File server build

Well I was reading Anandtech today and I was intrigued by the file server idea, while I do use a NAS, I was particularly intrigued with the possibility of having my files whenever I go.

I hope that by posting this here, Im not going to be redirected to the desktop review, since this is a complementary device of any laptop, or at least its a good idea.

So I built this

Case: Fractal Design Array R2 (lovely design, and it holds up to 6 HDDs, and going by the reviews its cool enough for what Im trying to do)

HDD: Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARX 2TB (four of those babies, I chose those based that they can hold RAID without a problem or so it appears)

RAM: Kingston Value 4GB (the cheapest I could find)

MOBO: ASUS P8H61-I (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel H61 (chose this because, well just because its asus, heh no real concrete evidence)

CPU: Intel Pentium G620 (chose these because of the performance and the low power consumption)

So what do you guys think? I will install windows 2008 R2, since I have it for free. And it will all be in RAID 5.

 

personally, i would use linux for file server as there can be lots of interesting ideas implemented but for simplicity(i.e. I don't want to experiment), R2 is fine.

Also consider RAID 6 instead of 5 to get a bit more 'peace of mind'.

 

Yeah might try raid 6 when I get a pcie sata expansion card, thus I would raise the amount of HDDs to 6, so I dont lose that much space

Im trying R2 simply because its the one that I have least experience.

Too bad that I cant find a mini itx board that has 2 pcie slots, so I could put that one and maybe a hauppage card turning into a file server/htpc

 

You aren't the only one looking into doing something like this. I'll give you my thoughts on the same issue.

I can kind of see a topic like this belonging on both forums. Oh well, I guess we'll let it slide. For now...

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I would personally avoid SFX power supplies...there simply are not many options in that market and none (that I am aware of) are particularly high quality devices. You might want to check out these alternatives.

Fractal Design Mini - Might impact your motherboard choices, but has similar drive capacity and is about $99.
Rosewill Server Chassis - 9 drive spaces, supports standard PSUs, but it's a big case.
Bigger Rosewill Server Chassis - 8 drive spaces, can be expanded to 12. A good bit thicker than the other Rosewill though.
Antec 300 - Cheap and it does the job.

Avoid these drives like the plague. Especially if you intend on using RAID with Windows. There are plenty of complaints about the quality of the drive alone, let alone the problems they cause when used in a RAID setup that assumes drives have TLER enabled (time limited error recovery).

If you *know* you do not need TLER drives (for example I believe that Linux and mdadm does not assume drives have TLER enabled) you should get WD 2TB Caviar Black drives.

If you think you might need TLER drives or simply do not know, stick with the WD RE4 drives. More expensive yes but potentially more reliable for your setup.

Generally, don't get anything that uses (1) variable RPM or 5400RPM, (2) odd drive sizes which indicate the device is a three or four or five platter design that will exhibit higher failure rates (i.e. stick with two platter designs), or (3) any "bare drive" sold through NewEgg as they have the worst packaging quality of any vendor which results in more DOA drives than you can imagine. This is actually one of those products I would willingly buy from Best Buy, simply because that DOA thing can be fixed by driving to the store to exchange. Amazon usually does overnight shipping for DOA products.

Prices on the 2TB Caviar Black are similar at Best Buy.

Amazon has 2TB RE4's for a decent price.

Fine, but I'd recommend Corsair personally.

I've had bad experiences with ASUS, particularly as relates to sleep and their willingness to honor their warranty. Gigabyte is a better buy as far as I am concerned. The GA-Z68M-D2H-B3 will be a better choice than anything ASUS has to offer.

Very good choice considering what you plan to use this server for.

You might want to consider Linux as well (distro is up to you) as mdadm has far better software RAID capabilities than what you can get with Windows and Intel motherboards (at least not without forking out a lot of money). Don't listen to the hype about software v. hardware RAID. If you go with software RAID either stick with Windows's dynamic disks RAID or Linux's mdadm (if the computer dies it will be easy to "port" the array over to another 2008 R2 installation or another Linux install); if you use hardware RAID than stick with Intel's ICH10R (if the controller dies it will be easy to "port" the array over to another Intel machine).

mdadm is also really good if you want to set up a better redundant setup. RAID6 if you have the cash, and RAID6 with a hot spare or two if you really want to go fancy, will help ensure you don't loose data because of drive failures.

PCIe cards have one big disadvantage. If it dies, your data might die with it as most use proprietary formats for the RAID metadata. There is no single unifying standard.

The desire to expand the RAID array later is another plus for mdadm. I don't think Windows can do that without backing up, reinitializing the array, and restoring the backup.

Than you'll love Linux .

The mini-ITX standard only allows for one slot. All of the cases I mentioned earlier support at least microATX, which from what you are writing is probably a better fit for your needs. Not to mention you can use more expansion cards later if you want to expand on the number of drives in the system.

 

Looks baffled at the post?! Hell yeah thanks that was the kind of thing I was waiting for!

Damm thanks!

The idea is that people rely too much on external drives here, and sometimes the external drive is a continuation of the primary drive (guilty as charged!) So the idea is for people to see that there is something that wont tie you to cables or adding weight for people that are in the ultraportable world.

Interesting everyone commented how good this psu was, its a 80% efficiency certified, and the fact that it comes already with the casing is indeed "interesting", well what I liked most of the case and the psu was the design, since this is going to stay in my living room, right beside the home theater.

But indeed that new case is good looking enough and not big enough to make into the same spot, I will go with this one or one of the Lian li V35 series, they are small and good looking, unfortunately the appearance counts here

From the reviews and posts that I read none mentioned the RAID failing of those drives, well its indeed good to know since I got the idea to get a machine as quiet as possible, thus the 5400rpm, since it will be in the living room as I said. Well I will go with the RE4, although I dont think I will use the TLER, its one of those features that you are better safe than sorry, so far from what I have read

Well never had a bad mobo with asus, I guess its tough luck, been buying those since the late 90's. But indeed that z68 is a good mobo, best chipset that there is and well, its a matx, so I can finally get that second pcie slot.

Yeah thats the idea I was going to go with that with a hot spare in the end when I could get all the 6 drives, I will read something about mdadm since it appears that everyone is crazy about it, there must be several good reasons, and the doc is quite extensive

I was thinking of getting a cheap 100 buck RAID card so that I can get a peace of mind, what do you think?

It cant as far as I know

I love linux, its the go to OS when dealing with servers, and since I deal with that everyday, I was trying to learn how 2008 R2 handles such tasks

 

you can get /external drives' that also act as nas servers.....

loads simpler than a server 2008 build.

some of those external nas enclosures do raid 1 as well.

 

There are many interesting things in R2(say AD) though as a file server, it is dull.

 

They are also mighty expensive with proper amount of space.

 

indeed, this build will give me more space than a 1k NAS, and it could serve as a dual purpose machine (htpc/file server)

Interesting, I only use 2008 R2 in my personal machine, as I said, Im trying to go that way just to acquire some hands knowledge/experience, if it wont pan out, I will go mdadm, or I will use some form of linux, or I will try my hand on OSX server. As long as I play with only some portion of my data it will be safe, I will still use the NAS here in this experimental phase afterwards, I will probably sell it, since I will have enough spare drives lying around for back up purposes.

 

Some good info here, just have to say: as long as I'm interested in having my files and their metadata on such a file server, Linux will be off limits.

NTFS may not be the most advanced file system around, but hoping that Linux doesn't break basic NTFS functionality (metadata...) is a futile task.

OSX server is just as 'futile', with Apple dropping the enterprise status of it for a more consumer flavor (and price...).

See:
AnandTech - In-Depth with Mac OS X Lion Server


Mr MM, good luck.

 

As a file server, you don't need NTFS or its metadata unless we are talking about security ACLs then we are talking AD.

Agreed that OSX is a no no, apple is a fashion company, not a technology company

 

chimpanzee, all I know is that some data copied to a non NTFS partition is totally useless to me when accessed from that partition - from a Win7x64 SP1 NTFS partition, the data is as I expect it - with full/100% usability in all my photo editing programs.

If the 'file server' changes/mangles the files you need - it is a file murderer, not a file server.

 

If that is the case, you have a bigger problem at hand, IMO.

How do you do offsite backup ? services like dropbox or skydrive(or their comercial equivalent) don't have interface that resemble NTFS.

 

Offsite backup is not left to the whims of mythical BU services like any of the 'cloud' based cons, (err, 'businesses') are marketed as.

Consists of physically transferring multiple (external) HDD's to multiple locations, all sync'd, logged and periodically tested/verified as working.

Linux is the problem (all talk, no action):

Windows is the solution (after all the marketing 'fluff' is ignored, in the end a working solution is here and available now).

Ensuring the integrity of the files and having the fastest access to them is my top priority - neither Linux nor dropbox/skydrive is secure or fast enough for my needs. (When I need a single 'project', I could very well be looking for a 200GB download, for example...)

 

linux is the problem ? I doubt that given the billions of dollar of business depending on it.

For your particular case, your solution could very well be the simplest and the right solution but extending that beyond your boundary, I have to disagree.

 

I'm not extending that beyond 'my' boundary - please see post 12 again.

Linux may have it's place in other business's; but I'm simply pointing out it's weakness when used as a file server when the users depend on metadata to do their work.

With Linux in such a scenario, it simply doesn't (work) imo.

 

Post 12 is your experience thus your boundary. I am curious to know what application you are using and to be a bit 'technical', we are actually not talking about metadata of the FS per se. It is the 'fork' or 'alternative data stream'. NTFS's metadata are those that is about ACL etc. ADS which is what some programs used to store 'user metadata' information say a title of a picture or things like that.

Of course if you have such a scenario, you need that and FWIW, Samba does support ADS though it relies on the underlying FS's ability to store them. So for attributes like titles, they are fine. But if your application put a 1GB ADS to a file, it would be a problem.

 

shug. Raid 1 enclosures that speak usb2/esata are around $99-. Add the pair of drives of your choice. A usb-network dongle that plugs into the back of the enclosure and then speaks CIFS (and some other useful protocols like dlna, etc) costs another $50-

If you've already got a pile of single-drive external enclosures and want to put them on a lan, a usb-network dongle that talks directly to USB drives costs $65-.