Need a robust NAS system. Any pointers?

Forum Storage : NAS/RAID Need a robust NAS system. Any pointers?

I'm thinking of building an NAS server for my home / office.

Here is what my household currently has and what I'm doing with it.
Main machine:
Core i7 950
2xgtx570,
2x intel x25 ssd in raid 0
4x 1.5TB WD 5400 rpm in raid 10

2 Mac book pros used for work - each has a USB drive attached as time machine
An assortment of iOS devices including an apple tv.

Most of my storage is on the big machine and I'd like to move to someplace else.

Ideally I'd like to set something up that could stream lots of 1080 content via iTunes to apple tv and to have partitions dedicated to the time machine needs. It would have to play well with Mac and windows too.

I was thinking I would just buy a cheep mobo, raid card and go for it, but thought I'd check to see what anyone here recommends.

No heavy computing
Runs iTunes 24/7
Not loud or hot. I want to stick it in a closet.
Needs to be able to have pc and Mac partitions
Expandable and redundant.
I hope to not even have a keyboard or monitor near it.

Reply to neploon

I like DIY, but some commercial NAS pretty nice outhere.

To built as NAS is very easy, but you must determine what you want and need, like:
- Expandable
- What speed over 50MB/s, 80MB/s, over 100M/s
- How big is the new built storage volume that you need
- how much power this NAS can consume?
- Schedule shut-down?
- How many Media player that you want to stream

Message edited by FireWire2 on 07-05-2011 at 10:22:12 AM

Reply to FireWire2

Big fan of DIY. Also a big fan of FreeNAS. Built a NAS several years ago using FreeNAS as the OS; very stable and robust with no issues.

http://www.freenas.org

FreeNAS is compatible with Mac as it has AFP and also supports iTunes/DAAP (Firefly). Just be sure to verify the FreeNAS version for the services you want to run.

FreeNAS is also very easy on the hardware and is compatible with just about any/every hardware configuration out there. The older and more mainstream the hardware, the better. Any dual core proc made within the past several years and 2GB RAM is more than adequate.

I recommend a hardware RAID controller. The software RAID built into FreeNAS is robust but ups the hardware requirements. Also by choosing a hardware RAID controller, make sure there is an open PCI-e or PCI-X slot to take advantage of the full bandwidth of the controller.

Whether to DIY or buy prebuilt is a personal choice.

QNap makes some very compelling NAS devices; from $180+/- for a single hard drive device all the way up to $1550+/- for an eight hard drive device; and everything in between. Of course you have to buy the drives separately.

Again, if you're not afraid to DIY and learn some new warez, FreeNAS is an excellent option.

Good luck!

------------------------------ ASRock X58 Extreme i7 920 @ 4GHz 6GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3-1600
XFX 5850 CoolerMaster HAF 932 Corsair 750W
Reply to chunkymonster

My advice is that if the data is important to you then don't rely only on the NAS to protect it. If you don't back up your data to external media then it's vulnerable to many risks that RAID alone can't protect you from.

Message edited by sminlal on 07-05-2011 at 06:38:12 PM

Reply to sminlal

Thanks for all the tips. As I was afraid would happen, once I started reading about freeNAS, WHS, port multipliers, etc... I got sucked into the vortex of info and options available. It reminds me of the rabbit hole of water cooling that I'm just now climbing out of. I definitely want DIY and am very comfortable with the hardware. I'm just not sure which direction I should go in to start out. Let me explain what I have and what I want to do and maybe someone can tell me how they would go about it.

My wife and I both have mac book pros. Connected to each is a USB drive used for time machine and one or two firewire drives with work related files and archives.

Somewhat separate from this is my monster gaming PC. Its great for playing Metro 2033, but serious overkill for streaming itunes to the apple tv. It has 4-1.5TB drives in raid 0+1. All of my movies are also stored here.

What I would like to do is build a device that stores all of this and gets rid of all the external drives. It would need a place for time machine backups, places to keep all of my work related files and archives, places for music and movies. I would also like it to run itunes 24/7 so when I want to watch a movie on the apple tv I don't have to turn on the big water-cooled monster. I would still use the big one for transcoding videos but then load them into itunes on the new server.

I think 6TB is enough to start, but I'd want to expand to 12 pretty quickly.
I'd like to leave it on 24/7 and only connect a monitor to it if there was a major problem.
Low power and very quiet are important
I don't think speed is a huge concern, but 50MB/s writing would be nice.

Stuff I'm not clear on:
I think maybe it's a server I need, not just a storage device?
Would each of these "places" I refer to be partitions?
I think apple's time machine requires a dedicated partition and I'm not sure how that would mix in with everything else.

Anyone care to offer up a shopping list of what you would buy?

Thanks!

Reply to neploon

What's would be a good motherboard to start with?

Reply to neploon

Since it's a server, it would run 7/24/365. I prefer a low power ITX board.

Here is a pretty good ASUS Mobo - AT5MN10
1- Gb Ethernet
2- Lower power
3- Small
4- Low cost

If you want a better performance then look at at the Supermicro board with Intel GbE

Reply to FireWire2

I recently built a NAS with the following specs. I have it hooked up to a gigabit router and can easily stream 1080p .mkv files to my HTPC. I routinely get transfers around 75-90MB/s. I also implemented a PTPP VPN and can remotely access it when away from home. I decided to go with windows 7 for the OS, as it offered everything I need. However, if I ever rebuild it I will likely go FreeNAS for all the expanded options. Total price ~$690 after discounts at various vendors.

4x Samsung F4 2TB SATA Drives in RAID 5
40GB Vertex SSD (for OS)
Zotac ION ITX-L-E Atom 330 Mobo
HighPoint RocketRAID 2640x4 SGL Controller (You would want one with more ports if you want to expand past 4 drives)
Lian Li PC-Q08B Mini-ITX Case
Corsair CX430 430W PSU
Corsair 2GB DDR3 1333

Also, I run it headless and use RDP for managing it. Idle power consumption at the wall is ~55W.

Message edited by SingeMagique on 07-23-2011 at 04:53:12 PM

------------------------------ P7P55D-E Pro, Core i5 760, 16GB DDR3-1600, 120GB X25-M SSD, 1TB WD Black, Corsair AX750, GTX 570, NZXT Lexa Case, Windows 7 Pro 64-bit
Reply to SingeMagique

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