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I've been tasked with putting a central network backup system in a rather odd environment. It's a small office with ~15 computers that need to have a single folder (My Docs) backed up on a regular basis. The NAS device would also serve as a central file server for a handful of video files that need to referenced infrequently. The 15 are made of an odd mix of desktops and laptops, most on the 100mbps LAN, and some on wireless. The laptops are in and out of the office as the owners travel. I've been reading this thread and various reviews on smallnetbuilder and have narrowed it down to the dlink dns-323 and the zyxel something 220. in that price range, most devices are roughly similar it seems, where they differ is in the client software provided for backups. being that the network itself is a huge mess, the less traffic we have on it the better, meaning incremental backups/rsync would be best. is this a standard feature available in most client software? I would also want automatic daily backups with the option to do it manually when someone returns from out of town. am I asking for something sane here? is anyone intimately familiar with the client software provided? are client alternatives like a 3rd party backup software or msbackup feasible? edit: i found I can get a netgear readynas locally for ~120 more than a comparably set up dns 323. is the price jump worth it in the long run? angelfoodcakez fucked around with this message at 22:05 on May 17, 2008 |
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May 17, 2008 10:34
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What is everyone using in terms of software to backup their data to their nas devices, or is that outside the scope of this thread? I'm looking at various rsync solutions for windows to get user's documents and Outlook PST files backed up over a rickety network. Anyone have a favorite solution (cwrsync, deltabackup, nasbackup, sync2nas, etc)?
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May 19, 2008 16:37
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That's a pretty awesome case. At home, I currently have 8 hard drives in my main PC and another 6 in a file server for a total of ~3TB storage. None of it is backed up or raided, though, and I just lost 2 drives, so the pressure to manage the rest is on. I'd like to build a new file server with a load of 1TB drives, probably in that Enlight case above. Like Netgear's XRaid2 on their ReadyNAS Pro, and whatever Raid on the Drobo, I'd like to be able to throw a bunch of drives in it and have it use everything that it can for storage and parity automatically. I'll start it off with 4 1tb disks, but then will want to add another 4 once the price is right. Then I'd want to replace them, disk by disk with 1.5-2tb disks once they are available and the price comes down. Is there anything out there this easy to use? It looks like ZFS is potentially my best bet. A difficult/involved set up is not a problem as long as it's set/forget from then on out.
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Oct 7, 2008 03:45
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Have they fixed the Raid1 issues with the dns323?
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Oct 13, 2008 21:05
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have they fixed the raid issues in the DNS series? it used to be very unstable and prone to eating your data
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Nov 19, 2008 08:45
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you're where i am. realizing that while ZFS sounds awesome, it might not be just what we want. Check out unRaid. It's everything we (I) want: the ability to just throw a load of disks at my storage problem, upgrade disks as I want to, fault tolerance. what's cool is that it's more or less like JBOD with parity. So the files are all in solid chunks on the drives, no striping. love one drive and it can be rebuilt. Even if two drives die, you only lose the data on those two drives, not the whole array.
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Jan 5, 2009 06:47
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complex posted:1.5TB for $129.99.
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Jan 26, 2009 02:32
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adorai posted:If anyone was curious, I have assembled this system, and my performance so far is great. 25MB/s writes, 50MB/s reads. I can't tell you how many iops it gets but my ESXi server gets performance that is more than acceptable for 4 VMs. This is in it's current state, which is a 3 disk pool. You keep the VM disk images on a separate device from the ESXi server? How does that work? I'd love to do that with my upcoming NAS and ESXi boxes.
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Mar 1, 2009 01:21
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adorai posted:iscsi targets on the opensolaris box, and gigabit ethernet. Performance isn't quite as fast as it would be if I had a few disks available to put in the ESXi box, however I can do snapshot gimmicks for backups and I didn't have to worry about using a motherboard with a supported storage controller.
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Mar 1, 2009 01:35
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I have a client with a DLink DNS323. Havbe the RAID corruption issues from the earlier generation firmwares been fixed yet? Is it safe to run the two drives in raid instead of just mirroring with a script/funplug?
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May 28, 2009 02:07
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DLCinferno posted:They're basically the same drive except for one software difference that cripples the Black drives in a RAID setup. Unfortunately, WD charges a shitload for the privilege of that one feature, which is totally bogus in my opinion. Here's why you don't want to use them in an array:
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Jun 14, 2009 05:12
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One thing that I love about WHS is that all the data on the drives is just NTFS, no special striping or weird filesystem. If WHS kills itself, then I can just pull the drives and restore the data from each drive manually without doing any crazy data recovery. I've been looking at unRAID as a replacement for WHS, if I ever choose to do so. From what I understand, unRAID works in a similar fashion to WHS, where you just throw drives at it and it just fills them up with data. If you pull a drive from an unraid system, cant aht drive be read by anything reasonable?
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Dec 7, 2009 01:09
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The original non-networked Drobo did this, minus the real-life raid. It used it's own raid-like system to handle redundancy on multiple drives, and it attached via USB.
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Sep 9, 2010 17:16
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I'm thinking of downsizing from my 12-disk WHS box to something like a Synology 4-disk machine. I'm realizing that I don't need that much space and the recent crop of bad drives in my box is driving me up the wall, so I'm looking to simplify. One thing that would be pretty neat is to be able to share it out over the network and also hook it up to my PC via eSATA or something similar. In managing my media, i'm finding it very necessary to move files around a lot and it gets very slow over a network link. Do I really just want an external RAID5/eSATA enclosure?
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Oct 3, 2010 23:13
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So I want an enclosure connected to my main PC via eSATA and then shared out on the network via said PC. There appear to be two kinds of boxes, ones that handle the RAID for you in the box, and the kind that just offer a dumb enclosure connected via one or more sSATA cables to let your PC handle the RAID (via onboard or RAID addon card?). What are the benefits to either setup? I suppose the benefit of a dumb enclosure is that you let Windows/RAID card handle the drives, so you don't need to worry about some wacky custom-made firmware that may or may not eat all your data for no reason. Do most RAID cards have monitoring programs that will let you know when a drive starts flaking out? I want sirens to go off as soon as a drive starts acting up, like I've seen with email reports on the ReadyNAS boxes I've set up for clients. I'm losing my mind with these lovely Seagate STS31500341AS 7200.11 drives that are just dropping like flies. I've had 3 die in the span of two months, another 2 are giving me bad sectors now, and now I see that 6/12 disks in my WHS box are these loving drives. Like I got over overclocking years ago, I'm done loving around with fun and exciting storage toys and just want something that works, even if it is more limited in functionality and storage capacity.
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Oct 4, 2010 03:42
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Secx posted:Is there a catch or something that I am missing with this: SANS DIGITAL TowerRAID TR5M-BP 5 Bay eSATA RAID 0/1/10/5/JBOD Performance Tower w/ 6G PCIe Card (Black) For only $100 more, I;m really liking the 8 bay one http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111141 It looks like there is a bundled eSATA/RAID card with it. Does that mean that the RAID is being handled by the host computer? Or is that just included for completeness? edit: ah, it looks like these are just enclosures, with no internal logic/firmware? so it would be up to the raid card and it's drivers to provide good performance? angelfoodcakez fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Oct 7, 2010 |
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Oct 7, 2010 02:39
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I think I've made a mistake here... I was looking for a storage device that would attach directly to the computer, not ever the network. I got one of these: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111139 and filled it with 2TB drives of various makes (Hitachi HDS722020ALA330, SAMSUNG HD203WI, and WDC WD20EARS) in a RAID5 array I'm having a lot of problems with my whole computer freezing up and stuttering during large reads/writes. Pretty much what this guy is describing: http://superuser.com/questions/228737/rocketraid-gives-me-stuttering-computer I've since learned that the RocketRaid622 is software raid, which is apparently no good. I've also learned from this thread that 2tb drives in RAID5 is an awful idea. I'm getting a lot of lost/corrupted data when I try to seed torrents from it and the lovely web gui is telling me that most of my drives now have bad sectors Log Pastebin'd so I don't break tables anymore http://pastebin.com/v2j0Ypgc I moved to this device from a WHS setup because drive failures in WHS were making me tear my hair out. Now I'm back to the same problem. All I want is a ton of storage that I don't have to gently caress around with. I work with the data a lot, so I don't want the high latency that a NAS drive will give me (based on my experience with WHS). What are my options? Any chance of saving this array? Did I do something wrong in setting it up? Did I need to gently caress around with the 4K sector thing? edit: this is apparently what I've been wanting: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111145&Tpk=tr5ut-bp hardware raid inside the box, attached via eSATA. gently caress me. angelfoodcakez fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Mar 4, 2011 |
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Mar 4, 2011 22:13
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Yes, that's the correct product. It's a breakout box attached via the included RocketRaid622 controller. The RAID setup is done via the RocketRaid's BIOS/WebGUI. If I was to rebuild it from scratch I would want to get the 2nd one I linked, which has hardware raid built into the breakout box, so it doesn't depend on my computer/controller as much. Is that a step up? But then I'd need new 2TB drives too. Is that a good idea? What kind of 2TB drives would you advise that I use in such a setup? Should I try to get a box with more bays and use smaller drives?
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Mar 5, 2011 00:39
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Factory Factory posted:Whatever you get, you can minimize sync problems by making sure all disks are of the same make and model and that you don't use WD Green drives (which have their own extra-special issues for RAID). I use a 4-disk softRAID array of Samsung Spinpoint F4 2TB drives, work fine. If I wanted to go from this fake raid nonsense, I have two options, maybe. The first could be upgrading to this model: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111145 which has hardware raid built into the breakout box. but would it be real hardware raid or more fakeraid nonsense? The other option is to get a second hand real raid card on ebay like people here mention. are there any that would work particularly well with the breakout box i currently have? edit: in addition to upgrading the drives to real raid drives, or at least not the wd green ones
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Mar 6, 2011 15:10
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So with all this talk of FakeRAID being awful and Raid 5 being similarly awful, I want to rebuild my array with better hardware and raid 6. I mentioned earlier that I had this hardware: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816111139 Is there a way that I could keep the external enclosure and just replace the raid card with a good hardware raid card? I understand that I would need to rebuild the array, so I would first need to move my data somewhere else first. Also, now that the price has dropped, it seems like I could pick up another enclosure and fill it with more drives for even more storage. So what I'm looking for, I suppose, is a good raid card that can "host" two of these enclosures that can also support Raid 6. I don't think I need esata ports, necessarily, since I could use an esata-sata converter slot plate. It looks like the enclosure can daisy chain to another one, would the raid card it's attached to see both sets of drives? Finally, would I be able to grow the array as I put more drives in the enclosures?
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May 1, 2011 19:38
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angelfoodcakez posted:So with all this talk of FakeRAID being awful and Raid 5 being similarly awful, I want to rebuild my array with better hardware and raid 6. anything on a good raid 6 card?
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May 5, 2011 20:12
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kill your idols posted:They got for about $200 bucks shipped, and the cables are about $15 bucks each or so. It's a great budget card. Cool, the Perc 6 looks like a winner. Can you tell me about the cable? How would I connect one or more of these eSATA boxes to it? If I went the other way and ditched the eSATA boxes for a large case, how would I go about connecting a mess of SATA drives to it?
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May 6, 2011 01:45
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kill your idols posted:Grab a bigger case, and two of these with the perc6; Thanks for that. So that means that the Perc 6 will take 8 drives max? Is that a limitation of the cables or the card itself? Meaning, with a SATA to eSATA cable, could I use this enclosure I already have and add more enclosures for more drives? I just want to have a better idea of where I can go with a card like this. edit: on dell's site, it says that it can use up to 144 drives. I have a norco 4020 that i could use for this setup, so more drives might enter the picture. I'll take a look at the manual to see if it can do what I want it to do. Thanks for your help. angelfoodcakez fucked around with this message at 05:58 on May 6, 2011 |
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May 6, 2011 05:53
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I appreciate all the advice given in this thread so far. I've had a sizable windfall of cash and have decided to gently caress playing around with a homebrew nas, as I've had nothing but headaches on my last 3 builds, and to just get a prebuilt unit. As my job keeps me busier and busier, the price trade-off isn't worth it anymore. I've had a lot of experience with the ReadyNAS Duo/NV/NV+ line as I like to buy them for clients. I'm a big fan of the line and have had no problems with my clients' machines. I'd like to get something with at least 6 bays, though, as I have a lot to store. I understand that ReadyNAS' XRAID2 can have dual redundancy, like RAID6, which is what I'm after. It's also very attractive as a throw-disks-at-it box, without having to worry about configuring arrays and nonsense like that. I can get a diskless ReadyNAS Ultra 6 for $750, which seems to be a pretty good deal. Does anyone recommend the dual-core Ultra 6 Plus for an additional $150 as being a much better option? Does the dual core processor help that much more in array rebuilding and balancing? Should I look into their Pro line? It doesn't look much different, just a little more expensive. Are there any QNAP, Thecus, etc boxes in the same price range with at least 6 bays? Does anyone have any huge horror stories about the ReadyNAS Ultra or Pro lines? angelfoodcakez fucked around with this message at 06:14 on Aug 16, 2011 |
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Aug 16, 2011 06:11
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Aside from things like WHS1/Drivebender and Netgear's XRaid, are there other technologies for throw-disks-at-it storage? I want to be able to upgrade my array in pieces, as I get cash for bigger disks as prices fall. I'm really liking the ReadyNAS Ultra 6 as a prebuilt NAS for this reason. I've tried to roll my own a few times and failed miserably thanks to drives dying on me due to bad drives, bad controllers, overheating, you name it, it's failed on me. I'm very wary of building my own now, so while unRaid looks awesome and right up my alley, I don't think I want to risk it. Advice?
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Aug 19, 2011 19:11
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I finally picked up a ReadyNAS Ultra 6 Pro, because XRaid2 fit my storage needs the best, and I'm liking it so far. The rebuilds as I add drives is taking forever (24-74 hrs for 2tb disks). As I move data to the NAS via SMB, I notice that my network utilization looks weird. I'm moving big (4gb+ files over) and when the connection should be sustained and steady, it looks like this  This is with a gigabit nic, gigabit switch, and gigabit on the ReadyNAS. All have 9k jumbo frames enabled/configured. Is this normal network behavior for this kind of setup?
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Sep 15, 2011 21:17
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I've disabled jumbo frames on the PC end. Disabled them on the ReadyNAS, but it says it won't take effect until I reboot, which I can't because it's still restriping a disk. It should be enough to turn it off on the PC end, though, right? I'm still getting the same spikes, but this time they top out at ~75% of the gigabit connection instead of 50% I didn't figure that the background restriping would cause network traffic like this. I figured it would make for slower writes, but I guessed that would look different. calandryll, what did you change the MTU to? My realtek gb nic tops out at 9K frames, and when I check the enable jumbo frames checkbox, the MTU defaults to 9000 as well. Did you change it to anything other than that?
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Sep 16, 2011 02:04
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I was moving data to the array while I was adding new disks to expand it. XRaid2 allows for online array expansion after the initial array build. Now that all the drives are added and expansion and restriping are finished, though, I'm still getting the same spiky network traffic. Both with and without jumbo frames.
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Sep 16, 2011 18:11
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