Re: [Discuss] D-I-Y NAS enclosures
Benjamin Carr wrote: > I am personally enamored of the HP Proliant Microserver... It has > a 64bit AMD Athlon II Neo processor, two DIMM slots (supports ECC), one > gigabit NIC, a four drive cage (not hot-swap)... > It is $330 from NewEgg with a "throw away" 250GB drive and 1GB of Ram. I > wish they would sell it "bare" for $50 less but the don't. Did that come loaded with Windows Home Server? I see HP went on to produce an Atom version with 2GB Memory and 1TB HD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16859105777 I looked it up for comparison when I recently ran across Acer's product in this space: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16859321016 a smaller 8.5" x 8" x 7" cube with a 2 TB drive. (Plus 5 USB and 1 eSATA ports.) Currently selling for $260. Possibly discounted due to being loaded with an obsolete version of Windows Home Server. (I wonder how much the "windows tax" is on this server and what a bare bones version without the OS and drive would sell for.) My biggest concern with these NAS boxes is whether the motherboards are proprietary and if you'd be stuck if it died. Seems like a good deal, if the included drive is useful to you. According to camelegg.com, it is on a downward price trend, so it may be discounted further: http://camelegg.com/product/N82E16859321016?utm_campaign=firefox_ext&utm_source=product_link_ttp&utm_medium=www -Tom -- Tom Metro Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA "Enterprise solutions through open source." Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] D-I-Y NAS enclosures, Backblaze
On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 5:17 PM, Daniel Feenberg wrote: > > > On Fri, 29 Jul 2011, John Abreau wrote: > >> Sounds about right. A few years ago I paid $779 for a 12-disk >> enclosure from newegg, >> plus another $120 for a 1U server from ebay to run the thing. >> > > And what would be wrong with the Antec Twelve Hundred case, available from > Microcenter for $185? >From what I can tell, most of the drive bays are internal and as a result not hot swappable. It you can schedule downtime to replace a drive in your RAID array, then maybe that doesn't matter to you. Bill Bogstad ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] D-I-Y NAS enclosures
Daniel Feenberg wrote: > And what would be wrong with the Antec Twelve Hundred case, available > from Microcenter for $185? > > http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0361137 > > Not rack-mountable, but otherwise a fine, quiet case with lots of air > movement and space for 12 drives. Seems fine if you don't care about space. (It's 20" high and 22" deep.) If that size case works for you, I'm pretty sure you can find others like it for half as much. My SOHO-class NAS specs would house 5 or 6 drives in an enclosure no larger than necessary to hold the drives, plus power supply, and mini-ITX motherboard. The drive bays should be trayless, like these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816215081&Tpk=iStarUSA%20BPU-350SA The problem with these bays is that they cost as much as the entire case and power supply should cost ($115). Which is no doubt why you never see them used on SOHO-NASs. The bays are integral into the case design. Also, many of these bays aren't space efficient, as they are made to go into 5.25" bays, with wasted space on the side (1.75"). However 5-bay units are designed to mount with the 3.5" drives vertically oriented, resulting is less wasted space (.89" - you need some space for the eject mechanism). (They should provide better ventilation, too.) -Tom -- Tom Metro Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA "Enterprise solutions through open source." Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] D-I-Y NAS enclosures, Backblaze
On Fri, 29 Jul 2011, John Abreau wrote: Sounds about right. A few years ago I paid $779 for a 12-disk enclosure from newegg, plus another $120 for a 1U server from ebay to run the thing. And what would be wrong with the Antec Twelve Hundred case, available from Microcenter for $185? http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0361137 Not rack-mountable, but otherwise a fine, quiet case with lots of air movement and space for 12 drives. Daniel Feenberg NBER ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] D-I-Y NAS enclosures, 2.5" drives
On 7/29/2011 3:02 PM, Tom Metro wrote: When I recently bought a 1TB 2.5" drive, I noticed the WD offering was 12.5mm, and so I bought a 9.5mm Samsung: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152291 which NewEgg now lists as deactivated. I wonder why. Samsung's storage division was recently bought by Seagate. My guess is that the former Samsung drives are being rebranded. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] D-I-Y NAS enclosures, Backblaze
On Fri, July 29, 2011 2:57 pm, John Abreau wrote: > Sounds about right. A few years ago I paid $779 for a 12-disk > enclosure from newegg, > plus another $120 for a 1U server from ebay to run the thing. Right now you can pay ~$350 for a 20-disk enclosure from NewEgg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811219033 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811219021 These get you 20 SATA/SAS hot-swap bays PLUS space to place a MOBO and controller! You just need to supply the motherboard and SATA cards/multiplexers, cables, etc to make your NAS server! -derek -- Derek Atkins 617-623-3745 de...@ihtfp.com www.ihtfp.com Computer and Internet Security Consultant ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] D-I-Y NAS enclosures, 2.5" drives
Kurt Keville wrote: > I wonder if this > approach would scale up and down to laptop drives? It may be that you > get higher density with that form factor... it will be more robust I > would think. Higher density, sure, but robust? Because 2.5" drives are more hardened against physical shock? I see a lot more enterprisy products for 2.5" drives these days. You can find RAID cages, rack servers, and blades all designed for 2.5" drives. When you have to halt selling services because you've ran out of space in your data center, then using smaller drives, even if they cost a premium, makes sense. (I've seen numerous ISPs saying they can't provision any new servers at the moment because their data center is full.) If you don't have those space constraints, then obviously the 3.5" desktop drives still offer the most storage for the money. At 1TB capacity, you pay about 100% premium for 2.5". Shirley Márquez Dúlcey wrote: > The first true 1TB laptop drive came out recently; there was an > earlier 2.5" 1TB drive from Western Digital but it was too thick to > fit in most modern laptops. When I recently bought a 1TB 2.5" drive, I noticed the WD offering was 12.5mm, and so I bought a 9.5mm Samsung: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152291 which NewEgg now lists as deactivated. I wonder why. I see there is also a Seagate "enterprise-class nearline drive for space-constrained data centers" that is 15mm. Probably too think to fit most laptops, and thus the pitch for enterprise markets. -Tom -- Tom Metro Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA "Enterprise solutions through open source." Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] D-I-Y NAS enclosures, Backblaze
Sounds about right. A few years ago I paid $779 for a 12-disk enclosure from newegg, plus another $120 for a 1U server from ebay to run the thing. On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 2:39 PM, Tom Metro wrote: > Kurt Keville wrote: >> I have been following this dialogue at various locations... like >> http://openstoragepod.org/ ... it is remarkable how cheap DIY NAS is >> getting... > > Thanks for the link. It says they were inspired by the Backblaze > project. For those not familiar, Backblaze is in the business of > providing online storage, and they published the plans for the low-cost > petabyte storage servers they used internally: > http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/petabytes-on-a-budget-how-to-build-cheap-cloud-storage/ > > This is great to see, and I've looked into some of the components they > use, like the SATA port multiplier backplanes, but Backblaze and > OpenStoragePod are interested in solving the problem for petabyte-scale > storage, which is an order of magnitude (or two or three) beyond what > I'm interested in at the moment. > > I had hoped to see multiple vendors start offering the SATA backplanes, > but years later the item is still hard to find. > > Compared to the enterprise alternatives, a Backblaze is a bargain, but > much of it doesn't scale down cost effectively to 6 ~ 12 drives. They > paid $748 for their steel enclosure alone. A smaller one would obviously > cost less, but any custom enclosure is going to run $200+. > > What's on the market for small-scale NASs is already cheap by enterprise > standards. But there is still a noticeable "server tax" on these small > system. At least some of it is justifiable due to lower volumes. So it > is a harder problem to solve. > > -Tom > > -- > Tom Metro > Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA > "Enterprise solutions through open source." > Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/ > ___ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss@blu.org > http://blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss > -- John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix AIM abreauj / JABBER j...@jabber.blu.org / YAHOO abreauj / SKYPE zusa_it_mgr Email j...@blu.org / WWW http://www.abreau.net / PGP-Key-ID 0xD5C7B5D9 PGP-Key-Fingerprint 72 FB 39 4F 3C 3B D6 5B E0 C8 5A 6E F1 2C BE 99 ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] D-I-Y NAS enclosures, Backblaze
Kurt Keville wrote: > I have been following this dialogue at various locations... like > http://openstoragepod.org/ ... it is remarkable how cheap DIY NAS is > getting... Thanks for the link. It says they were inspired by the Backblaze project. For those not familiar, Backblaze is in the business of providing online storage, and they published the plans for the low-cost petabyte storage servers they used internally: http://blog.backblaze.com/2009/09/01/petabytes-on-a-budget-how-to-build-cheap-cloud-storage/ This is great to see, and I've looked into some of the components they use, like the SATA port multiplier backplanes, but Backblaze and OpenStoragePod are interested in solving the problem for petabyte-scale storage, which is an order of magnitude (or two or three) beyond what I'm interested in at the moment. I had hoped to see multiple vendors start offering the SATA backplanes, but years later the item is still hard to find. Compared to the enterprise alternatives, a Backblaze is a bargain, but much of it doesn't scale down cost effectively to 6 ~ 12 drives. They paid $748 for their steel enclosure alone. A smaller one would obviously cost less, but any custom enclosure is going to run $200+. What's on the market for small-scale NASs is already cheap by enterprise standards. But there is still a noticeable "server tax" on these small system. At least some of it is justifiable due to lower volumes. So it is a harder problem to solve. -Tom -- Tom Metro Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA "Enterprise solutions through open source." Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] D-I-Y NAS enclosures
I meant laptop drives... I think I read an interview that said the most density we will ever see is 2TB on a laptop and 4TB on a desktop drive... will see if I can find the article; was more of a business issue than an integration one... At 05:05 PM 7/28/2011, Derek Atkins wrote: On Thu, July 28, 2011 4:40 pm, Kurt Keville wrote: > I have been following this dialogue at various locations... like > http://openstoragepod.org/ ... it is remarkable how cheap DIY NAS is > getting... > > I think 2TB is the biggest we will see a desktop drive; I wonder if > this approach would scale up and down to laptop drives? It may be > that you get higher density with that form factor... it will be more > robust I would think. I'm not sure what you mean by this last statement.. There are already 3TB drives on the market. -derek -- Derek Atkins 617-623-3745 de...@ihtfp.com www.ihtfp.com Computer and Internet Security Consultant ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] D-I-Y NAS enclosures
On 7/28/2011 4:40 PM, Kurt Keville wrote: I have been following this dialogue at various locations... like http://openstoragepod.org/ ... it is remarkable how cheap DIY NAS is getting... I think 2TB is the biggest we will see a desktop drive; I wonder if this approach would scale up and down to laptop drives? It may be that you get higher density with that form factor... it will be more robust I would think. 3TB desktop drives are already available. The first true 1TB laptop drive came out recently; there was an earlier 2.5" 1TB drive from Western Digital but it was too thick to fit in most modern laptops. I think the amount of storage in both form factors will continue to grow for a little while yet, especially since big drives are where all the market potential is now as the small ones will be displaced by solid state storage. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] D-I-Y NAS enclosures
On Thu, July 28, 2011 4:40 pm, Kurt Keville wrote: > I have been following this dialogue at various locations... like > http://openstoragepod.org/ ... it is remarkable how cheap DIY NAS is > getting... > > I think 2TB is the biggest we will see a desktop drive; I wonder if > this approach would scale up and down to laptop drives? It may be > that you get higher density with that form factor... it will be more > robust I would think. I'm not sure what you mean by this last statement.. There are already 3TB drives on the market. -derek -- Derek Atkins 617-623-3745 de...@ihtfp.com www.ihtfp.com Computer and Internet Security Consultant ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] D-I-Y NAS enclosures
I have been following this dialogue at various locations... like http://openstoragepod.org/ ... it is remarkable how cheap DIY NAS is getting... I think 2TB is the biggest we will see a desktop drive; I wonder if this approach would scale up and down to laptop drives? It may be that you get higher density with that form factor... it will be more robust I would think. Tom et al., >> This is for the model with the 200W PS, 1GB Dimm, and 160GB HD. Both >> of which will be recycled to a friend or given to the BU BUILDS >> group. > What are you using in place of the supplied RAM and hard drive? I was wavering over what drives to go with, but when backblaze endorsed the "Hitachi Deskstar 5K3000" a couple days before I ordered I went with four of the 2TB variety: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145475 and for reference: http://blog.backblaze.com/2011/07/20/petabytes-on-a-budget-v2-0revealing-more-secrets/ I got a mix of February and March manufactured drives (all with the same firmware). For memory I decided this system didn't need ECC as it is a home sandbox, and I have had good luck with G.Skill series before. I purchased the G.SKILL Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231424 As I ordered before the HP arrived I was wary of going with something with large heat spreaders as I knew there wouldn't be much clearance. I dd'ed FreeBSD onto a 4GB Kingston Flash drive, but as this is my first install of *BSD in about 8 years (ah the days of the OpenBSD install fitting on a couple of floppies) it has been a "re-learning" curve. This is also the first time I have tried to run BSD on a read-only drive. I am trying to completely segregate the OS from the data. I do have the 4x2TB set up as a 5.9TB RAIDZ, but am still trying to get my feet under me. -Ben ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] D-I-Y NAS enclosures
Tom et al., >> This is for the model with the 200W PS, 1GB Dimm, and 160GB HD. Both >> of which will be recycled to a friend or given to the BU BUILDS >> group. > What are you using in place of the supplied RAM and hard drive? I was wavering over what drives to go with, but when backblaze endorsed the "Hitachi Deskstar 5K3000" a couple days before I ordered I went with four of the 2TB variety: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822145475 and for reference: http://blog.backblaze.com/2011/07/20/petabytes-on-a-budget-v2-0revealing-more-secrets/ I got a mix of February and March manufactured drives (all with the same firmware). For memory I decided this system didn't need ECC as it is a home sandbox, and I have had good luck with G.Skill series before. I purchased the G.SKILL Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231424 As I ordered before the HP arrived I was wary of going with something with large heat spreaders as I knew there wouldn't be much clearance. I dd'ed FreeBSD onto a 4GB Kingston Flash drive, but as this is my first install of *BSD in about 8 years (ah the days of the OpenBSD install fitting on a couple of floppies) it has been a "re-learning" curve. This is also the first time I have tried to run BSD on a read-only drive. I am trying to completely segregate the OS from the data. I do have the 4x2TB set up as a 5.9TB RAIDZ, but am still trying to get my feet under me. -Ben ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] D-I-Y NAS enclosures
On 07/19/2011 06:09 PM, Tom Metro wrote: > I'm tempted to setup a wiki for an "open source hardware" project for a > D-I-Y NAS. Probably 2 or 3 different designs (like a 2-drive, a 4-drive, > and then maybe a 4 or 8-drive "enterprise grade" iSCSI or AoE target SAN > box). Ideally, if you could get enough users agreeing to a set of > specifications, you might be able to get some manufacturers to step up > and supply any components that aren't currently off-the-shelf items. Do it. I'm interested to see what you come up with. ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] D-I-Y NAS enclosures
Benjamin Carr wrote: > Just a follow up, I ordered today, the price dropped to $289 - $10 > NEWCUSTOMER10 coupon, which brought it to $279 shipped with a "free" LG > DVDRW. Not bad. I've found with NewEgg if you add an item to your shopping cart and abandon it, they'll sometimes send you an email the next day with a coupon code offering additional discount. > This is for the model with the 200W PS, 1GB Dimm, and 160GB HD. Both of > which will be recycled to a friend or given to the BU BUILDS group. What are you using in place of the supplied RAM and hard drive? > I agree with Tom, there is not much out there in low power, > do-it-yourself NAS configurations at the moment. I'm tempted to setup a wiki for an "open source hardware" project for a D-I-Y NAS. Probably 2 or 3 different designs (like a 2-drive, a 4-drive, and then maybe a 4 or 8-drive "enterprise grade" iSCSI or AoE target SAN box). Ideally, if you could get enough users agreeing to a set of specifications, you might be able to get some manufacturers to step up and supply any components that aren't currently off-the-shelf items. -Tom -- Tom Metro Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA "Enterprise solutions through open source." Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] D-I-Y NAS enclosures
Just a follow up, I ordered today, the price dropped to $289 - $10 NEWCUSTOMER10 coupon, which brought it to $279 shipped with a "free" LG DVDRW. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16859105905 This is for the model with the 200W PS, 1GB Dimm, and 160GB HD. Both of which will be recycled to a friend or given to the BU BUILDS group. I agree with Tom, there is not much out there in low power, do-it-yourself NAS configurations at the moment. But drawing 40W with 4HDs and Prime95 I think I have a winner on my hands. This will be replacing a DNS-323, likely with a FreeBSD/ZFS install. -Ben ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
Re: [Discuss] D-I-Y NAS enclosures
Benjamin Carr wrote: > I am personally enamored of the HP Proliant Microserver... It has > a 64bit AMD Athlon II Neo processor, two DIMM slots (supports ECC), one > gigabit NIC, a four drive cage (not hot-swap)... Nice packaging. All that in a 10" x 10" x 8" cube. Given the 4-drive cage, it seems to be aimed at NAS builders. > It is $330 from NewEgg with a "throw away" 250GB drive and 1GB of Ram. I > wish they would sell it "bare" for $50 less but the don't. Agreed. I wish there were better options for D-I-Y NAS enclosures. The few that are available, like: http://www.e-itx.com/cfi-a7879.html or http://www.mypccase.com/chmiitxcawi4.html are ridiculously expensive (they want $180 for the first; that's just for the case, power supply, and drive cage; you can buy 4-bay SATA enclosure, which includes all of that plus port multiplier electronics for around $100; the later can be found for $120, but gets poor reviews for its power supply). I'm not sure why China hasn't stepped up with some offerings here. What's needed is: -cube style enclosure with space for a mini-ITX motherboard; -150 ~ 200W power supply; -5-bay drive cage (to accommodate two RAID1 pairs, plus a hot spare): -importantly the cage *must* be trayless; SATA drives are designed to handle this and there is no excuse for using trays these days; -optionally include a SATA port multiplier on the drive backplane, so a cheaper mini-ITX board with fewer SATA ports can be used; -bonus: include an internal 2.5" bay for an SSD or SATA-to-CF card adapter to hold the OS. About the closest you can get to this is to cobble together a combination using a "CD duplicator" type enclosure: http://www.ocie.com/xcase-pro-duplicator-case-5-bay-64247-prd1.htm along with a hot-swap, trayless 5-drive cage: http://www.mwave.com/mwave/SKUSearch_v3.asp?scriteria=BA25917 and you end up with something that looks like: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816215093&cm_re=sata_port_multiplier-_-16-215-093-_-Product and yet with the cage costing $100 alone, the total price isn't much better than the purpose-made commercial solution. Clearly economies of scale haven't hit items like these drive cages, given that you can get an entire computer enclosure with power supply for half their price. -Tom -- Tom Metro Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA "Enterprise solutions through open source." Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/ ___ Discuss mailing list Discuss@blu.org http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
