16 slots? From what I’ve read, it will work, but it will only have 3.0Gbps of bandwidth. Since this setup will never come close to pushing those speeds, this should work without any problems. Right?
2. 8087 Mini-SAS & SATA II
It seems all the new raid controllers are using these connectors. I think that the case, controllers, and drives I’ve selected should support this architecture. Are there any considerations I’m missing here? Any other design considerations I should reconsider?
3. OS/FS/NFS
I’m planning on using FreeNAS 8.x as the OS with ZFS as the FS & NFS as the NFS . I’ve got linux, osx & windows hosts on the network. Planning on a future vmware esx implimentation. Looked at some comparisons between NFS/SMB/AFP/iSCSI - it looks like NFS will work best in general over layer 2. Is there a better solution out there?
4. Raid Design
I currently don’t have a NAS or backup solution at all. I’ve got approximately 5TB of data at home in misc locations. No centralized storage or backup - not a good situation to be in. I know that a single host with a raid array is not a backup solution, but it’s all I’m going to have for a bit. With this in mind, configuring the disks as a raid-5 array be the best option?
5. Backup Solution
My goal is to get this up and running that I have some redundancy in my storage (yes, this is only a first step) and not a viable long-term backup solution. Once the first NAS is up and running, I plan to build a second NAS using the same case, raid controllers & cards, but with a better motherboard (specifically with PCIe 2.0 slots), processor, and RAM. This NAS would become the primary, and the secondary (the one I’m currently building) would simply be configured to mirror the primary. Any problems with this idea? Any suggestions?
6. Future Expansion
I’m starting off with a single MegaRaid card and 8 2TB drives. This should give me approximately 13TB of usable space. Based on the build, I should in the future be able to simply buy a second card & 8 more disks, creating a second 13TB raid volume then adjust the ZFS volume to include that raid array, increasing the total size to 26TB. No problems there, right?
7. What have I not considered? What problems have I missed?
I’m a network engineer, not a storage guy and this is my first NAS build, so I know there are probably a lot of things I’m not considering or can do much better. Suggestions are very much appreciated.
I’ve currently got no decent storage at home and I’m in need of a professional, mature storage solution. I’ve got a ton of data I need to store and keep safe. I want to build a solution that will last for years. I’m a network engineer and have rack in my basement this solution will go in. So, on to the project! I’ve got an older AMD board w/ a 4600+ cpu & 8GB of DDR2 installed that I’m trying to recycle into a NAS build. The hardware for the build is listed below.
EVGA 122-M2-NF59-TR AM2 NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI MCP ATX AMD Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188016
I’ve already got this board, it’s in a system not being used. The CPU is a 4600+, 8GB of DDR2 G.Skill & a 750watt PSU.
NORCO RPC-3216 3U Rackmount Server Case - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811219034
Planning on this NAS Server case. It’s got 16 hot-swappable sata I/II HD chassis and 4 internal reverse 8087 mini-sas connectors.
LSI MegaRAID Internal Low-Power SATA/SAS 9240-8i 6Gb/s PCI-Express 2.0 RAID Controller
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816118127
Most importantly, this is a PCIe 2.0 card. Note that my board does not have any PCI 2.0 slots, but it has 2 PCIe1.0x16. It has 2 8087 connectors, which provide connectivity for 8 sata II drives. I’m planning to buy one of these cards to start, and a second sometime in the future if I ever need more than 13TB of storage.
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F4 HD204UI 2TB 5400 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152245
These seem to be a good buy.
Here are my questions & concerns:
1. PCI2.0 card in a 1.0 slot
The biggest question I have is: Can anyone confirm that the PCIe2.0 Raid Controller will work in my MB’s PCIe1.0x16 slots? From what I’ve read, it will work, but it will only have 3.0Gbps of bandwidth. Since this setup will never come close to pushing those speeds, this should work without any problems. Right?
2. 8087 Mini-SAS & SATA II
It seems all the new raid controllers are using these connectors. I think that the case, controllers, and drives I’ve selected should support this architecture. Are there any considerations I’m missing here? Any other design considerations I should reconsider?
3. OS/FS/NFS
I’m planning on using FreeNAS 8.x as the OS with ZFS as the FS & NFS as the NFS . I’ve got linux, osx & windows hosts on the network. Planning on a future vmware esx implimentation. Looked at some comparisons between NFS/SMB/AFP/iSCSI - it looks like NFS will work best in general over layer 2. Is there a better solution out there?
4. Raid Design
I currently don’t have a NAS or backup solution at all. I’ve got approximately 5TB of data at home in misc locations. No centralized storage or backup - not a good situation to be in. I know that a single host with a raid array is not a backup solution, but it’s all I’m going to have for a bit. With this in mind, configuring the disks as a raid-5 array be the best option?
5. Backup Solution
My goal is to get this up and running that I have some redundancy in my storage (yes, this is only a first step) and not a viable long-term backup solution. Once the first NAS is up and running, I plan to build a second NAS using the same case, raid controllers & cards, but with a better motherboard (specifically with PCIe 2.0 slots), processor, and RAM. This NAS would become the primary, and the secondary (the one I’m currently building) would simply be configured to mirror the primary. Any problems with this idea? Any suggestions?
6. Future Expansion
I’m starting off with a single MegaRaid card and 8 2TB drives. This should give me approximately 13TB of usable space. Based on the build, I should in the future be able to simply buy a second card & 8 more disks, creating a second 13TB raid volume then adjust the ZFS volume to include that raid array, increasing the total size to 26TB. No problems there, right?
7. What have I not considered? What problems have I missed?
I’m a network engineer, not a storage guy and this is my first NAS build, so I know there are probably a lot of things I’m not considering or can do much better. Suggestions are very much appreciated.