Home made NAS
I have a bunch of old machines lying around which are currently just collecting dust. I would like to collect the disks from all of them, put them together into a single server to act as a file server / NAS on our home network. There would probably be a combination of IDE and SATA drives. What would you recommend as the best way to achieve this (with minimal cash outlay). The home network is a mixed Windows and Linux environment so I assume I would run Linux on the new server and provide access to the disks via SAMBA. For now the main function of the server would be to serve as a place to do backups. I have never done anything with RAID so I don't know if that is something that I should take into consideration (especially as the disks are of varying sizes). Any information, suggestions or pointers would be appreciated. I am viewing this as a learning experience (in addition to making use of old hardware for a positive purpose). Thanks in advance, -- David Suna da...@davidsconsultants.com ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Home made NAS
I've had good experience with FreeNAS (http://www.freenas.org/), but on a box with homogenous disks/controllers. YMMV, but it's definitely worth checking out. Rony On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 10:43 AM, David Suna da...@davidsconsultants.comwrote: I have a bunch of old machines lying around which are currently just collecting dust. I would like to collect the disks from all of them, put them together into a single server to act as a file server / NAS on our home network. There would probably be a combination of IDE and SATA drives. What would you recommend as the best way to achieve this (with minimal cash outlay). The home network is a mixed Windows and Linux environment so I assume I would run Linux on the new server and provide access to the disks via SAMBA. For now the main function of the server would be to serve as a place to do backups. I have never done anything with RAID so I don't know if that is something that I should take into consideration (especially as the disks are of varying sizes). Any information, suggestions or pointers would be appreciated. I am viewing this as a learning experience (in addition to making use of old hardware for a positive purpose). Thanks in advance, -- David sunada...@davidsconsultants.com ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il -- Ubi dubium, ibi libertas (where there is doubt, there is freedom) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Home made NAS
On 2012-12-04 10:43, David Suna wrote: I have a bunch of old machines lying around which are currently just collecting dust. I would like to collect the disks from all of them, put them together into a single server to act as a file server / NAS on our home network. There would probably be a combination of IDE and SATA drives. Make sure the TCO of running an old machine + lots of old HD's, is not more then buying a cheep green M.B. + 1or2 green HD. That said, ... What would you recommend as the best way to achieve this (with minimal cash outlay). The home network is a mixed Windows and Linux environment so I assume I would run Linux on the new server and provide access to the disks via SAMBA. Yep, you can RAID(1,5,10,6) the HD's as appropriate (i.e. see: selecting a RAID sys. on any wiki) and put LVM2 on top of that for use with SAMBA on a minimal stable Linux distro. If you need more, fancy file system btfs/zfs or iSCSI, FTP, NFS, it may be faster/better to go with a dedicated distro, checkout: OpenIndiana, FreeNas, Nexentastor, Openfiler. For now the main function of the server would be to serve as a place to do backups. I have never done anything with RAID so I don't know if that is something that I should take into consideration (especially as the disks are of varying sizes). Yes, you should select the best RAID sys for the H.D's size and condition, S.M.A.R.T is your friend. Remember RAID is not a backup! Any information, suggestions or pointers would be appreciated. I am viewing this as a learning experience (in addition to making use of old hardware for a positive purpose). For a learning experience checkout: OpenIndiana, FreeNas, Nexentastor, Openfiler ,see there implantation-points and D.I.Y. Good Luck! ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Home made NAS
On Tue, Dec 04, 2012, David Suna wrote about Home made NAS: I have a bunch of old machines lying around which are currently just collecting dust.nbsp; I would like to collect the disks from all of them, put them together into a single server to act as a file server A couple of years I started doing something similar to what you are planning. I took an old computer, and stuck in it a bunch of hard disks I had from previous years - one was 1 terabyte, another 300 gigabyte, and a third 80 gigabytes. The computer ran Linux, and served files (mostly CDs and DVDs) on my home network with NFS and Samba. But then I realized how annoying this setup was: the computer was very big, noisy, and had to be on all the time. The old disks (especially the 80 gigabytes) were a joke, and I all three disks summed together were smaller than a just new disk I could buy. Instead, I decided to buy a 2-terabyte WD My Book Live for $160. For this price, I got both the 2TB hard-disk and a tiny (ARM-based) server in one package. The package is 10 times smaller than my old computer, nearly silent, and uses up less electricity, and came preconfigured with the server software (it runs Linux, but you don't have direct access to it). So in my opinion, unless you're completely broke, and/or treating this as nothing more than an educational experience, building a NAS out of old equipment is waste of your energy. -- Nadav Har'El| Tuesday, Dec 4 2012, 20 Kislev 5773 n...@math.technion.ac.il |- Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |If you notice this notice, you'll notice http://nadav.harel.org.il |it's not worth noticing but is noticable. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Home made NAS
On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 1:08 PM, Nadav Har'El n...@math.technion.ac.ilwrote: On Tue, Dec 04, 2012, David Suna wrote about Home made NAS: I have a bunch of old machines lying around which are currently just collecting dust.nbsp; I would like to collect the disks from all of them, put them together into a single server to act as a file server A couple of years I started doing something similar to what you are planning. I took an old computer, and stuck in it a bunch of hard disks I had from previous years - one was 1 terabyte, another 300 gigabyte, and a third 80 gigabytes. The computer ran Linux, and served files (mostly CDs and DVDs) on my home network with NFS and Samba. But then I realized how annoying this setup was: the computer was very big, noisy, and had to be on all the time. The old disks (especially the 80 gigabytes) were a joke, and I all three disks summed together were smaller than a just new disk I could buy. Instead, I decided to buy a 2-terabyte WD My Book Live for $160. For this price, I got both the 2TB hard-disk and a tiny (ARM-based) server in one package. The package is 10 times smaller than my old computer, nearly silent, and uses up less electricity, and came preconfigured with the server software (it runs Linux, but you don't have direct access to it). So in my opinion, unless you're completely broke, and/or treating this as nothing more than an educational experience, building a NAS out of old equipment is waste of your energy. Unless you hook them up to a Raspberry Pi. That is silent, takes very little electricity and can probably do what you want. -- Nadav Har'El| Tuesday, Dec 4 2012, 20 Kislev 5773 n...@math.technion.ac.il |- Phone +972-523-790466, ICQ 13349191 |If you notice this notice, you'll notice http://nadav.harel.org.il |it's not worth noticing but is noticable. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Home made NAS
On 2012-12-04 13:37, Mord Behar wrote: So in my opinion, unless you're completely broke, and/or treating this as nothing more than an educational experience, building a NAS out of old equipment is waste of your energy. Unless you hook them up to a Raspberry Pi. That is silent, takes very little electricity and can probably do what you want. Raspberry Pi takes care only of the CPU/board part not the price -in timemoney, of inefficiently running a bunch of old H.D's there controllers. In my view the small Raspberry Pi form is less significant in this case, though it is the cool thing in town. I would advocate an Arm board more similar to the W.D. Book other designs. In IL, money wise, At less then $200 you are probably better-of just baying it of the shelf, unless you need the flexibility of your personal design (the education part can be done on a VM ;-) ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Home made NAS
On Tue, Dec 04, 2012 at 01:37:35PM +0200, Mord Behar wrote: On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 1:08 PM, Nadav Har'El n...@math.technion.ac.ilwrote: On Tue, Dec 04, 2012, David Suna wrote about Home made NAS: I have a bunch of old machines lying around which are currently just collecting dust.nbsp; I would like to collect the disks from all of them, put them together into a single server to act as a file server A couple of years I started doing something similar to what you are planning. I took an old computer, and stuck in it a bunch of hard disks I had from previous years - one was 1 terabyte, another 300 gigabyte, and a third 80 gigabytes. The computer ran Linux, and served files (mostly CDs and DVDs) on my home network with NFS and Samba. But then I realized how annoying this setup was: the computer was very big, noisy, and had to be on all the time. The old disks (especially the 80 gigabytes) were a joke, and I all three disks summed together were smaller than a just new disk I could buy. Instead, I decided to buy a 2-terabyte WD My Book Live for $160. For this price, I got both the 2TB hard-disk and a tiny (ARM-based) server in one package. The package is 10 times smaller than my old computer, nearly silent, and uses up less electricity, and came preconfigured with the server software (it runs Linux, but you don't have direct access to it). So in my opinion, unless you're completely broke, and/or treating this as nothing more than an educational experience, building a NAS out of old equipment is waste of your energy. Unless you hook them up to a Raspberry Pi. That is silent, takes very little electricity and can probably do what you want. A Raspberry Pi is relatively cheap, but is certainly not the only small device around. http://linux-sunxi.org/Mele_A1000 Includes a SATA adapter and a disk enclosure (you'll have to provide your own disk). It does cost a bit more than a Pi, and the code is not in mainline yet, but it's easier to work with than a Pi. There are lots of them. -- Tzafrir Cohen | tzaf...@jabber.org | VIM is http://tzafrir.org.il || a Mutt's tzaf...@cohens.org.il || best tzaf...@debian.org|| friend ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Home made NAS
2012/12/4 vordoo vor...@yahoo.com: On 2012-12-04 13:37, Mord Behar wrote: So in my opinion, unless you're completely broke, and/or treating this as nothing more than an educational experience, building a NAS out of old equipment is waste of your energy. Unless you hook them up to a Raspberry Pi. That is silent, takes very little electricity and can probably do what you want. Raspberry Pi takes care only of the CPU/board part not the price -in timemoney, of inefficiently running a bunch of old H.D's there controllers. In my view the small Raspberry Pi form is less significant in this case, though it is the cool thing in town. I would advocate an Arm board more similar to the W.D. Book other designs. In IL, money wise, At less then $200 you are probably better-of just baying it of the shelf, unless you need the flexibility of your personal design (the education part can be done on a VM ;-) Don't forget you can hack the WD Live, or get to the linux it runs (debian) and expand it... (Unless they locked it down more recently) Regards, Eliyahu - אליהו ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Home made NAS
David, FreeNAS works rather well in an environment like yours, however (a) as of version 8 it needs considerable amounts of RAM to work reasonably well (v7 could get along well with half a gig) and (b) you need either all HDDs to be of the same size or at least to have a few groups of similar size HDDs, otherwise you're gonna lose a lot of space when building the pools. For a home server with a bunch of varying size disks, you may want to take a look at unRAID. It's a rather unique solution, with a few rather unique features, for exactly this situation (different size, different age disks). Downside: for more than 3 drives, it's not free. Doron On Tue, Dec 4, 2012 at 10:43 AM, David Suna da...@davidsconsultants.comwrote: I have a bunch of old machines lying around which are currently just collecting dust. I would like to collect the disks from all of them, put them together into a single server to act as a file server / NAS on our home network. There would probably be a combination of IDE and SATA drives. What would you recommend as the best way to achieve this (with minimal cash outlay). The home network is a mixed Windows and Linux environment so I assume I would run Linux on the new server and provide access to the disks via SAMBA. For now the main function of the server would be to serve as a place to do backups. I have never done anything with RAID so I don't know if that is something that I should take into consideration (especially as the disks are of varying sizes). Any information, suggestions or pointers would be appreciated. I am viewing this as a learning experience (in addition to making use of old hardware for a positive purpose). Thanks in advance, -- David sunada...@davidsconsultants.com ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Home made NAS
Hi Tzafrir,
On Tue, Dec 04, 2012 at 12:33:37PM +, Tzafrir Cohen wrote:
http://linux-sunxi.org/Mele_A1000
Includes a SATA adapter and a disk enclosure (you'll have to provide
your own disk). It does cost a bit more than a Pi, and the code is not
in mainline yet,
That is about to change in kernel v3.8. The patch below (and a few other
related patches) are queued for inclusion in the upcoming merge window.
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/arm/arm-soc.git;a=commitdiff;h=3b52634f0b7adaaf2b29569025287b938b7c71a6
baruch
but it's easier to work with than a Pi.
There are lots of them.
--
http://baruch.siach.name/blog/ ~. .~ Tk Open Systems
=}ooO--U--Ooo{=
- bar...@tkos.co.il - tel: +972.2.679.5364, http://www.tkos.co.il -
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Re: Home made NAS
Too many ways to do this but if you consider the data you are going to put on this nas valueable and the hw you are talking about is 2+yrs old then you better off buying new With old hw you can never be sure its going to come up next time and basicly nothing is promised, but for sure stuff can still work for ever with some miracle and a luck dragon.. On Dec 4, 2012 8:36 AM, E.S. Rosenberg esr+linux...@g.jct.ac.il wrote: 2012/12/4 vordoo vor...@yahoo.com: On 2012-12-04 13:37, Mord Behar wrote: So in my opinion, unless you're completely broke, and/or treating this as nothing more than an educational experience, building a NAS out of old equipment is waste of your energy. Unless you hook them up to a Raspberry Pi. That is silent, takes very little electricity and can probably do what you want. Raspberry Pi takes care only of the CPU/board part not the price -in timemoney, of inefficiently running a bunch of old H.D's there controllers. In my view the small Raspberry Pi form is less significant in this case, though it is the cool thing in town. I would advocate an Arm board more similar to the W.D. Book other designs. In IL, money wise, At less then $200 you are probably better-of just baying it of the shelf, unless you need the flexibility of your personal design (the education part can be done on a VM ;-) Don't forget you can hack the WD Live, or get to the linux it runs (debian) and expand it... (Unless they locked it down more recently) Regards, Eliyahu - אליהו ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Home made NAS
2012/12/4 Baruch Shpirer bar...@shpirer.com: Too many ways to do this but if you consider the data you are going to put on this nas valueable and the hw you are talking about is 2+yrs old then you better off buying new With old hw you can never be sure its going to come up next time and basicly nothing is promised, but for sure stuff can still work for ever with some miracle and a luck dragon.. According to research done by google and also in my experience a normal harddisk (spinner) that has functioned without failures for 3 years will generally last for a very long time On Dec 4, 2012 8:36 AM, E.S. Rosenberg esr+linux...@g.jct.ac.il wrote: 2012/12/4 vordoo vor...@yahoo.com: On 2012-12-04 13:37, Mord Behar wrote: So in my opinion, unless you're completely broke, and/or treating this as nothing more than an educational experience, building a NAS out of old equipment is waste of your energy. Unless you hook them up to a Raspberry Pi. That is silent, takes very little electricity and can probably do what you want. Raspberry Pi takes care only of the CPU/board part not the price -in timemoney, of inefficiently running a bunch of old H.D's there controllers. In my view the small Raspberry Pi form is less significant in this case, though it is the cool thing in town. I would advocate an Arm board more similar to the W.D. Book other designs. In IL, money wise, At less then $200 you are probably better-of just baying it of the shelf, unless you need the flexibility of your personal design (the education part can be done on a VM ;-) Don't forget you can hack the WD Live, or get to the linux it runs (debian) and expand it... (Unless they locked it down more recently) Regards, Eliyahu - אליהו ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Home made NAS
On 04/12/2012 21:27, E.S. Rosenberg wrote: 2012/12/4 Baruch Shpirer bar...@shpirer.com: Too many ways to do this but if you consider the data you are going to put on this nas valueable and the hw you are talking about is 2+yrs old then you better off buying new With old hw you can never be sure its going to come up next time and basicly nothing is promised, but for sure stuff can still work for ever with some miracle and a luck dragon.. According to research done by google and also in my experience a normal harddisk (spinner) that has functioned without failures for 3 years will generally last for a very long time snip Better read this article first (from 2007) http://storagemojo.com/2007/02/19/googles-disk-failure-experience/ Moish ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
