Home Server / NAS

[Bodhi]

Chaps, Chapesses, and those who haven't made their minds up yet,

I've decided it's time to get some sort of centralised home storage set up - I've been using my PC for a couple of years now, but it's getting a bit noisy and my Windows 8 Evaluation is about to run out for the 3rd time, so have run out of reloads, so have decided it's time to do things properly.

The OH is going to get me it for Xmas, and I have a budget of around £200 to play with (not including drives). This box of tricks must:

Store and stream Movies Pics and Music. Will probably use Plex for the first two and investigate SubSonic for music (as Plex doesn't handle it very well).
Backups
Downloads
Will probably set up some IP cams next year as I am away with work a lot and the OH is home alone
And other general tinkering.

From my limited investigations so far, it looks like I can either get a Synology/ReadyNAS, or get an HP MicroServer and install something like FreeNAS. I'm not too bothered about everything being as easy as possible to set up, but don;t want to be tinkering every day to make sure the bloody thing works.

I've only got about 300Gb of stuff so will be looking at adding a pair of 2Tb WD Reds - but the ability to add storage later on is a big plus.

I'm leaning towards the MicroServer if I'm honest as they seem to have a bit more grunt and storage bays - but is there anything the Synology boxes can do that I'd miss with ReadyNAS?

So which way would you go down? I am aware some of you have datacentres in the bedroom which would probably be overkill for my requirements, but if I can set up things like ZFS I would be interested,

 

[Poag]

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/hp-...-34-serversplus-109-99-after-cashback-2332976

Its got a Celeron by default. I use it as my Plex server, 3x3TB WD Reds + 1x120GB SSD. Handles transcoding for 4-5 people at once without issue.

Running unraid6 on it, added another 8gb of ram for ~£35 (ECC). I've also got an external 1TB drive plugged into it that i use as a scratch drive currently.

It draws about 30W (the server, my two desktop monitors on standby and the printer) most of the time. During start up its a bit noisy as it runs it fans flat out during boot. Once its on i can't hear it unless i'm sat on the floor next to it.

The HDD aren't hot swap-able but...well its home use. The ODD can be used to pop a pair of 2.5" drives in with some careful use of double sided tape, no moving part drives only. Its got 5 SATA ports inside, 4 used by the front drives and one for the ODD, got my SSD plugged into that. Internal USB socket.

 

[caLLous]

ZFS is wonderful but not very flexible re: upgrading. One idea is to replace each disk in the pool with a larger one and do a resilver after each replacement and then, when the last one has finished resilvering, your pool will increase in size (automatically if you have the autoexpand property set to 1). The other is to add a vdev (it's what your zpool is made of - it's basically a bunch of partitions or drives) of the same number of partitions/drives to the original pool, which will allow you to increase its size (and performance).

It's recommended that you use ECC RAM if you're using ZFS, I'm not sure where the Microservers etc land on stuff like that. ZFS is really gaining traction in Linux, it's only a licensing quibble that's stopping it from being integrated into the kernel but Ubuntu think that it's going to be included as standard before long.

Anyway, I can't advise on your other bits but "yay ZFS".

 

[Bodhi]

Excellent, cheers folks - MicroServer has been ordered

 

[Trem]

Order the Microserver, apply for the cashback, send the server back for a refund, wait and get the cashback anyway then order another one and do the same thing. That's what I did anyway

 

[Embattle]

Personally I've always had Synology products although I hear the microservers are good.

 

[MYstIC G]

Excellent, cheers folks - MicroServer has been ordered

Good choice, my N36L lasted me five years until the power supply gave out a couple of months ago. I'd echo the use of FreeNAS as when it did die I had the moment of panic as we all do. When I built my new NAS from scratch FreeNAS picked up right where it left off and then told me ZFS had scrubbed the drive and found ZERO errors. That's twice FreeNAS has come back fault free. The first was when I couldn't afford decent drives and my WD Green drives died in sequence.

 

[caLLous]

You have ZFS to thank there, not FreeNAS. FreeNAS is probably the easiest implementation of ZFS to use (because it's fully integrated) but it's ZFS itself doing all of the heavy lifting.

I just recently ripped out all of the power and data cables in my server because I'm going to add more drives (when the cages arrive from America ) and reattached everything in what was probably completely different order with some of the drives on a new 16 port HBA as well and turned it on and my pools were just sitting there with all disks present. ZFS is magnificent.

 

[Bodhi]

I've been doing a little research over the weekend, and FreeNAS is looking like the most likely candidate, I do have a couple of concerns with it though:

1) Requires 8Gb of RAM/. Really??

2) Plugin Jail - still haven't got my head round that. Do I need that for Plex and Subsonic?

Also looked at Amahi which is supposed to be good for novices, until I saw the installation instructions - First install Fedora. Meh.

Must admit part of me right now is gutted they killed Windows Home Server, as that would have been perfect for what I'm looking for.

 

[Zarjazz]

1) Requires 8Gb of RAM/. Really??

ZFS by it's nature is very memory hungry, especially if you use features like deduplication, but then it was originally designed for large server environments where that wasn't a concern.

 

[caLLous]

Indeed. Don't use deduplication; the costs more than outweigh the benefits. I think the general rule of thumb is 1GB of RAM per TB of storage without deduplication and 5GB per TB with.

I would personally chuck Ubuntu or one of its derivatives on it and use ZFS on Linux. This FAQ deals with ZFS on Linux but the requirements and stuff apply to ZFS generally.

 

[Bodhi]

According to the OH, my "metal box of bits" has been delivered.

I'm assuming that will be the MicroServer then.....

 

[Trem]

I'm a mong I know but is ZFS a linux thing and if so is it doable within windows @caLLous?

Pretty sure I researched this the other week but forgot what happened

 

[caLLous]

I'm a mong I know but is ZFS a linux thing and if so is it doable within windows @caLLous?

Nope, unless you do something complicated with virtual machines and raw disks and even then it wouldn't be as stable and you would take a performance hit.

 

[MYstIC G]

You have ZFS to thank there, not FreeNAS. FreeNAS is probably the easiest implementation of ZFS to use (because it's fully integrated) but it's ZFS itself doing all of the heavy lifting.

I just recently ripped out all of the power and data cables in my server because I'm going to add more drives (when the cages arrive from America ) and reattached everything in what was probably completely different order with some of the drives on a new 16 port HBA as well and turned it on and my pools were just sitting there with all disks present. ZFS is magnificent.

Yes and no, I understand the underlying benefit is delivered by ZFS but the FreeNAS automation is awesome.

 

[Trem]

Nope, unless you do something complicated with virtual machines and raw disks and even then it wouldn't be as stable and you would take a performance hit.

Hmm so Linux is the way to go then, like you said. Which server version would be best for a flid (me not Meg)?

 

[caLLous]

Ubuntu is what I know. I picked up a *lot* of information from this guy.

Wait, you need to be a guru to be able to run a Linux media server, don't you?

Erm, no you don't.

If you'd have asked me 10 years ago what operating system I would recommend using for a media server then I doubt very much I would have said Linux. However, many Linux "flavours" have moved on in leaps and bounds over the last few years and today I would whole heartedly recommend using Linux if you're thinking of building your own media server, even if you've never used Linux before.

It is true that some "flavours" of Linux still retain their guru status but if you take Ubuntu as an example, you can now buy "home computers" from major retailers that are running Ubuntu. This was totally unheard of a few years ago!

I have Ubuntu Server running on mine because it's headless (it doesn't have a monitor or keyboard attached fulltime). It doesn't have a GUI (desktop environment and stuff) but once it's all set up there's nothing you can't do from the command line (by plugging in a monitor/kb or via SSH from your PC, the latter being much easier) or with something like Webmin. If that scares the bejesus out of you you can always put Ubuntu Desktop on instead, which has a desktop environment and will be more familiar. Looky here and go for the 14.04.3 LTS version of whichever flavour you want. LTS means long term support which means it's a bit older than the newest (they release every 6 months so the newest is 15.10 - as in 2015 October) but guaranteed to be updated for 5 years and pretty much guaranteed stability. The next LTS will be in April (16.04).

 

[Bodhi]

Hmm interesting, so what would Ubuntu Server give me over FreeNAS? And which of the two is easiest to set up/administer/add new bells and whistles to?

 

[caLLous]

The "easiest to set up" award would go to FreeNAS* but you can do a whole lot more with Ubuntu (it's a whole OS rather than being centred around storage). I imagine they're much of a muchness to admin via SSH. I know FreeNAS has a built-in web ui but you can very easily add one to Ubuntu Server (Webmin) that lets you do pretty much everything in a pretty, clicky way.

Basically, Ubuntu Server does everything FreeNAS does and then it does heaps more as well. If you just want a NAS or very basic media server then you might be happy in FreeNAS. List of FreeNAS plugins (I don't know if there are more tbh) vs. list of Ubuntu packages.

*although, what is there to set up? You have to manually install ZFS in Ubuntu but then it's a case of creating the zpool, maybe creating some datasets on it, sorting out shares via Samba or NFS, probably sorting out a fixed IP on the LAN and... that's pretty much it. The Plex server is a doddle to install (see the Linux section on this page) and it has its own Web UI for config. There is help online for everything you need help with. I know because I probably (read: definitely) wouldn't have been able to accomplish it the first time had there not been.

 

[Trem]

But we don't need help online @caLLous, we have you. Now, if you just give me and @Bodhi your phone number we will meet up, get some beer and drugs and ring you when we try to do our servers if that's ok with you?

 

[Bodhi]

But we don't need help online @caLLous, we have you. Now, if you just give me and @Bodhi your phone number we will meet up, get some beer and drugs and ring you when we try to do our servers if that's ok with you?

I was with you up until Beer and Drugs - what we doing after?

 

[caLLous]

You're rejecting beer and drugs? You've changed.

 

[Trem]

I was with you up until Beer and Drugs - what we doing after?

Blind folds, whips the usual. We need to not be like the normal Linux user. What the fuck! No beer or drugs? Whiskey and cheese then?

 

[Bodhi]

No, I was sold as soon as I heard Beer and Drugs, so stopped listening after that

As if I'd change. Pffft.

 

[Trem]

Oh, it read the other way. That's what I thought. We just need cally's number now, I did have it but he went to bloody France so I reckon it's changed.......or has it?

 

[Bodhi]

Btw I assume if I'm going down the Ubuntu route (and I'm fairly sold on it now) I'll need a drive for the OS? Was going to install FreeNAS on a USB, but I gather Ubuntu won't fit?

 

[dysfunction]

I put FreeNas on a USB stick. I don't know about Ubuntu but I reckon it would need it's own drive.

 

[caLLous]

Yeah Ubuntu needs a HDD or SSD to install to but it doesn't need much. The smallest SSD you can find will do (I think you're looking at about £30 for a 60 GB Kingston one).

 

[Syri]

Just going to hijack this a second...
Looking to get a cheap, basic and quiet NAS for file sharing and running a dlna server. Budget is very much an issue, so I was wondering if anyone had any experience with this, and if so, is it any good, or am I going to be best waiting until I can get the cash for something better?
It's not got to serve a lot at once, and will be connected by ethernet so doesn't need high-end wifi or anything. Just needs to be able to be left on all the time, and stay fairly quiet.

 

[Embattle]

What drives you putting in it?