Re: [slim] Headless Linux DIY contra turnkey NAS

2005-11-26 Thread Pat Farrell
On Sat, 2005-11-26 at 18:39 -0800, trebejo wrote:
> I am hoping to focus the above on a specific thread, and in particular
> to broaden the option to include a do-it-yourself scenario. So I'm
> going to provide some bytes for the savvy among us to chew on.

Before I bought my first SqueezeBox, I was planning on going
with a suitably small box in my main stereo listening room.
Granted, this was years ago, but I decided that the
SqueezeBox approach with a computer in my basement was
the way for me. For many of the reasons you talk about.


> Regarding noise issues, if the NAS device is noisy then it defeats the
> audiophile raison d'etre of the squeezebox in an obvious way. 

I don't agree, as I don't see any reason to have the SlimServer box
in the same room as my serious stereo. Its next to the furnace, which
makes lots of noise on its own in the summer and winter.


> The cost of the ReadyNAS barebones is about $600 plus shipping and
> taxes. I am certain that for that money one can build a barebone linux
> box of greater capabilities. It's been a few years since I've put
> together a linux system (Suse 8) and I've never done the headless thing

I think you can get a generic whitebox machine for half or a third of
that. I bought a serious linux box (I write software for a living,
so I wanted very fast) for $400 a couple of months ago. It has 
a fast AMD CPU, a gig of Ram, a good video card, case, and a 80 GB disk.
Going to a 300GB disk would have added maybe $50 to it.

I'm not sure what you mean by "headless"
I know you mean "doesn't require a monitor and keyboard"
But what more specifically do you mean?

Specific example, my SlimServer box is untouched for months
at a time. Here is an uptime command from it as I type this.
 22:59:39 up 160 days, 11:04,  2 users,  load average: 0.01, 0.05, 0.07

I do everything I want to do to it remotely, usually from one or two
floors away. The machine has a KVM switch (keyboard, video, & mouse)
that I used to set it up many months ago.

Two way KVMs are cheap and available at your local CompUsa, Fry's, etc.
So if you call that headless, it is easy and cheap. If you are
really going low cost, you can just plug in the monitor/k/m from 
your main PC during setup, saving even the $50.

Using this approach, you don't have to do anything magic at all.
Stick a prefered ISO disk, boot, install and be happy.


> Herger's SlimCD to manage a RAID system as well as run the slimserver;
> that would be an obvious win wrt what OS to install.

I agree with Jack's posting that RAID isn't necessarily what you want.
Backup is essential, but RAID isn't clearly the solution.


> Now onto the hardware side of things. The linux box should definitely
> have room for four hard drives, since RAID 5 hits a sweet spot at that
> number.

Any mid-tower will hold four or more drives, which you may want
even once you decide RAID is not the solution. Just remember
two key things:
1)  disks run hot and hot disks are more failure prone,
2) disks require power, and low end power supplies are not
   what you want for reliability.

> I don't know if the box should have an additional drive to host the OS
> and so forth.

I recommend it, as you can just nuke the OS disk and install another
one, mount your music disks and you are done. Just this is an
operational engineering decision. 


> RAM is good and cheap and a gigabyte is a nice round number; that's
> another $100. Motherboard and cpu together will probably go for about
> $200; 

This will get a far faster machine than a Slimserver requires.



> The noise reduction require a refined touch, as one has to travel
> inside the computer case looking for specific noise sources and then
> invest time, money and elbow grease to diminish or even eliminate them.

Only if you put the Slimserver in the listening room.
As I have posted elsewhere, the standard fans are cheap and noisy.
Spending an extra $5 per fan makes a huge difference.
My AMD 3400+ X64 system is very quiet, not silent, but
much less noisy than the Dell P3-933 mid-tower that
is sitting next to it in my office.

> 1. Fan quality makes a big difference; apparently one can invest for
> ~$10 rather than ~$3 fans and lose a lot of noise. But I've seen ads
> for fans that cost $30+ so I'm still working on this clue.

CPU fans that cost about $20 are fine, case fans that cost $15 and have
thermal speed controls are about right. Big fans are more expensive but
lots quieter at the same CFM than small ones.


> 3. If the linux box can be made to run without a VGA card, then that's
> an extra fan that doesn't have to run

You don't need a high end video card for a SlimServer. A nice
fanless, $25 video card is more than enough. It will be way
higher than VGA, probably at least 1600x1200x24



> So adding up the tab, we get motherboard, cpu, RAM, and case for about
> $400.

As I said, I got a fast CPU and 80GB of disks from my local
whitebox computer store for $400, and he installed all the
hardware and guar

Re: [slim] Headless Linux DIY contra turnkey NAS

2005-11-26 Thread Jack Coates
...
> The reason that I haven't yet plunked down the cash for an Infrant box
> is that I'm not sure whether I'll be happy with it for reasons having
> to do with cpu cycles and noise. Since these boxes are not available
> for review at your local Fry's, you basically have to dive in and buy
> one before you personally experience it.
> ...

noise and speed levels are both highly subjective, edging towards the
audiophile territory in terms of unmeasurable nontransferability. I've
seen lots of posts, articles, and emails claiming that Shuttle SFF's are
quiet enough and Mini-ITX's are fast enough, for instance, which are both
inaccurate claims as far as I'm concerned. If you have doubt before even
plunking down coin, I'd suggest buying a proper desktop computer and
storing it in another room. Furthermore, if you don't want to be
troubleshooting some very, very, very frustrating networking issues, I'd
suggest doing what it takes to get a length of CAT-5 between that computer
and your stereo. Wireless is great when it works, but it works really
poorly in most real-world scenarios.

> If you've set up a RAID/Slimserver system using linux and you'd like to
> comment on what you did wrt software I would appreciate it.
>

I've done both, but not on the same box :) Software RAID sucks because
neither Windows nor Linux will reliably inform you that a drive has failed
or reliably rebuild after that failure. Hardware RAID sucks because the
board is just as likely to fail as the drives, and every board is
incompatible. Whichever one you choose, you will need a backup or else you
will lose data -- RAID only buys data security for the lucky, its real
purpose is to buy uptime.

If I were building a new server box, it would look a lot like my old one
(only with more coin dropped on the hard drives). I'd also go SATA instead
of EIDE.

1) middle-of-the-road Intel or AMD desktop motherboard with built-in VGA
and Ethernet.
2) middle of the road CPU for same
3) as much RAM as the board will hold (can be reduced if you're building a
single purpose box, but I much prefer one relatively quiet box running
everything all the time to lots of boxes needing updates and TLC).
4) two relatively small hard drives for the OS, say 20GB? RAID1 mirror
would be okay, but I'd prefer to put the OS on one and copy it to the
other every night.
5) two honking big hard drives for the media, say 300GB. Again, I'd prefer
to copy every night.

http://www.monkeynoodle.org/comp/tools/backups for a simple "back
everything up" solution; I've been using it successfully for years.

-- 
Jack At Monkeynoodle.Org:  It's A Scientific Venture...
"Believe what you're told; there'd be chaos if everyone thought for
themselves." -- Top Dog hotdog stand, Berkeley, CA
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