Theory

[awinn17]

Hello everyone. I would like to ask about a hypothetical build but I was having some trouble finding a topic that addressed this, or at least I did not recognize it if I saw it.

The issue is that my girlfriend takes pictures and would like to start doing it professionally on the side. She has filled about 750 GB in less than a year. Obviously I am concerned about what would happen if she lost the disk. We got a stop gap solution to back up to a removable/portable 1TB drive, but obviously that is filling up at the same rate and that's not practical for a long term solution.

I would like to build a NAS box such that it fits our current needs + a little (so start at 4 or 5 TB), redundant itself in case the box loses a disk, and as the ability to expand in the future (to 8, 10, 15 TB if needs be.) Obviously, transfer speeds would be important since she may come back and download 60 GB of photos after a wedding, for example.
I would like to be able to back up all our computers on a schedule, so all file types should be considered (barring MAC, unless she gets one in the future, so don't rule it out).
It would be convenient to run a cloud system (like Owncloud?) to access/backup files from a remote location, ie while traveling.
Also, since it's network attached and backing up all our systems, digital security is also extremely important. The files should be encrypted, or if there are other suggestions I'd love to hear them.
Edit: I would also like it to be able to withstand a power loss and recover it's settings when power is restored and the system comes back online.

I'm not building this yet, but I would like to estimate the cost and materials required, and assess the difficulty, both in setting it up and recovering in case the system loses a disk. That last concerns me in particular. Raid is useless unless I know how to get in and repair the system. I consider it off topic to discuss how to do it here, but a reliable Raid option should be considered and I can learn how to do it when I get closer to the build.


So, do you have thoughts about how you would go about tackling this? Something like what hardware you would get to start out with, then how you would set up the drives, and what a potential disk-loss would mean to repair it.

And yeah, I considered buying a pre-build/professional system, or purchasing cloud storage, but there's a high that comes with engineering your own solutions, so I'm gonna try this first.

I appreciate the help, all!

[raulfg3]

to start, see other users builds on :viewforum.php?f=63

mine for example: viewtopic.php?f=63&t=31

cost is 2 years old but can be simmilar for a new system (better that mine)

[b0ssman]

here is a wiki entry about how to replace a failed disk in a zfs raid array
http://wiki.nas4free.org/doku.php?id=faq:0149

some things to consider when choosing hardware.
http://forums.freenas.org/threads/so-yo ... ons.12276/

especially if you want encryption and data security you will need a processsor with aes-ni and ecc support.

[awinn17]

Thank you guys.

I read the post about choosing hardware and I read some of the links they had inside that.

My next goal is to read up on RaidZ1 (or are we at RaidZ2 now? I saw that somewhere). Do you think the ZFS with RaidZ would be a solid choice for my file purposes? I kind of expected it to be but wanted to consider other options first.

One problem I remember having was that with a ZFS setup and SAMBA I had issues A) transfer speeds that degraded quickly (think y=1/x^2; y=speed) and B) on power loss, the shares seemed to disappear and couldn't be discovered by the client PC. Was this something I did wrong or is this just something that happens with the setup I had? I'm willing to bet it was me, but if not then power loss becomes a concern.



Thanks for the help. I'm here to learn. I'm searching and reading what I can, but I can't always find the answers because I don't know how to ask the question. These pointers are very helpful getting me "on the trail" so to speak.

[awinn17]

So I spent a few hours this morning creating a singl-parity Raid Z (Z1) with some drives I had laying around (500GB and 160GB). I have stable for power on/off and loss, so that problem is solved. Created a share, client recognized, I mapped the NAS, and client will auto-backup.

The speed degradation issue is not there anymore, but the speeds are extremely slow, in the area of 3.5-4.3 Mb/s for prolonged transfer (testing approx 50Mb and approx 4 Gb). These were over my wi-fi adapter to the router to the NAS.

Testing CAT5E LAN to router to NAS via CAT5E shows a very stable 10.2-10.4 for a 7.4Gb file.


I do not have a gigabit network connection, but that may be my next purchase. I can move this question elsewhere, but I noticed that RAULFG3 (above) had much faster speeds.

Question is, assuming I connect my client PC (assuming it auto switches to 1000) via CAT6 cable to a gigabit network switch, and from there via CAT6 to my NAS (again, assuming auto switch to 1000), what kinds of speeds do you get? In other words, assuming the entire network is gigabit enabled I don't assume I will see 1000 Mb/s actual speeds, but I am curious to know what they will be and what the next limiting factors are. I'm predicting my build being made from an old PC will have non-network bottlenecks, but I don't know how to estimate the finer points like memory and processor speeds and how ZFS and encryption (future) play into it.

I'd like to be at least above USB 3.0 speeds since that's currently my most practical backup solution. Hopefully well above. Over 100 would be great.

Still learning and reading on my free time. This is fun

PS I have a crossover cable adapter... is it possible to directly connect them and "see" a gigabit connection?