What are you doing for home NAS?

Mon Dec 30 10:45:09 EST 2013

I have some experience with MyBook. At work we used it as a backup
device and it was very, very slow. I think mainly the ARM processor, and
limited memory. I would have never used it as a primary NAS. Initially
we were using an RHEL Intel white-box server, but later we purchased a 
NetGear ReadyNAS 3100. The ReadyNAS did an excellent job for us and was
faster than the former RHEL server. All 3 systems were Linux-based. The
ReadyNAS used a proprietary RAID system that worked flawlessly until we
replaced the system with an IBM N-Series. I've been burned by hardware
RAID5 in a couple of Dell servers (both Linux and Windows). With a NAS
system your objective is throughput and reliability. Both RAID 1 and
RAID 5 give you the ability to replace a HD on the fly. I'm wondering if
BTRFS would possibly suffice as a NAS system (configured properly).

On 12/30/2013 10:18 AM, Ken D'Ambrosio wrote:
> On 2013-12-30 09:41, John Abreau wrote:
>> After trying FreeNAS, I'd no longer consider the consumer-level drives
>> such the MyBook Live as serious options.
> I think this stance is a little overly cautious; there is  data showing 
> that consumer drives don't fail at rates significantly different than 
> "server-grade" drives -- e.g., 
> http://blog.backblaze.com/2013/12/04/enterprise-drive-reliability/ 
> (though I also remember studies done on significantly larger datasets a 
> couple years ago, but they aren't leaping at me from Google).  What I 
> *have* found to be troublesome is that some RAID solutions don't handle 
> drives that spin down very well.  For this reason, I tend to either go 
> with "server-grade" drives, or really do my homework, and find drives 
> that work with the solution (e.g., 3Ware has -- or, at least, had -- an 
> approved hardware list that I find useful).  But I think that, with a 
> suitable amount of caution, there's money to be saved here without loss 
> of functionality or increased risk of data loss.
>
> $.02,
>
> -Ken
>
> P.S.  One thing I should add here, just from a hoo-boy-did-I-stub-my-toe 
> perspective: as a rule, I usually have my arrays use just a leeeeetle 
> bit less than the whole disk.  I had a large RAID-5 array once, and one 
> of the drives failed.  I got it RMA'd *with the same model number* from 
> the manufacturer... and it was one sector smaller.  THAT was annoying.
>
>
>> On Mon, Dec 30, 2013 at 9:05 AM, Mark Komarinski
>> <mkomarinski at wayga.org> wrote:
>>
>>> On 12/30/2013 1:00 AM, John Abreau wrote:
>>>> I tried a couple cheaper options such as the WD MyBook Live
>>> network
>>>> drive, but I wasn't really satisfied with them, They were slow to
>>>> access, slow to spin up when inactive, and had serious
>>> performance
>>>> issues when more than one process was accessing them over NFS,
>>> which
>>>> was the only filesharing option I used. They contained just a
>>> single
>>>> drive, which means no raid-1 safety net when the disk starts to
>>> go bad.
>>> After getting burned by non-NAS drives in a RAID 5 array, I'm going
>>> RAID
>>> 1 for home use from now on.
>>>
>>>> Then I picked up an HP N40L mini cube server and installed FreeNAS
>>> on
>>>> it, on a usb thumb drive that I plugged into the internal USB
>>> port on
>>>> the motherboard. It was the first NAS I've tried at home that I
>>> was
>>>> happy with.Performance is much better, even with multiple
>>> processes
>>>> accessing the unit, and large file copies both to and from the
>>> unit
>>>> seem to complete more quickly.
>>> Ooh.  I forgot about that little guy.  Replacement for is seems
>>> to be
>>> the N54L.  Fits 4 drives, might just get 2x4TB and leave the other
>>> two
>>> for future expansion.
>>>
>>>> I'm currently using two of the four drive slots with a pair of 2gb
>>>> drives, configured with ZFS as a raid-1 mirror set. To properly
>>>> support ZFS, I followed the recommendations in the HOWTO I found
>>>> online and maxed out the RAM at 8 GB.
>>>>
>>>> It's been a couple years since I set it up, so I imagine there's
>>> a
>>>> newer model available by now that will accept larger drives and
>>> more RAM.
>>>> After trying FreeNAS, I'd no longer consider the
>>>>
>>> Err, you cut off there...
>>>
>>> -Mark
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/ [1]
>> --
>>
>> John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix
>> Email jabr at blu.org / WWW http://www.abreau.net [2] / 2013 PGP-Key-ID
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>>  2013 / ID 0x920063C6 / FP A5AD 6BE1 FEFE 8E4F 5C23  C2D0 E885 E17C
>> 9200 63C6
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>>
>>
>> Links:
>> ------
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>> [2] http://www.abreau.net
>>
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-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix
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