Nas

kregoron · February 05, 2013, 07:19:14 PM

Quote from: TeaLeaf;366122Slightly old thread, but after months of looking at "huge sexy NAS systems that I can't afford" I took the plunge and bought an HP N40L today too with the intention of stuffing it full of decent-sized disks. Â£89.99 delivered after the Â£100 cashback from HP.
http://www.box.co.uk/product/id/1120795

Assuming the PSU can handle it, you can get up to 10 HDDs into this server if you start using 2.5" drives and internal 2.5" SATA bays. Seagate 3TB's are on offer atm for Â£100 from overclockers, but I might wait for a better deal to pop up.

Now I'm off to consider whether or not to use WHS2011 or something like Flexraid.

Flexraid is a odd size, it has some pretty damn nice advantages, like the option to add and remove devices to the array as you see fit, tho the performance is a bit weirdish at best...
You thought about using something as Freenas

TeaLeaf · February 06, 2013, 08:15:54 AM

Yep, I'm looking at FreeNAS too but have never used it before. What I really want is a Drobo/Synology-like raid solution where I can add drives of different sizes and expand the array over time as required. As I have not gone down this route before I need to research what the different alternatives are to see which one is best - the server will probably not be here until the end of the week anyway and I've not ordered any of the drives yet, so I have plenty of time to do more research. The community for these microservers is just huge, just like the amount of reading I need to do to get up to speed on all the things I can do with them!

kregoron · February 06, 2013, 09:41:06 AM

Quote from: TeaLeaf;366170Yep, I'm looking at FreeNAS too but have never used it before. What I really want is a Drobo/Synology-like raid solution where I can add drives of different sizes and expand the array over time as required. As I have not gone down this route before I need to research what the different alternatives are to see which one is best - the server will probably not be here until the end of the week anyway and I've not ordered any of the drives yet, so I have plenty of time to do more research. The community for these microservers is just huge, just like the amount of reading I need to do to get up to speed on all the things I can do with them!

I looked a fair bit on Synologys hybrid raid a bit back, but i just thought tho whole SHR raid system is weird, and could be disastrous if it fails.. its quite weird how its structures compared to other raids.
SHR allows for the use of different disk sizes in a single volume, to accomplish this the system splits each disk up in a series of blocks, lets say 2Gig each (the actually size is most likely much higher) it then adds all the blocks from the different disks into a big pool by using LVM and you end up with a single large volume, the structure is random and should be optimized from a performance perspective.. how they accomplish the data security im not really sure, must be some checksum blocks to restore other blocks from, a little like raid 5 blocks.

you should be able to do the same as LVM with LDM or storage spaces in Windows Home server... else i bet Freenas supports the LVM setup (or so does a freenas alternative)

TeaLeaf · February 07, 2013, 02:14:54 PM

Beginning to look like I'll end up with ZFS under NAS4Free (the continuation of FreeNAS) installed via a Live USB stick, leaving the full quota of drives available for storage. The research continues.

TeaLeaf · February 07, 2013, 06:44:57 PM

...and strangely the WD Red 3TB drives appeared on an offer this afternoon, so I grabbed 4 x 3TB drives to install in the N40L.

http://www.ebuyer.com/390986-wd-red-3tb-3-5in-sata6-wd30efrx

kregoron · February 07, 2013, 07:01:21 PM

the ZFS system is quite nice, havent had much time to test it myself nor read much, tho isnt the raid levels supported by ZFS pretty much the same as standard

Stripped and mirrored vdevs' (Raid 0 and 1)
RaidZ1 (Raid 5)
RaidZ2 (raid 6)
And so on.. Tho impacted by the same limitations when it comes to increasing the raid array?
Example, you create a RaidZ1 vdev with 4 drives, when you then want to expand the capacity, you can only expand it if you add another vdev (4 more disks) ? not entirely sure, tho i thought it could recall something like that?

TeaLeaf · February 11, 2013, 07:40:21 PM

....and my order for Reds was (effectively) cancelled (they said they had insufficient stock - despite the fact that they then had a bunch online showing as in-stock at a higher price). Found another supplier and ordered 5 x 3TB Red, but still undecided as to Raid-Z or Raid-z2 (the 5th disk is to give me the option of z2 but still retain a decent amount of storage).

kregoron · February 11, 2013, 08:50:21 PM

i guess you have to ask yourself, how important is the data?

TeaLeaf · February 12, 2013, 05:02:41 PM

Downloaded the Nas4free LiveUSB img from here.
Used Win32diskimager to write the .img to the physically very small SanDisk Cruzer Fit 16GB USB stick

Slammed the USB stick into the N40L and it booted right into NAS4free without any problems.
I bought 2x8GB DDR3 (Crucial CT102464BA1339) to upgrade the server RAM and I will install the RAM tomorrow to check it is accepted.
Then the disks will go in and raid-building will commence!

TeaLeaf · February 13, 2013, 08:24:36 AM

I swear that HDDs are like the Borg. They have a 'hive mind' and know what is happening to each member of the collective.

Knowing full well that I am picking up my 5 x 3TB HDDs this morning, one of my existing HDDs decided to fail this morning. :doh:

I hate the Borg...... :angry:

kregoron · February 13, 2013, 08:36:55 AM

Quote from: TeaLeaf;366589I swear that HDDs are like the Borg. They have a 'hive mind' and know what is happening to each member of the collective.

Knowing full well that I am picking up my 5 x 3TB HDDs this morning, one of my existing HDDs decided to fail this morning. :doh:

I hate the Borg...... :angry:

Let me guess, the disk was a month over warranty

TeaLeaf · February 13, 2013, 07:26:43 PM

Not checked it yet, but yeah I am guessing so!

The RAM upgrade to 16GB went fine (despite the spec saying 8GB max) and all the drives bar one are installed. I made the somewhat basic error of miscounting the number of slots the N40L has, I thought it came with a 250GB + 4 spare bays, but it is 4 including the 250GB. I've ordered a 5.25" to 3.5" rail which will arrive tomorrow, so I'll put the 5th HDD in the unused optical bay.

Thur/Fri should see some software install & config I hope!

Niel · February 14, 2013, 06:31:28 PM

Am just curious what people think of http://www.ebuyer.com/281915-hp-proliant-turion-ii-n40l-microserver-100-cashback-658553-421

With the Â£100 cash back it comes to only Â£119

kregoron · February 14, 2013, 09:22:47 PM

same box tl bought me thinks

TeaLeaf · February 15, 2013, 01:54:12 PM

Correct, same as the one I have which I obught for Â£89 net of rebates. If you wait a day or so I suspect you'll see it on sale for less then Â£100 net, there was a Â£92 deal which closed only an hour or so ago - keep an eye on HotUKdeals to spot it when it crops up.

I've put 5 x 3TB WD Red HDDs into mine and am running Nas4free from a LiveUSB stick (I flashed the BIOS to one that enabled AHCI on the optical port to which the 5th HDD is connected). The N40L is very well built, all the allen screws and the allen key are attached to the inside of the lockable front door. It's quiet too, it just has one big fan at the back. The community for these microservers staggered me when I first started looking into it. If you want to do something with an N40L then someone has already done it and put up a 'how to' guide, video and blog about it! Great little box and well worth the money. Â£92 + disk costs for what will be a 15TB NAS box is unbeatable imo.