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DIY NAS OS Choices


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Hello, I wasn't sure the best part of the forum to post this, so if it needs to be moved, please feel free.

 

I have an older desktop that I want to turn into a NAS type device to act as a backup for my existing dedicated NAS (or vice versa).

 

I currently have a dlink dns-321 with mirrored 1TB drives that acts as my primary backup device. Just because I wouldn't have any luck if it weren't for bad luck, along with I feel the need to use old hardware until its dead, I want to add a secondary backup with my old desktop.

 

Specs are:

 

AMD Athlon 64 x2 5600+

MSI 7309 MB

2GB DDR2, I don't remember the clock speed

Nvidia Geforce 7900GS, the motherboard only has 2 SATA ports, both currently occupied.

1 40GB IDE drive which I was contemplating using as the boot/os drive, freeing up the 1TB's for data storage.

2 mirrored 1tb sata drives on the built in nforce raid controller.

 

I don't want to spend any money, if I were to, I'd just buy a new NAS device.

 

I'm open to OS choices, I do have a copy of the first version of Windows home server (5.2 kernal, 2003) I could use, but I also figure this could give me some experience with other OS's, I haven't touched anything *nix since Ubuntu 8.04 so why not use this as an excuse?

 

A simple web based interface would be ideal.

 

I don't need the remote access capabilities of Windows Home Server and I already have a machine that serves as my web server running Server 2008 R2.

 

the primary purpose would be to be able to perform automated scheduled backups of my existing NAS over my wired LAN.

 

All my other PC's already backup to the dlink NAS via Windows 8 file history, or in the case of my test web server, drive image xml.

 

Thanks for your input.

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freenas comes to mind.. If only 2 drives - something like unraid would also be an option for free.

Openmediavault, Nas4free, openfiler -- there are lots to choose from.

Or just any linux distro you want to play with and samba works too.

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Thanks for the feedback BudMan, I've downloaded and installed unRaid on a 1gb flash drive, it looks like it will meet my needs so far.

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BudMan, what is your choice of NAS?  Do you have a NAS server?  I am researching about NAS too.  Neowin has a product review about NAS and I am thinking of buying that one.  What would you recommend if I want a NAS that I can later upgrade the storage space bigger and bigger if I wanted to, say a year from now?  Really looking for a way to get a really powerful NAS server for home use.  I check FreeNAS but not sure if that's going to be a good choice.  I may have to do more research but if BudMan recommend something I know it's going to be good. ;)

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"BudMan, what is your choice of NAS?"

 

My current setup for storage is a windows 7 VM running the mentioned drivepool from stablebit with 3 storage disks raw mapped to it - 3TB, 2TB and 750GB, I also have their scanner software - I can do nothing but rave about their support, and price is very reasonable for a maintained product.  Moving between machines is a breeze.  I don't really see raid having any use in the home setup, other than maybe 0 or 1, with 1 being on the fence.

 

https://stablebit.com/

 

I recently had a question for them about a warning the scanner was throwing on LCC, over 300K -- this is a known issue/bug on some drives where it parks the heads very often.  They don't come up with the numbers for for warnings - this comes from the drive maker.  But they were very helpful in providing info, and most likely not have to worry about it, etc. etc.  Top notch support for something that really has nothing to do with their software.

 

This VM is running on a HP N40L microserver, it has 4 internal bays and like 7 usb ports, and esata port, etc.  I have also added a SSD to this in the optical bay that was not being used - you could put 2 storage disks in there for total of 6 internal drives, etc. etc..  This was picked up cheap!  I added some mem and couple of nics so it was better suited for my router - pfsense also runs as VM and is my networks router/firewall.  I run currently 5 VMs on this 24/7/365 - pfsense, storage, ubuntu server, unifi controller running on ubuntu and cacti also running on different ubuntu vm.  And then multitude of play vms for testing, etc.

 

To me storage in the home is convenience mostly - you want those TB of videos/pictures/audio available -- none of which to me is critical data other then the home movies/pictures - this is small portion of the dataset.   Drivepool allows you to have multiple copies of your different disks for mitigation of loss of disk and having to restore from your backup.  Peace of mind lets call it.  These disks are just ntfs disk that can be moved to any other machine that can read ntfs and get the files with native path and filenames.  When the disk is in the pool you can still access the disk directly and or through the pool disk via local or shared.  You can grow the pool by adding any disk size spindle speed or interface type, etc.

 

This sort of storage is far better suited to the home setup if you ask me.  As the older disks need to be replaced you add a newer bigger disk and just remove the old from the pool.  If you did have major issue that caused a crash - say you lost multiple disks in the storage pool..  The data on the other drives are still there and no need to restore or rerip, etc.  I don't really see a point in backing up movies that you can just rerip or download again from itunes, etc.

 

If you were in the market for storage on your network - I would first size it correctly.  How much space do you need?  Does it fit on one disk?  What is the make of the files - is it all critical one of kind stuff, pictures/videos you have taken or movies/tv you have ripped/recorded/etc/

 

You can clearly get more bang for your buck DIY..  But then maybe you just want something easy and nobrainer, etc.  If you need lots of storage - I mean a LOT..  And you want some sort of parity I would prob go with unraid and a build your own box that could house like 12 disks.  If all you want is to throw some storage on the network - something as cheap as a 20$ pogoplug can take your disk and share it on your network, etc.

 

Without understanding your requirements/wants in this nas I would be hard pressed to recommend anything.  If you want just PM me and happy to discuss options, or start a thread and everyone can chime in, etc.

 

To me the microserver was best choice - I could run whatever OS I wanted on it, be it esxi for vms, or windows or linux - has 4 bays, with space in the box for 2 other disks if wanted.  Allows for quite a bit of storage.  And it was cheap - I got mine for $270 back in 3/2012 that came with a 250GB disk 2GB of Ram, etc.

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