Network Drive / SFF Box

[11Blade]

I posted this question a short while ago and the responses were very helpful. Unfortunately the cheap solution was exactly that.. cheap and slow.

My current home setup is a based around a Linksys Wireless-G 4 port router.
I have 2 P4-3Ghz workstations for imaging work, a P4 desktop for accounting, email etc that are all wired into the router. My wife and son use laptops around the house and
occasionally I use my laptop upstairs. The network suits me fine for performance and
even for machine to machine file transfers.

I however need to centralize some file storage for work, home media, accounting and
backup purposes.

I bought and returned the Argosy Network Drive and also a Buffalo Linkstation. Both were fine but slow.

I would like to take a small form factor box and make a 500 gig RAID(for redundancy)
available to the network with decent performance. Can someone give me some pointers?
I have an old legit copy of win2000 available but am not against installing Linux

What do I need?

has to be energy efficient and quiet. I would rather not slave one of my P4 machines because I like to turn them off unless I am using them. The space is not so big and
heat and noise are big factors from the machines.

cheaper is still better, otherwise I would go buy a NetApp or something. performance is
still an issue.

My idea..
SFF board with fanless box, some ram, a couple of SATA drives, cheapo videocard and
win2000 or linux.

thanks for all your helP!

11Blade

 

[greigmg]

I'm planning on doing something similar, only by taking an old dell desktop (PIII 450mhz, 256 ram, IDE ata-100 drives) and hooking it to a wireless network. It's just going to be used as a giant storage drive basically.

I don't see why your proposed system wouldn't work. If you're really concerned about speed, put a gigabit ethernet card in it and use 100mbps wired networking. That seems like it should do it.

You're right though, it's hard to get a straight answer about this. But I've heard on a few forums of guys doing similar things and they all seem to be satisfied. One guy recommended using Linux and Samba for software. I say go for it. Wish I could be of more use, good luck.

 

[piasabird]

Raid in an SFF Box just makes me see a giant flaming roman candle. You might be better off with a regular size case. Multiple high capacity or high speed drives really heat up a small enclosure. Maybe a little modding will keep it cooler.

 

[ND40oz]

I'd get a mid size tower and put an old p3 system in it (or something older and cheap). Grab a gig switch and make sure the computers all have gig connections to the switch. Put in a raid card and hook your non-OS drives to the raid controller (IDE or Sata). Back up to the drive through the gig switch.

 

[imported_OrSin]

Gigabit is complete waste of money. Any drive you get will not even go over 100 speed for transfer anyway. And the guy that suggest get a gigabit card and setting to 100 is like getting 100 card and setting to 10. Makes no since at all.

I know you asking for a SFF system but i would aviod it if i was you. You want size in hard drive and some quiet. You will not get both in SFF system. Get cheapo system.
Any AMD or Pentuim 3. The slower the better really unless you know how to unclock a systems. You can get combo boards with on baord lan, and video for under $50. Don't waste your money on a video card. If you have PATA drive already around great if you have to buy new drive pay the little extra for SATA. Also make sure the mother can take SATA. Most cheap one can but a few old ones can't. If you get more then 3 drive you need to make sure the case have a decent fan. GO for 120 fans. They move as much air but are quieter. Slap on Window (any one , but I would skip XP home). Share the drive. and your set. No big deal at all.

My HTPC is also my network storage box.

 

[Weiman]

Originally posted by: OrSin
Gigabit is complete waste of money. Any drive you get will not even go over 100 speed for transfer anyway.

Why would you say that? A modern HDD typically has a sustained transfer rate of 30-70 MByte/s, which is certainly enough to warrant a gigabit network.

 

[DevilsAvocado]

if you have some time and patience and want to have a little project, you could try mashie's sff, http://www.mashie.org/casemods/udat1.html

 

[alisajid]

Infrant seems to have a nice expandable RAID based NAS solution. I'm looking into it, seems viable.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: 11Blade
I would like to take a small form factor box and make a 500 gig RAID(for redundancy)
available to the network with decent performance. Can someone give me some pointers?

has to be energy efficient and quiet... The space is not so big and
heat and noise are big factors from the machines.

cheaper is still better, otherwise I would go buy a NetApp or something. performance is
still an issue.

My idea..
SFF board with fanless box, some ram, a couple of SATA drives, cheapo videocard and
win2000 or linux.

First, a few ideas. Yes, I've read reviews of stand alone NAS setups and most affordable ones aren't super fast, plus many require either drivers for client machines or support only FAT32.

For fast + data security consider a RAID 5 array. RAID controller needs to be on a "better than PCI" bus. If using gigabit ethernet, NIC needs to be on a "better than PCI" bus, plus you'll need a hub with at least one gigabit port with all hardwired computers plugged into it, then daisy-chained off router. Alternately, use multiple 100 megabit NICs and bind them in the OS. For this you'd also want a separate hub for all hardwired computers.

I know cost is an issue. Such a file server will cost less than a high performance NAS, yet totally outperform a budget NAS.

I know size is an issue, but it will be much much much much easier to use a standard ATX case. You can set BIOS to ignore all errors and run the computer hidden away somewhere with only power cord and network cable plugged in, using remote login for administration.

Here are three possible solutions for you.

Expensive-but-speedy:
Cheapest Celeron CPU $60
Cheapest socket 478 server board with multiple PCI-X slots $186
512MB RAM $45
faster-than-PCI gigabit ethernet (onboard CSA) $included in mobo
cheapest PCI-X RAID5 controller with XOR $255
three 250GB SATA HDD $300
random small boot drive $50
Case that can hold it all, Antec SLK3000B $50
decent PSU with enough +12v for four HDDs $55
total=$1001, not including new hub

This one should be able to stream data faster than any single client machine can handle, and can probably serve a few machines concurrently with decent performance. RAID 5 costs an extra HDD and hardware XOR isn't cheap either.

Budget-but-faster-than-cheap-NAS:
Fry's socket 754 Sempron CPU/mobo combo $80
512MB RAM $45
budget RAID card $20
extra PCI NIC for binding $10
four 250GB HDD for RAID 0/1 $400
random small boot drive $50
Case that can hold it all, Antec SLK3000B $50
decent PSU with enough +12v for five HDDs $55
total=$710, not including new hub

This one is cheaper and less elegant, using RAID 0/1 for security and raw performance at the cost of two extra drives.

Ultra-budget-setup-still-faster-than-cheap-NAS:
Fry's socket 754 Sempron CPU/mobo combo $80
256MB RAM $25
two 250GB HDD $200
Case that can hold it all, Antec SLK3000B $50
decent PSU with enough +12v for two HDDs $40
total=$395 plus an old PCI video card

This one doesn't have data redundancy, but neither does the budget NAS setups. Should be able to stream data about as fast as the HDD sustained DTR, meaning it should outperform the budget NAS units. HDDs with high platter density and high sustained DTR would be ideal, perhaps Seagates (250GB model uses 133GB platters). Can you get a NAS for $400 with 500GB of storage space with equivalent performance? Probably not.

Depending on how much work you want to put into this and how quiet/low power you want it...

Take the ultra budget setup, replace case with a mATX mini tower. Use an Asus P4S800-MX motherboard and a mobile P4/Celeron with volt mod. You'll end up with a decent performer for similar costs with very low heat output and power draw in a small case.

Dang it, thought of something else...
Shuttle barebones $185
mobile P4/Celeron $40
256MB RAM $25
two 250GB HDD $200
total=$450

These Shuttle boxes are small as usual, plus are quieter than older ones. With the mobile Northwoods, can run really cool and quiet (fan depends on temps), also lower power draw. This should give better-than-cheap-NAS performance in a tiny box. No RAID redundancy, no dual NICs or gigabit NIC. Hmmm, may still be cheaper than 500GB of NAS.

 

[erwos]

SFF PCs are not really appropriate for what you're trying to do, since they don't have enough 5.25" bays to hold hard drive racks. _Don't RAID without racks!_

Assuming you want 500gb of RAID 5, you'll want three 250GB hard drives, 3 racks w/ trays, and the cheapest CPU you can find. The egg seems to have a retail Sempron 64 2500+ for less than 60 bucks, which seems good to me. For the mobo, something with integrated video - offhand, maybe the Biostar 6100 board, or the MSI R480M-IL. Get cheap but reliable RAM (256mb is more than enough for a Linux file server) and a case you can live with (and fit everything into), and you're set. Linux software RAID is absolutely excellent - grab Fedora Core 4 (easiest distro to set up software RAID on that I've found), and just use that as the OS. Shouldn't run much more than $500, and it'll be exactly what you need.

-Erwos

 

[Tazanator]

well I just took one out of the network (upgrade) I had a P3 Slot MB with SCSI set in a 4U rack mount case and placed it in the basement near the furnace. Networked the drives from the slot1 to everything else and all was good. The upgrade was to a dual 933 so it could share the drives and host web pages / MRTG the network.

 

[11Blade]

some very excellent info. the link was something to be envied.
mashie's sff, http://www.mashie.org/casemods/udat1.html

All the info has been very useful.