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Best Home Network NAS
jammerjam writes "My WD 120GB drive got its MBR scrambled so it no longer mounts in my W*ndoze box (I can recover the data so I know that's intact). But now that's made me realize I need to implement my data backup plan. Scouring the Internet I can't find a reliable resource for home NAS solutions. For every positive review I can find a negative that refutes it. My first choice from what I found starts at $1200...I've got $500. Anyone have a suggestion? I'm not looking for enterprise-level storage here — but I do want reliability."
I'd get one of those cheapo walmart linux boxes...stick it in a closet....then just use rsync or rdiffbackup....with a real box you'd have the luxury of being able to add additional storage easy...you can even setup a software raid for extra protection...
... you'll always need backups. Even the most reliable systems will eventually fail. Routine backing up is essential.
You don't need enterprise storage solutions: great. That means that you probably don't need to do nightly backups.
The lesson in you losing your data is not that you needed NAS, but you needed to make better backups.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Try and work out exactly what you're protecting against before you worry about solutions.
Do you want data to survive a hard disk failure? RAID. (Though I make no guarantee that any of these things have implemented RAID terribly well, particularly if a disk fails 2 years later and the replacement you plug in has totally different geometry).
Do you want data to survive your own mistakes? Then use the NAS as a backup for your own PC(s).
Do you want data to survive poor implementation in the firmware? For best results, you'll probably need two totally different devices and some means of keeping them synchronised. (Though a number of Buffallo's Linkstation products can support a separate external USB disk for backup of the NAS itself).
Do you want data to survive a house fire? If you've got immense quantities of data, you'll need a unit you can take offsite. If not, perhaps a subscription-based internet backup provider is the way to go.
You've added $169 to his base cost, and haven't really given him a solution. The various open source products out there will more than likely compete just fine with your Windows software, and not cost the $169. On a budget of $500, if you're spending almost 1/2 that on software, you're not getting much for hardware.
It sounds like this guy is a noob. So how long will it take for the OSS to be setup and configured correctly. When the Windows software is probably point and click. Some of the $500 is going to hardware but I am sure some is also going to keeping his sanity when setting up and maintaining this system.
I smoked pot once. But I DID NOT inhale. Will you hire me?
However, they clay tablet is probably the only storage media which is only hardened by fires...
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
But then I also prefer SCSI disks.
... just in case it works too well and you don't think about it for the next 6 years.
That is because I can get them hot-swappable and with lots of nice lights.
I have a new SATA server that has fakeRAID, and the drive lights are not supported and they aren't hot-swappable.
For a home environment where YOU know what you have and how it is configured, I'd say go with whatever you're comfortable with. Just make sure you document what is what and where
I'll second this...I hadn't even heard of this device until this post, and spent some time looking over there material in more-or-less awe in that it looks like a practically perfect device. Except the ethernet connection. I don't know how they missed that one; I'll wait for v2.0.
All for just under $700. If you really want to rock and roll, get some of the new 1TB drives!
I don't use the raid chip on the mobo, just Linux Software Raid all the way. For a home backup system, it's the way to go - I can always stick the drives in a new system and have it recognize and reconstruct the array. OTOH, I have had a hardware raid card go bad, and man, that's a world of hurt unless you have an exact duplicate card on hand. Not good for a file server! The performance of a software raid is more than adequate, given that the CPU has nothing else to do - it's a file server! The cost/risk/usefulness balance is very heavy in favor of software raid.
I divided the drives into 4 partitions each: a small one mirrored across all drives for the
The remaining partition on all four drives is used for the (raid 5) actual file storage, I put it on
For software, I see some turnkey systems that people are pushing around here, but I just went with a basic Ubuntu server 64 bit. That way I can install any number of packages from Ubuntu's massive package repository.
For backup solutions, I went with backupPC, though I am also experimenting with Bacula. Samba and Webmin round out the file services and maintenance.
The best part of the whole thing? Since I implemented this, I have had 2 complete system losses
I bought one of these about a year ago. I populated it with two 500GB SATA drives. I chose to stripe for speed, not redundancy. I am very satisfied with this box. It just runs 24x7, takes up very little room, and is fairly quiet (there is a fan). Another bonus which was a big deal for me was that it has a GigE connection. And best of all, you'll only spend about $450 to build a fairly fast 1TB NAS.
The only downside I have found is that the DNS-323 does not correctly implement the Windows Archive attribute in the file system. I have some simple batch files that I use to back up my data by coping all files with their archive bit set from the drive to another external USB drive, and then clearing the archive bit on those copied files. But it seems the DNS-323 for some reason does not persist the state of the archive flag, and so every time I run the script it copies all the files on the volume.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
"I can't imagine this taking more than half an hour to get working."
Jesus. The number of times I've said that and regretted it.
throw new NoSignatureException();
I'll add another plug for the NSLU. Got one of those handling image data from remote security cameras. Works great. Note that you have to have USB hard drive however, as it does not have SATA support directly.
Also, I did mod the box so that it powers back on automatically after a power failure.
Like pi? Try 10,000 digits.
Skip the RAID. RAID is for availability-- you don't need high availability at home. What you want is a fast, easy backup procedure. RAID arrays increase your likelihood of failure-- you have more disks-- the difference being that failure no longer [necessarily] equals downtime. Done right, it is expensive. This is worth it if downtime costs you more than RAID does. If you're using RAID in a machine which requires you to power off and disassemble the machine to replace the disk-- you're wasting your money. That is, unless you're running RAID 0, in which case, you're not doing anything at all to make your data more reliable-- just faster.
Since you seem to want to go the NAS route, you should just set up a file server. Get into the habit of making backups. You can automate this process somewhat. If you go the Linux or BSD route, there are lots of good, free utilities out there to help you with this. On my fileserver, I use "dump", and I dump the whole disk to another one, and for certain data, I use rsync. On my Mac at home, I use SuperDuper. My girlfriend uses Acronis. I have multiple backup sets, since disks are cheap. At work, where backups are very important, we use tape-- but that's another thing like RAID. Tape is more reliable than disk, but slow and expensive. Do you really need it?
It's a question of application. For a home system, where you plan to keep the disks for a long time, maybe even moving them between computers, where you run only simple RAID configurations, where you don't have the backup capacity to create a complete archive, and where you don't have the budget to have a spare controller, software RAID is probably the right choice.
But there are still plenty of applications for hardware RAID.
For one thing, most RAID cards have 512+ MB of RAM cache, which is nothing to sneeze at, particularly when it can be safely used as persistent, stable storage, which the main system memory cannot. For another, hardware RAID cards are bootable in arbitrarily complex configurations, whereas software RAID requires a RAID-1 partition for booting. And while linux software RAID works in any modern version of linux, it doesn't work very well under Windows, BSD, OS X, or any other operating system, which is a problem if you want to boot more than one OS, or need to recover data from the disks under another OS.
And they aren't mutually exclusive. On systems with lots of disks I commonly run a combination of hardware and software RAID, with hardware RAID at the bottom level to tie all my disks into bigger containers, and then tying together two such containers with RAID-1 in software. That setup gives me the flexibility of software RAID in placing those containers on different controllers (or even different hosts) while ensuring that I can recover a full data set from the low-level RAID setup even if there's a problem with the RAID-1 host.
If your data is valuable enough to use raid, then hardware raid is the only way to go. If you have a problem with the os the data is lost. I have had the os go out on my home storage server several times over the years but have not lost data because I was using hardware raid. Siig puts out a nice little 4 port sata raid and Adaptec and 3ware also put out some great cards. A 500Mhz system with a gig of ram, a gigabit card and a raid card will serve you far better than a 3ghz system with less ram and software raid. Dave
When your RAID card does die (2 years? 4 years?), what will you do? If that card isn't being made anymore, are you out of luck? Or can a different card read the disks? I don't think they can. I know a few people that ran into this.
With a software RAID, you do lose some performance, but any Linux distro will be able to read the disks. If the OS bugs out (an infrequent occurrence), you might lose a little data, but not a ton... I'm actually not convinced you'll have a good linux distro w/frequent kernel panics anyway. If you lose your card, will you lose it all?
Agile Artisans
Task Scheduler to copy files from client to a network share? Can't be all that complex to set up a basic data backup routine...
Ubuntu requires you to install Samba. WHS uses windows shares / web server interface.Samba has a pretty easy GUI setup, even in Ubuntu. It's also already installed, I believe.
Ubuntu requires raid hardware or software.Software RAID is already built-in. If you use Fedora instead of Ubuntu, you can use LVM's GUI tools to do all of the dynamic partition sizing goodness.
Ubuntu would not give you Remote Desktop access to your windows machines without configuring Wine, I think.Use the Package manager to install rdesktop, which allows remote desktop access to any Windows box. Done.
Ubuntu requires you to install CVS to get versioning of files, which requires you to actively commit files. WHS automatically saves changes between versions and allows you to step back, all through the nightly automatic backup.Ah, now there's one that you've gotten perfectly correct (IIRC), and why I use Bacula on my home network (which is admittedly not something for the casual user).
You'd have to write your own web service to access the machines from outside the network. You'd also have to configure the router yourself. WHS automatically configures routers (if supported) and has an IIS app that lets you access all machines and WHS content from the internet.I'm not so sure I'd want any un-hardened machine to be accessible from the Internet; esp. a Windows one that both streams media and holds all of my personal data in one easy-to-reach location. That's just begging for a first-class arse-pounding from the first script kiddie to see that you've done that.
This is just a handful. I thought this through, I run a small business (20 hours a week of development) and did my homework before making the decision to buy WHS.I'm sure you probably have... but I don't think you had all the facts at hand when you did. Now know that I'm not knocking your choice at all - if you use something as a beta and like it, and it works for you, cool... but I think that you haven't really looked all too deeply into the alternatives, you know?
Personally, I find that spending $169 for just the OS (when I can get at least an extra hard disk with change left over at that price) to be a bit much. There is also the headaches specific to Windows - the high probability of being targeted, the EULA that says I do it MSFT's way or no way at all, the 'phoning home', the DRM, the extra overhead (I stick with runlevel 3 on my home servers), and the fact that there really isn't much I can tweak on it (at least by comparison)... But then, I do the sysadmin thang for a living - so my needs, skillset, and priorities are a lot different from that of the average home user.
And so it goes... :)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
I don't understand why you lost data. Were you not able to reinstall your OS and then re-access the drives?
With hardware RAID, you need to be able to replace the RAID card with an identical one in order to guarantee that you'll have access to your data. With software RAID, it would seem like all you need is a compatible OS (i.e. the one you were using before.)
If the OS trashes your data, you're screwed, but this can happen even with hardware RAID.
One thing I've learned from speccing a few enterprise backup systems is that you really have to be specific with your needs. The reason everyone on this board isn't just recommending the same thing is because there are so many trade-offs associated with backup systems.
For example, how easy do you need it to be to set up?
Do you want something with a command line, web interface, or dedicated monitor?
How much space and ventilation do you have for the system?
Does it need wireless or wired connections?
How comfortable are you with the various technologies that you could use in a DIY situation?
How much space do you need?
How much reliability do you need?
How much availability do you need?
These are all factors that are essential to choosing the right solution.
My current setup is more of a NAS than a backup box. It's an old box, Athlon 3000+ with 1GB of RAM, running OpenSolaris. Solaris is a pain, but ZFS is worth it. It makes managing all those disks painless. In return I get redundancy in the form of mirrored disks, speed in terms of ZFS caching and mirrored disks, infinite constant-time snapshots (I do hourly), and a host of minor options. I export these disks via NFS to all the systems on our home network and it is generally faster than a single native disk. All in all it has cost me $120 for a new case and $40 for a new SATA card when I needed to add more disks, plus the cost of disks. Now I have 80GB of OS/web space and 750GB of storage, all mirrored. That means I'll basically never worry about losing stuff.
If you really want quality storage, look for ZFS. It's in OpenSolaris, FreeBSD, and OS X now. Also, if you ever get more systems it is nice to have a NAS to share files and allow for centralized management.
RAID is most definitely about reliability and recoverability as well as availability. It all depends on the level you choose. Your argument that multiple disks increases your likelihood of failure is trumped by one simple fact: how do you know that the single drive you buy for the job will be more reliable than the one next to it?
You can't, and that's why using at least something like RAID1 is a smart way to go. When one drive fails, your data doesn't all go with that one drive. I've seen drives from batches fail literally within a couple of days of each other. If you're smart and rebuild offline as soon as a failure occurs, your chances of losing all your data are very small. Reliability engineering is all about probabilities, and the mirroring and parity concepts of RAID facilitate this reliability. The only place where your argument holds sway is on RAID0, and that's a pretty specialized application to be sure.
If you want to swap drives without disassembling the machine, get case with enough 5.25" bays for the drives you need and buy some removable trays for $10 a piece. When one drive fails, you turn a key, pull the tray, swap the drive and back in it goes for a rebuild.
You might want to reconsider putting such a cheap PSU in that system. From everything I've seen in PSU benchmarks such as those posted at hardocp.com (including such budget PSUs), PSUs for less than $90 are quite likely to be a hazard to the rest of the system. Together with the mainboard, the PSU is one thing you really don't want to go cheap on. Don't forget to read benchmarks, though. Some manufacturers like to put some really horrible junk up for sale at really inflated prices.
;)
Buy responsible, buy informed
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I can't believe I have to mention this AGAIN, but every time there's a discussion of home-RAID systems, 90% of /. jumps to the wrong conclusion.
Let me state something VERY VERY CLEARLY here:
RAID is not backup.
NAS is not backup.
SAN is not backup.
Snapshotting is not backup.
Backup is backup.
A "backup" means A COMPLETE COPIES OF FILES STORED OFFLINE.
RAID is a way of providing data availability and reliability. It doesn't provide backups. SAN and NAS are various frameworks for presenting the data in a storage system (generally RAID, but not necessarily) to an environment. It doesn't provide backups either. Backups consist of making COMPLETE COPIES (and yes that includes incrementals--ultimately, with a base copy plus incrementals, you have a complete copy) of files, STORED OFFLINE. Snapshots provide copies of files (and the smart snapshot systems do provide complete copies), but they're still online copies of the data. They will let you recover files to a point-in-time, but if your storage array goes T.U. for some horrible reason, you're still screwed.
RAID is fantastic for keeping your online data from being destroyed or taken offline due to hardware failures. SAN/NAS is great for making data available to a networked environment. However, if you want backups of your files, then back up your files--don't use RAID (and SAN/NAS on top of it) as a backup scheme, because it ain't.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban