[nmglug] RAID, SCSI vs ATA

[Nick Frost]

Tim Emerick wrote:

> I have a storage server setup at my house.  
> It's an old P2-400 with 2-250gb HD's (non-raided).  
> I'm constantly having to move files around to balance 
> them between the 2 discs so one doesn't fill up.  
 > I've been wanting to put together something together
> so I could have a storage area that just looks like a 
> big disk as well as maybe add some data protection 
>(family pix being a form of currency around here and all) and RAID5 has come to mind.
> 
> I recently came into a Dell PowerEdge 2500 server.  
> Anybody have any experience with this? or should I just go buy a standalone NAS box with 1TB of storage?  

Hi Tim;

You have a number of options, only some of which are outlined here.  An 
Infrant ReadyNAS barebones will provide you with an out-of-the-box NAS 
storage solution if you want to spend that kind of money.  We have a 
ReadyNAS 600 at work and it works reasonably well, has a web/gui for 
administration which simplifies maintenance.

If speed/performance are not considerations, a Linksys NSLU2 with 
UnSLUNg firmware and two external 750 GB USB drives in RAID-1 config 
would be an affordable way to provide some network storage.  However, 
throughput is 6MB/s max *if* you doctor the NSLU2 by removing the 
resistor to change the processor clock from 133 Mhz (clock-halved) to 
233 Mhz.  So, cheap and reliable but slow.  An NSLU2 is better for 
backups than as a file server.

ATA and SATA (RAID-1 or RAID-5, etc.) will provide the best 
capacity/price ratio if speed/performance is not an issue.  Then it's a 
matter of whether you want to use the Dell PowerEdge server or simply 
roll-your-own NAS.

Were it me, I would probably install a Solaris box with ZFS, turn on NFS 
(one command with ZFS, *very* easy) and Samba, then you could have a 
double-parity RAIDz2 array that could theoretically sustain two drive 
failures.  ZFS would allow you to increase/decrease the size of the 
array/volume, ZFS has snapshot capability, and lots of other nice 
features in addition to the solidity/scalability of ZFS and Solaris. 
But, not perhaps the easiest to set-up unless one has some Solaris skills.

http://blogs.sun.com/PlasticPixel/entry/build_your_own_multi_terabyte

I actually did this (Solaris X86 box NAS) last Spring for the company I 
work for, by putting 4 discs in a 3-Ware cage

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121302

and a fifth drive in a 5.25" bay in a 5.25" drive bay enclosure similar 
to one of these;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817121108

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817123304

The Solaris OS was mirrored with DiskSuite on two internal SATA drives 
at the bottom front of the Cooler Master Case, similar to what's outline 
here;

http://www.tech-recipes.com/solaris_system_administration_tips225.html

for a total of 7 drives in the system.  The venerable Cooler Master 
"Centurion" was used as a case;

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119077

With 1.1 Terabyte raw capacity, when formatted as a ZFS array (RAIDz2) 
this yielded some 680 GB of useable space.  Sharing with Samba 
(SMB/CIFS) and NFS was very easy.  All-in-all the Solaris NAS worked out 
quite well with Macintosh clients connecting via NFS and SMB/CIFS.

Another option would be to do the same with Linux, a software RAID-5 or 
RAID-6 array (double parity) and export the array file system with 
Samaba, NFS, and even Appletalk if you wanted (though with current Macs 
speaking SMB/CIFS and NFS, I'm not sure why that would be necessary.

For me, a roll-your-own NAS is more work but preferable in that you have 
ROOT and one can set up Rsync-over-SSH backups to another server and the 
like (more backup options flexibility).

-Nick










That PowerEdge sure is big and noisy and I'm sure a heck of a power drain.
> 
> I welcome any suggestions from the group.
> 
> Tim
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Nicholas S. Frost
7 Avenida Vista Grande #325
Santa Fe, NM  87508
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