What are you doing for home NAS?
Jerry Feldman
gaf at blu.org
Wed Jan 1 08:55:37 EST 2014
Thanks JABR. In the context of a home NAS and the state of Linux and
FreeBSD today where we have a number of viable choices. what would
youall chose for a file system and redundancy:
For example, ZFS, BTRFS, EXT[3,4], or other.
Rely on file system for integrity, RAID1 (strictly mirroring), RAID5,
RAID6, RAIDZ (ZFS)
Since both ZFS and BTRFS check for problems is it really necessary for a
home implementation to use these on combination with RAID, especially if
you do frequent backups.
On 12/31/2013 11:40 PM, John Abreau wrote:
> Yes, it's ZFS. As I recall, there were two ZFS options; offhand, I
> don't recall their names. One was a RAID-1 equivalent, and I believe
> the other may have been a RAID-5 equivalent. I chose the RAID-1
> equivalent.
>
> And yes, I still use it.
>
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On Dec 30, 2013, at 11:53 AM, Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org
> <mailto:gaf at blu.org>> wrote:
>
>> I assume you are still using your FreeNAS system. What file system
>> are you using, ZFS?
>>
>> On 12/30/2013 10:56 AM, John Abreau wrote:
>>> Even if the MyBook Live turns out to be more reliable than I'd
>>> expect, that doesn't negate the poor performance of the unit,
>>> especially when it's accessed simultaneously by multiple clients.
>>> With my usage patterns, that limitation is extremely noticeable.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Dec 30, 2013 at 10:18 AM, Ken D'Ambrosio <ken at jots.org
>>> <mailto:ken at jots.org>> 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 <mailto: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 <mailto:jabr at blu.org> / WWW
>>> http://www.abreau.net [2] / 2013 PGP-Key-ID
>>> > 0x920063C6
>>> > 2013 / ID 0x920063C6 / FP A5AD 6BE1 FEFE 8E4F 5C23 C2D0 E885
>>> E17C
>>> > 9200 63C6
>>> > 2011 / ID 0x32A492D8 / FP 7834 AEC2 EFA3 565C A4B6 9BA4 0ACB AD85
>>> > 32A4 92D8
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > Links:
>>> > ------
>>> > [1] http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
>>> > [2] http://www.abreau.net
>>> >
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix
>>> Email jabr at blu.org <mailto:jabr at blu.org> / WWW http://www.abreau.net
>>> / 2013 PGP-Key-ID 0x920063C6
>>> 2013 / ID 0x920063C6 / FP A5AD 6BE1 FEFE 8E4F 5C23 C2D0 E885 E17C
>>> 9200 63C6
>>> 2011 / ID 0x32A492D8 / FP 7834 AEC2 EFA3 565C A4B6 9BA4 0ACB AD85
>>> 32A4 92D8
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
>> Boston Linux and Unix
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>> _______________________________________________
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--
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix
PGP key id:3BC1EB90
PGP Key fingerprint: 49E2 C52A FC5A A31F 8D66 C0AF 7CEA 30FC 3BC1 EB90
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