N54L based storage box

[Raffles]

I've been lurking on here for some time, enjoying the ingenuity and useful insights since a colleague at a previous clients put me onto ZFS about 3 years ago. I've amassed 4 HP Microservers (2x N40, 2x N54) and an ML110 G7 which I use as VMware hosts and to experiment. There is also a home brew server which runs Win2008, my domain and storage.

I've made various attempts to setup a new storage resource but combinations of real-life, OSA and fluctuating income have meant they stalled. The most recent one was to use the ML110 as an all-in-one running VMware and hosting Nexenta or Napp-it and a Windows 2012R2 Essentials instance but it wasn't that straight-forward to setup so I've put it aside for the moment. I'll return to that later but I've decided to focus purely on storage. So one of the N54L's is getting upgraded to 16GB with the appropriate Kingston ECC RAM and having 4 x 1TB WD Red drives installed. I've got a Dell H200 which I'll cross flash to IT mode and a decent Intel server NIC. The current dataset is 700GB but expected to grow once I've implemented my Tivo replacement solution. So my questions to the panel are:-

Which storage OS? Nexenta or Napp-it (or Freenas)

Hard disk config? RaidZ1 or Raid10 equivalent?

Is an SSD for L2ARC worthwhile?

Thanks,

P.

 

[HellDiverUK]

At work I run a NL40 with 6GB RAM as an iSCSI target, purely for Backup to Disk for the 2008R2 servers. It has 4x2TB drives in it, and it's running NAS4Free (AKA FreeNAS8). I don't run ZFS, just a RAID 0+1. It runs over 100MB/s, so no problems with performance. It's also stable, it's only a few days off a year uptime.

 

[MiniKnight]

At work I run a NL40 with 6GB RAM as an iSCSI target, purely for Backup to Disk for the 2008R2 servers. It has 4x2TB drives in it, and it's running NAS4Free (AKA FreeNAS8). I don't run ZFS, just a RAID 0+1. It runs over 100MB/s, so no problems with performance. It's also stable, it's only a few days off a year uptime.

Sorry to ask. It's bare metal NAS4Free right?

 

[Stanza]

The H200 will sadly cook in the Microserver....... there is little to bugger all airflow across the pci-e slots.

Not that you should need it. Microserver effortlessly holds 6 x 3.5inch drives and has the ports for them.

Microservers love Xpenology. And will amaze you with the standard 1-2gb ram.

Add a NC360T (dual port lan card and an intel CT single port) and you have a speedy little nas with quad lan ports cheap.

grab a nexus double twin HDD bracket for the ODD bay and add another 2 drives up top...... should give you expansion down the track to 6 x 4tb drives ( or larger .......whatever is affordable when your ready and cashed up)

.

 

[HellDiverUK]

Sorry to ask. It's bare metal NAS4Free right?

It is, booting off a 2GB USB stick.

 

[wildchild]

The H200 will sadly cook in the Microserver....... there is little to bugger all airflow across the pci-e slots.

Not that you should need it. Microserver effortlessly holds 6 x 3.5inch drives and has the ports for them.

Microservers love Xpenology. And will amaze you with the standard 1-2gb ram.

Add a NC360T (dual port lan card and an intel CT single port) and you have a speedy little nas with quad lan ports cheap.

grab a nexus double twin HDD bracket for the ODD bay and add another 2 drives up top...... should give you expansion down the track to 6 x 4tb drives ( or larger .......whatever is affordable when your ready and cashed up)

.

Have had a m1015 running well over 2 years in a n40l.
Does that mean the n54 has a worse airflow ?
Had planned one for a client

 

[HellDiverUK]

NL36, NL40 and NL54 all have identical airflow. The only thing different is the CPU/APU soldered to the board.

 

[wildchild]

So what's the big difference between a m1015 and a h200 in heat production then ?
Just wondering if I should steer cream from them ;-)

 

[HellDiverUK]

M1015 uses 4.8W more or less, so I'm guessing the chip outputs 4W. My M1015 runs pretty hot, but not 'OMG my finger melted' hot, and that's in the low airflow of a PC-Q25B.

 

[Stanza]

Doh, brain fart I had,.......... sorry was thinking most Raid 5 type cards eg P410 etc

Must admit my H200 H310 etc run lots cooler than other SAS HBA's I have had.Still it's best to give them SOME active cooling tho.

.

 

[Raffles]

Microservers love Xpenology. And will amaze you with the standard 1-2gb ram.
.

Xpenology looks cool but after hearing too many horror stories about data loss when rebuilding arrays in proprietary NAS's I'm set on a ZFS based solution.

P.

 

[HellDiverUK]

Horror stories? Hmm...I don't think proprietary NAS units are any more of a horror than any other RAID system. RAID5 is totally outdated, so really anyone using it needs their head looked at.

A real Synology is just an ARM or Intel SOC running Linux. XPEnology is exactly the same OS running on an Intel PC. All they did was add drivers for standard PC hardware and produce a bootloader to get DSM running.

Also considering DSM just runs on mdraid, it's actually more stable and more easily recovered when something does go wrong, compared to hardware RAID. If a Synology RAID or hardware cocks up, you can stuff the drive in a PC running Linux and recover your data - good luck doing that when your hardware RAID dies and you can't get the same replacement hardware or firmware versions...

 

[Raffles]

Horror stories? Hmm...I don't think proprietary NAS units are any more of a horror than any other RAID system. RAID5 is totally outdated, so really anyone using it needs their head looked at.

A real Synology is just an ARM or Intel SOC running Linux. XPEnology is exactly the same OS running on an Intel PC. All they did was add drivers for standard PC hardware and produce a bootloader to get DSM running.

Also considering DSM just runs on mdraid, it's actually more stable and more easily recovered when something does go wrong, compared to hardware RAID. If a Synology RAID or hardware cocks up, you can stuff the drive in a PC running Linux and recover your data - good luck doing that when your hardware RAID dies and you can't get the same replacement hardware or firmware versions...

That's all well and good but I not looking at hardware RAID at all

 

[HellDiverUK]

So...you have no point at all then, because you're saying linux software RAID is better than linux software RAID. Have I got that right?

 

[rubylaser]

That's all well and good but I not looking at hardware RAID at all

As was said previously, XPEnology is a nice frontend for mdadm, a software RAID implementation that is very robust and proven. It has been available on Linux for years and still the main linux software RAID package. It was the go to software RAID implementation for years. HellDiverUK, was just saying that a person can choose to save a BUNCH of money by going with XPEnology vs. buying a Synology device and get better hardware at the same time.

 

[HellDiverUK]

HellDiverUK, was just saying that a person can choose to save a BUNCH of money by going with XPEnology vs. buying a Synology device and get better hardware at the same time.

Absolutely, I agree. XPEnology is great. However, Synology seem to be changing things in DSM updates that make it more difficult for XPE users to update. Each update seems trickier to get working on a non-Synology box, which is a shame.

I got a great deal on my DS214+/DX513 combo used, so that's the only reason I've gone with that. The Armada XP is pretty quick, more than adequate for what I do, and with 7 bays I've got plenty of future expansion.

 

[Raffles]

So...you have no point at all then, because you're saying linux software RAID is better than linux software RAID. Have I got that right?

No, you misunderstand me or I'm not being very clear. One my original questions was:-
"Which storage OS? Nexenta or Napp-it (or Freenas)"
So, in other words, which Solaris (or Linux) software RAID would be recommended?
Background
I've used Nexenta before and been quite impressed. But I've seen some discussion that Nexenta seem to be neglecting the community edition and that concerns me. Napp-it seems more fiddly to setup as do the other open Solaris versions. And my impression of the Linux ports of ZFS is of immaturity. But its a while since I've looked at them so maybe I need to spend a few hours digging around again.

You brought hardware RAID into the discussion:-

...compared to hardware RAID. If a Synology RAID or hardware cocks up, you can stuff the drive in a PC running Linux and recover your data - good luck doing that when your hardware RAID dies and you can't get the same replacement hardware or firmware versions...

Hardware RAID is not in the frame for the reasons you mentioned and plenty of others covered in these fora. However, if you found my response a little short I apologise. I was merely being brief and no offence was intended.

P.