Mini-Itx NAS Considerations

[DoeBoy]

So I am looking at building a NAS to store primarily media audio/video and stream them across the network. One big consideration I have is reducing power consumption and having a smaller form factor.

Mini-Itx Motherboard
Raid 5 or 6
Nas Drives 5 or 6
Preferably multiple gigabit ports(network has smart switches/routing)(can be add-on nic later for additional ports)

One thing that is going to have a huge impact on the design is what kind of software to use on the NAS. Freenas? Windows Server? ESXI?

I am hoping somebody else has some insight into these decisions and choices. Getting this right the first time is important and I am VOIP engineer so configuration can certainly be dealt with its just a matter of finding the right application solution. What kinds of experiences do you guys have with these applications? Most of my experience revolves around ESXI and Windows Server, but never with regards to a NAS/SAN type setup.

Thanks so much everybody. Merry Xmas.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

With 5-6 HDDs, your options for all-ITX rigs are restricted basically to the Fractal Node 304. And there aren't a lot of ITX motherboards that have 6+ SATA ports. But you could do that.

Problem #2 is that ITX boards only have a single expansion slot, so if you drop in a RAID card, that's it - no extra NIC.

That said, there are server oriented ITX boards with 6-8 SATA and dual NICs that will fit the bill. They're just a bit pricey. What's your budget?

See also: NAS in my sig. It's really not huge!

As for OS: my recommendation is to install some general-purpose OS. I've used FreeNAS but found it limiting - particularly the "jails" and plugin maintenance. Caused me a lot of headaches.

I'm currently running FreeBSD (the OS that FreeNAS is derived from) and am using VirtualBox instead of Jails to run my VMs, and it's much more reliable. (Although memory intensive.) Running Windows Server or a Linux Distro of some kind would be fine too. You can do whatever you want in any OS, it's simply a matter of what you're comfortable administrating.

ESXi is not a NAS OS, it's a hypervisor, and doesn't include file sharing or storage management features to speak of. Some people will install ESX, pass through a RAID controller to a FreeNAS VM, and use that to feed network storage back to ESX (and to other clients), but that's a little harder to set up, you'd need a least a little local "bootstrap" storage for the FreeNAS VM to live on, and you'd have to buy hardware that supported Vt-d to do the RAID passthrough. ($$$$)

 

[dawza]

I can provide perspective from someone who has never done any real IT administration, but has built (and currently using) an ITX NAS that comes close to your requirements. Running 6 HDDs (no RAID) in a Chenbro server case with a SuperMicro Atom D525 ITX board. One OS drive, three storage drives, two backup. The board has two Intel giga LAN ports with IPMI, which is nice for remote management. OS is WHS 2011.

The server backs up ~6 Windows devices and serves content (simple streaming) to PCs and mobile devices, generally max of 2 concurrent streams. One drive is mapped to our 24/7 seed box. So, the machine gets a decent amount of continuous use around the clock. It's been reliable since I put it into action over a year ago. If I were building today, I'd go for something like this:

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/celeron/X10/X10SBA.cfm

Which is a much advanced version of what I have. Four Bay Trail cores should fly compared to two older-gen Atom cores. I encounter no I/O bottlenecks on large file benchmark tests (i.e. FTP or SMB maxes out giga interface). And given that our non-mobile computers are all Windows, WHS 2011's features are well aligned.

FWIW, my goals included compact size and low power draw as well. Nothing gets you the power efficiency of Atom, but I wouldn't count on them being stellar for heavy-duty tasks like transcoding-- which isn't something I needed (or need), so even the two puny 2nd-gen Atom cores are adequate.

What are your end device requirements and what kind of OS environment are you working with (and/or anticipate supporting)?

 

[DoeBoy]

What are your end device requirements and what kind of OS environment are you working with (and/or anticipate supporting)?

The OS environment in general are windows 7/8/8.1 machines. I stream all of the tv content onto the network and so this nas would serve as a place to store recordings possibly realtime recording straight to the nas. It would also probably be setup to download torrents and extract them automatically.. music/video etc.


For the most part there will be video streaming from it other than storage. I can't imagine the need for transcoding that much given the NUC htpc I currently operate. All the pcs on the network are fairly new. It will require at least a raid 5 as I will have business files on it as well so the RAID piece is probably going to be an issue. I might end up having to go to a bigger board like a micro-atx possibly.

 

[piasabird]

Why does a NAS have to be in an ITX case?

The Node 804 is a nice sized MATX Cube case. It has a side window and has extra fan slots for keeping those expensive hard drives cool. It is dual chambered so the Motherboard and or video card can go on the other side you can put as many hard drives as you can get it there. It is designed similar to the node 304.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352047


The hard part is finding a motherboard with lots of SATA ports.

I think the Antec 300 is a nice case also. The original one is built like a tank and has lots of hard drive slots. It is just a typical large ATX case. However, I have one and it is a really nice basic black case.

There are some advantages to ATX for server. Mainly more options. Like if you want to add stand alone Network cards, raid cards you can if you want to. Really the server type ITX cases are about the size of an MATX case.

 

[dawza]

RAID definitely makes for some case selection challenges. You could get something like the Chenbro SR30169 that has four 3.5" hot-swap bays and room for 2x 2.5" drives:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1371-page1.html

Or a Lian-Li PC-Q18:

http://www.silentpcreview.com/Lian_Li_PC-Q18

which is actually bit more flexible with respect to HDD configuration, not to mention supporting full-height expansion cards.

piasabird makes some good points, though-- at a certain point, it's less about the case standard and more about size and features. At the very least, it sounds like your requirements should be well within the capabilities of a Bay Trail Atom-based board, if power draw is a key requirement. My server handles playback of rar'd media content without issue as long as the client software supports it (e.g. XBMC and pretty much every other program I've used for PC and Android devices).

 

[DoeBoy]

Thanks for the links and suggestions guys. I haven't really made that many considerations when it comes to the case the system will go in. I am certainly open and the cases I have seen that you have posted l think look great. That fractal design looks ideal and would support future expansion or even a board that is micro-atx if I needed more features. It certainly is a lot to think about. I just need to run into a HD deal on actually decent drives haha.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Thanks for the links and suggestions guys. I haven't really made that many considerations when it comes to the case the system will go in. I am certainly open and the cases I have seen that you have posted l think look great. That fractal design looks ideal and would support future expansion or even a board that is micro-atx if I needed more features. It certainly is a lot to think about. I just need to run into a HD deal on actually decent drives haha.

It's that time of the year. I picked up some 3TB 7200 rpm Toshiba drives from Newegg a couple weeks ago for $85 each.

 

[mfenn]

For the most part there will be video streaming from it other than storage. I can't imagine the need for transcoding that much given the NUC htpc I currently operate. All the pcs on the network are fairly new. It will require at least a raid 5 as I will have business files on it as well so the RAID piece is probably going to be an issue. I might end up having to go to a bigger board like a micro-atx possibly.

This should be mentioned: RAID is not a backup. The purpose of RAID is to maintain system availability when hardware fails; it does not protect your data like a backup does (e.g. corruption, malware, user error, etc.). If you have important business files on the NAS (or really anywhere), then you should be backing them up.

In an office environment, having files on a RAID is good because you don't have people that are unable to work while the backup is being restored. Time pressures like that generally aren't as important in a home environment.

Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't use a RAID, I'm just making sure that you know that RAID isn't protecting your files against many types of disasters and doesn't obviate the need for a backup and recovery plan.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

That said, if you've ever lost data because of a failed HDD, there's a certain peace of mind in being able to pull your tax returns off of a degraded RAID array before you start the rebuild.

 

[DoeBoy]

I guess I should of been more clear. I also run a raid 10 on my office PC that stores all the business documents... as far as on the NAS it would be things like business application images, music, video. I also am vpn'd in to a datacenter 24/7 so anything as serious as tax documents or work documents are all backed up in multiple places(local external drive, datacenter, raid10, usb key) . The idea is to free up this raid 10 that is loaded down with mp3s and video all of which can be replaced.

I work in enterprise VOIP I deal with raid arrays all the time.

 

[piasabird]

For Raid with backup you need like two arrays of hard drives with about 5 drives in each array. Sometimes a tape backup system is more economical.