Recommend me a NAS/Backup Server setup

My home network is long overdue for a non-attached to my main-computer backup/storage solution.
I have a spare chassis sitting next to me that (I believe) has 4 drive bays and motherboard RAID. It's a little noisier and power hungry than would be ideal, but (aside from the drives) this would be ready to load OS and go. As a bonus this spare rig should be meaty enough to run as a full HD media server without breaking a sweat.
Or I could get a Drobo FS, slide some drives in and be done. Is the drop-dead simple approach worth the premium?

Recommendations? What works for you? What OS would you use?

Guidelines: Space isn't really an issue. Yes, it needs to be a NAS.
I'd like this to be quiet if possible, something that would need to be addressed on the chassis I have available. Power isn't really an issue, but an efficient rig would be nice.

3 backup clients over the network. 3-5 Media clients if I go that route.

Thanks for your thoughts!

Well, an H61 or 67 motherboard (67 comes with more SATA connectors, I think, which could be important) with Intel networking and an i3 would be an outstanding file server. You could just run Linux software RAID, which is fast and fairly featureful. Put Ubuntu server on it, and you're in good shape.

Note that you also want some method to do backups. Without backups, a NAS of any type is a bad idea. RAID is not a backup, it's to prevent downtime from drive failure. RAID protects you from from the physical loss of one drive (or more, depending on how your RAID is constructed), but there are many, many other ways to lose data.

What I do on my file server is simply to run two RAIDs. I back up from one set of drives to the other. It's simplistic, and only gives me one backup version of my files, but it works, and at least theoretically, I can boot from the secondary RAID if the primary one fails completely. I probably oughta look into how to do a generational backup system; that'd probably be more useful than the simple rsynced copy-of-everything I'm taking now.

The server is QUITE noisy, but I avoid the problem by the simple expedient of putting it in another room.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: DroboFS

I've got a 5 bay with around 6TB of space (and the ability to upgrade any drive at any time). It's quiet (cant even hear it running), has the ability to run droboapps (media server, web server, etc on a linux back end) and just plain works.

I've been running it for over a year now and have never had ANY maintenance issues/problems/concerns with it. If you can afford one, it's worth it.

I still really love my Windows Home Server setup. Unfortunately, the newer version removed some of the features I loved such as the ease of adding a new drive to the "pool" instead of having specific drive letters.

But the backup functionality is top notch if you're using Windows, and I think it can be a Time Machine target as well.

I'll need to check what my motherboard supports, but my plan for the roll-my-own scenario was to use mirrored drives for my media in one group. Movies, music, stuff that won't have in-file changes but would just need space (with the original copies staying on my primary computer but freeing up the drive with the copies) And a mirrored drive pair with scheduled incremental backups for everything else with occasional syncs to the external drive that travels with my work kit.

Johnvanjim wrote:

I've said it before and I'll say it again: DroboFS...
If you can afford one, it's worth it.

That's good to hear. Definitely a strong contender for my 'screw it just throw money at it' side. What services do you run on it?

Just to offer a alternative to the Drobo (which I've heard good things about), I use a 4TB ReadyNAS NV+ that I have been very pleased with. I use it for general file/media storage, Time Machine backups and an iTunes streaming server.

jakeleg wrote:

Just to offer a alternative to the Drobo (which I've heard good things about), I use a 4TB ReadyNAS NV+ that I have been very pleased with. I use it for general file/media storage, Time Machine backups and an iTunes streaming server.

Hmm, I've been thinking about getting a NAS for a while too. Aside from the reduced setup effort (which may be considerable), what are the advantaes of using dedicated NAS hardware like a ReadyNAS compared to running something like FreeNAS off of a spare PC? Also, how much noise does your ReadyNAS generate?

The real point of differentiation with a dedicated NAS is the software. Most of them seem to offer features that are fairly involved to get working yourself, like automated storage expansion or Apple-style file sharing for Time Machine backups. Anything you see in those units you can likely get working on your own, but the time investment can be considerable, even if you're already good with Linux. Starting from scratch, with no special knowledge, and reimplementing all those features would be a huge project. Worse, there'd be no real guarantee you were doing it right.

A predesigned machine will just work out of the box without much fooling on your part, but will cost more, will lack flexibility, and won't usually have much CPU grunt. A do-it-yourself job is cheaper, almost always has a much better processor, and can run any arbitrary software you wish. If you want, say, a couple virtual machines on your server, no problem. I'm not sure the NASes are even running x86; they have Linux, but they could easily be on the cheap/slow/low power ARM chips.

Not having any direct experience with any of the commercial offerings, I don't know which has the best-designed firmware, but there's a LOT of potential for it to be done poorly. Polish is where they'll really differentiate themselves, and comparative reviews from people who have used more than one would be very valuable.

edit to add: FreeNAS might be just fine. Putting that on a PC will give you a much more powerful server. It's all about the polish, and I have no idea how good a job the FreeNAS people have done.

The only real hardware feature of a dedicated NAS is hotswap, and that's pretty cheap/easy to do yourself. You can either retrofit hotswap to a standard case with 4- or 5-in-3 hotswap bays (very noisy), or just buy a case with hotswap built right in (usually much quieter).

hannibals wrote:
jakeleg wrote:

Just to offer a alternative to the Drobo (which I've heard good things about), I use a 4TB ReadyNAS NV+ that I have been very pleased with. I use it for general file/media storage, Time Machine backups and an iTunes streaming server.

Hmm, I've been thinking about getting a NAS for a while too. Aside from the reduced setup effort (which may be considerable), what are the advantaes of using dedicated NAS hardware like a ReadyNAS compared to running something like FreeNAS off of a spare PC? Also, how much noise does your ReadyNAS generate?

My the NV+ has 4 bays which are hot swappable. The device is very quiet.

Thanks guys. I'm tinkering around attempting to get a netbook + USB hard drive running as a NAS, but there are some interesting NAS solutions by WD, Seagate and Buffalo that are smaller and cheaper that might be worth a look if you can pull out the drive and recover your data should something go wrong.

The only WD solution I've seen sucked HORRIBLY. It required Internet activation, and then if you lost your Internet connection, it would stop working. It's one of the worst products I've ever even heard of.

You really, really don't want DRM on your backups.

For an open source version of the 'original' Windows Home Server there is Amahi.

Chiming in for the DroboFS or other standalone NAS boxes... I have a non-networked DroboS myself, but I'd recommend their current product line to anyone that wants a low-maintenance storage pool solution. Anyone who can swallow the premium that they charge, that is... not exactly cheap stuff here.

Slashdot ran an article today or yesterday talking about this, and the cheap and easy solution was USB HDD w/ a cheap wireless router. However, they did mention that a FreeNAS box is probably the best solution out there for a windows based network while keeping it on the cheap. Newegg actually was running an i3 2100 based Shell Shocker combo deal earlier today/yesterday for $245 that seems like it would fit this bill pretty handily with some extra hard drives and anything else not included.

Was this the Slashdot article?

I also found an article on creating a NAS with a router and USB drive. It seems like you're limited to one hard disk, but the routers are very cheap at $30-40 a piece. So you could buy more than one for redundancy if you wanted.

Along similiar lines, a bunch of cheap USB NAS adapters came out a few years ago that are even easier to setup. These look useful too if you can find one that doesn't limit you to formatting the drive in FAT32.

hannibals wrote:

Was this the Slashdot article?

I also found an article on creating a NAS with a router and USB drive. It seems like you're limited to one hard disk, but the routers are very cheap at $30-40 a piece. So you could buy more than one for redundancy if you wanted.

Along similiar lines, a bunch of cheap USB NAS adapters came out a few years ago that are even easier to setup. These look useful too if you can find one that doesn't limit you to formatting the drive in FAT32.

Yep, that was it. Towards the end of the article linked from there, they talk about building a true NAS solution using FreeNAS; it's probably the direction I'd go over the Time Machine solution, even though it'd be more expensive.

And so it begins.
Newegg had a deal on WD Green 2TB drives ($70 with newsletter code) so I ordered two. Researching the Netgear solutions compared to Drobo and am liking the options/price break.
Looked at the power use of my old chassis and recoiled in horror.

Rezzy wrote:

That's good to hear. Definitely a strong contender for my 'screw it just throw money at it' side. What services do you run on it?

Using FUPPES for video/picture sharing across all gaming devices and PC's, MediaTomb for iTunes library sharing (with everything) and using it as an FTP server for remote access.

Granted, you already chose a solution, hop it works out well for ya!

Johnvanjim wrote:

Granted, you already chose a solution, hop it works out well for ya!

Not really. Still researching. At this point I've bought the first wave of drives to force myself into action. I like the extreme flexibility of roll-my-own, but will probably not even scratch the surface of the potential (because I'm lazy). I like the flexibility of the Netgear solution. USB expandability. Could damn near buy two 4 bay for the price of a Drobo 5 bay...
And then there's the Drobo FS. Sitting there, like a Boss. Just... working.

What OS are your PCs running?

I still highly recommend WHS for a cheap box with a bunch of drives attached. It is very well done, even if I'm bitter the newest version crippled it slightly by removing the drive pool solution. Even with that gone, there are several other companies releasing solutions to replace that functionality.

It's got dead simple backup and great bare metal recovery (takes me about 40 minutes from start to finish to be back exactly where I was backed up), very good media sharing, SSL protected remote access and web site (SSL cert probably worth a good portion of the price), nice mobile interface, etc.

I think I've seen the OS license for $50 lately.

Works most tightly with Windows, but can work for Macs, too.

I was looking at that review of FreeNAS, and it looks pretty good. Might be worth considering.

There's a small device called a Pogoplug that would be worth considering if you want a small low power NAS solution. It's similar to the DD-WRT or Tomato router method, but with different hardware specs. It seems that you can do some pretty cool stuff such as installing your own Debian distribution if you're willing to get your hands dirty.

Okay, so my first 4TB of drives were delivered today. On a whim I've downloaded the CD image for FreeNAS and I'll be messing with that and my spare desktop while doing some more research. If this does what I need it to do without too much fiddling then score one for lazy.

So I've got the FreeNAS image loaded on a 750 gig drive. Ethernet is connected, configured, and I've just created my first shared partition. Looks pretty slick and so far it seems to work nice. I'll be setting up the first 4 gigs directly for now and then ordering another drive pair to mirror. Momma always told me: never rely on the same batch of drives for all your data.
Exploring SyncToy for general backup duties to the shares.
Any recommendations?

First and strongest recommendation? Don't mirror.

That's not a backup, and it only protects you against one thing: downtime from drive failure. There's a zillion other ways you can lose data, and mirroring doesn't do jack for any of them.

Instead, set up the additional drives as a separate volume or volumes, and do backups.

Did you stripe those first disks? You make it sound like maybe you did. That's usually not a good idea, although it's possible ZFS may be able to compensate in some way. Maybe someone who's used it more than I have can chime in.

Malor wrote:

First and strongest recommendation? Don't mirror.

The mirroring will not be my backup. My main computer is the primary storage location (multiple drives with areas reserved to backup each other). The NAS will be the 2nd backup location for my media and incremental system backup target, currently spanning parts of disks 3 and 4 + external 500 gig on my main system. Since my main system is running out of space (and I'm hoping to add a solid state drive once prices reach sanity), offloading the second backup of my media should give me quite a bit of breathing room for Steam sales.
Since platters are relatively cheap I've decided to mirror the NAS to prevent downtime due to dead-disks and speed rebuilds. I had a media drive die a couple of years ago and I still haven't restored everything from my pre-dvd backup cds/original media. Too damn lazy.

EDIT: And for full disclosure... that's why I only ordered the 2-2TB platters for now. I want to make sure that 4TB will handle everything I need. If not then the mirroring plan goes out the window. Also the reason I wanted to try this before I spent money on a Netgear/Drobo solution that might end up being too small for my needs.

Update: Just tried running my first SyncToy routine on a 100+ gig folder. 5 processes finished and then the NAS disappeared from my network. I'm not at home to see if the box crashed or what happened so we will call this the first negative mark against FreeNAS.

Ok, you're using RAID the way it's intended then, carry on.

re:disappearing box, ouch. Hopefully it's just a misconfiguration somewhere.

By the way, if you have the option, it's better to set up mirrors of drives first, and then to stripe the mirrors. If you mirror the stripe, instead of striping the mirror, any two drive failures will definitely crash you completely. A stripe of mirrors can survive anything but both drives in the same mirror crashing. You get the same amount of space either way, but RAID 10 (a stripe of mirrors) is WAY more resilient than RAID 0+1 (a mirror of stripes).

Uh oh.
Looks like I may be running into a SATA DMA timeout issue.

How much are WHS licenses?

EDIT: Switched to FreeNAS 8.0 and am now caught in a loop trying to add anonymous access to cifs shares. Trying to create the guest account generates the message "Some Error has Occured!"

Rezzy wrote:

How much are WHS licenses?

$50

Which hard drives are the best one to go with as far as reliable and quiet options? I've been partial to Samsung drives, but I read that the most recent hard drives have had firmware issues.

Ouch, Samsung has been my go-to recommendation for quiet, decently fast drives. Western Digital would probably be my second choice. They're usually faster, but louder.

edit to add another thought: If you can still find them, the older Spinpoint F3s don't have any firmware bugs I've heard about.