I have an original-label Infrant (now NetGear) ReadyNAS storage appliance that's been running for 8+ years. Except for replacing its power supply, it has not skipped a beat in all this time. I use it primarily as a backup device (via NFS) for a couple of Linux machines, (via SMB) for a couple of Windows PC's, and (via ftp) for web sites at my hosting provider. SMART+ reporting shows ~75K hours operation, with zero sectors reallocated, on each of the four disks. I'm thinking I should be looking for a replacement, even with all this good info/luck. Would like to hear recommendations here. Besides the ReadyNAS, I have worked with a Thecus NAS (don't recall model). What are the features I should look at? Thanks. -- Tim Evans |5 Chestnut Court 443-394-3864 |Owings Mills, MD 21117
On 11/18/2015 09:31 AM, Tim Evans wrote:> Would like to hear recommendations here. Besides the ReadyNAS, I have > worked with a Thecus NAS (don't recall model). What are the features I > should look at?Not a recommendation per se, but if you're interested in running CentOS on your NAS, I've put together a some kernel modules and a monitoring daemon for the Thecus N5550 here: https://github.com/ipilcher/n5550 -- =======================================================================Ian Pilcher arequipeno at gmail.com -------- "I grew up before Mark Zuckerberg invented friendship" -------- ========================================================================
Tim Evans wrote:> I have an original-label Infrant (now NetGear) ReadyNAS storage > appliance that's been running for 8+ years. Except for replacing its > power supply, it has not skipped a beat in all this time. > > I use it primarily as a backup device (via NFS) for a couple of Linux > machines, (via SMB) for a couple of Windows PC's, and (via ftp) for web > sites at my hosting provider. > > SMART+ reporting shows ~75K hours operation, with zero sectors > reallocated, on each of the four disks. > > I'm thinking I should be looking for a replacement, even with all this > good info/luck. > > Would like to hear recommendations here. Besides the ReadyNAS, I have > worked with a Thecus NAS (don't recall model). What are the features I > should look at?What size storage are you looking at, and what's your budget? Are we talking a 4TB drive, or 33TB, or...? mark
On 11/18/2015 11:50 AM, m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:> What size storage are you looking at, and what's your budget? Are we > talking a 4TB drive, or 33TB, or...?Sorry, should've mentioned this is for home/home office. The ReadyNAS is a four-bay unit, with 500GB disks. Will want a four-bay, probably with 1- or 2-TB disks. -- Tim Evans | 5 Chestnut Court UNIX System Admin Consulting | Owings Mills, MD 21117 http://www.tkevans.com/ | 443-394-3864 tkevans at tkevans.com
On 11/18/2015 07:31 AM, Tim Evans wrote:> Would like to hear recommendations here.https://www.ixsystems.com/freenas-mini/
We're using Synology boxes with good results so far. They're built on Linux with ssh access and good support for things like rsync. They have options to backup to remote servers including Amazon too. On Wed, Nov 18, 2015, Tim Evans wrote:> I have an original-label Infrant (now NetGear) ReadyNAS storage > appliance that's been running for 8+ years. Except for replacing its > power supply, it has not skipped a beat in all this time. > > I use it primarily as a backup device (via NFS) for a couple of Linux > machines, (via SMB) for a couple of Windows PC's, and (via ftp) for web > sites at my hosting provider. > > SMART+ reporting shows ~75K hours operation, with zero sectors > reallocated, on each of the four disks. > > I'm thinking I should be looking for a replacement, even with all this > good info/luck. > > Would like to hear recommendations here. Besides the ReadyNAS, I have > worked with a Thecus NAS (don't recall model). What are the features I > should look at? > > Thanks. > -- > Tim Evans |5 Chestnut Court > 443-394-3864 |Owings Mills, MD 21117 > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos >-- Bill -- INTERNET: bill at celestial.com Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC URL: http://www.celestial.com/ PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way Voice: (206) 236-1676 Mercer Island, WA 98040-0820 Fax: (206) 232-9186 Skype: jwccsllc (206) 855-5792 If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it coses when it's free -- P.J. O'Rourke
On Nov 18, 2015, at 11:04 AM, Gordon Messmer <gordon.messmer at gmail.com> wrote:> > On 11/18/2015 07:31 AM, Tim Evans wrote: >> Would like to hear recommendations here. > > https://www.ixsystems.com/freenas-mini/For those who don?t know why you?d pay $1000 for a diskless 4-bay NAS box when there are $300-500 boxes that are superficially similar from QNAP, Synology, and others: - ZFS. Modern cheap NAS boxes have gained some ZFS-like features (online expansion and such) but they?re still not ZFS. - FreeNAS. Many low-end NASes use proprietary or rebadged ODM management software that barely scrapes by in terms of features and support, whereas FreeNAS has a long-standing open source developer community behind it. - Much bigger CPU than is typical for the low-end NAS boxes. Many low-end NAS boxes have gigabit Ethernet ports, but if you don?t put enough CPU grunt behind that port, you can?t fill it. As a rule, you need at least 1 GHz of CPU to fill a gigabit pipe. - Much more RAM than in low-end NAS boxes. Partly this is because ZFS (the storage subsystem for FreeNAS) is a RAM-hungry pig, but the benefit you get from that is that more of your data is in RAM, so even if your spindles aren?t fast enough to fill the gigabit pipe, data from cache can fill it. - L2ARC and ZIL upgrade options, which are intermediary caches between RAM and disk. Again, this helps you to keep that gigabit pipe full. - They?re serious server-grade machines, not borderline flimsy boxes competing largely on price. Built in and supported from Silicon Valley, not China. :) - iXsystems sponsors FreeNAS and FreeBSD (via PC-BSD) developers. Does your alternative choice of NAS provider sponsor open source developers? - Those latter two points mean you can actually call them and get someone on the phone who knows what they?re talking about. The last time my Lacie NAS choked, I had to just nuke it and re-mirror all the data. I don?t have a FreeNAS mini, and I have never used one. But, I?ve been lusting after them for some time now. Next time one of my NASes dies, one of these is going to be high on the list of choices for replacement.
On 11/18/2015 10:42 AM, Bill Campbell wrote:> We're using Synology boxes with good results so far.I've heard good things about Synology. My home NAS going on 3 years now is a HP Microserver running FreeNAS, with 4 x 3TB SATA drives. -- john r pierce, recycling bits in santa cruz
--On Wednesday, November 18, 2015 10:31:36 AM -0500 Tim Evans <tkevans at tkevans.com> wrote:> Would like to hear recommendations here. Besides the ReadyNAS, I have > worked with a Thecus NAS (don't recall model). What are the features I > should look at?For reasons that others have already touched on, I like FreeNAS, as long as you're using the base system. I have one that is running jails so that I can run some custom software on the same box, and I think when possible I'd prefer to keep such software off on another machine. (In this case though, it's a situation of keeping the program as close as possible to the data to minimize network traffic.) I have one FreeNAS running on an HP Microserver Gen 8 (four bays, RAID-Z2 double redundancy, which means two disks worth of usable space). The OS is on an internal memory stick, the spinning drives are all data drives. It's a nice solid piece of hardware and suitable for home & small office. I also have FreeNAS running in a larger system which is based on an Intel DBS1200V3RPS motherboard, a Xeon processor, lots of ECC memory, and 36TB of disk. (6 SATA connectors on board, and 6TB drives were the largest available at the time; it will get expanded soon via an add-on RAID card running in JBOD mode.) It's a solid system. FreeNAS will do almost anything you'd expect of a storage device. I'd suggest downloading it and trying it on a spare piece of (64bit) hardware, but unless it's using ECC memory don't trust your production data with it. I've exercised the disk replacement process once and it went flawlessly. ('Twas far too early, but it was probably a manufacturing flaw given the early failure.) If you're planning on doing data encryption or data duplication, make sure you read into specific hardware requirements for that before you go and buy stuff. And given which mailing list we're on, I'll add in that CentOS 5, 6, and 7 NFS clients talk to it just fine. (And OS-X clients as well, with both NFS and AFP. I don't have windows clients, but they shouldn't be an issue.) Devin
Hello, On 19 November 2015 at 05:30, Devin Reade <gdr at gno.org> wrote:> --On Wednesday, November 18, 2015 10:31:36 AM -0500 Tim Evans < > tkevans at tkevans.com> wrote: > > Would like to hear recommendations here. Besides the ReadyNAS, I have >> worked with a Thecus NAS (don't recall model). What are the features I >> should look at? >> > > For reasons that others have already touched on, I like FreeNAS, as > long as you're using the base system. I have one that is running jails > so that I can run some custom software on the same box, and I think > when possible I'd prefer to keep such software off on another machine. > (In this case though, it's a situation of keeping the program as > close as possible to the data to minimize network traffic.) > > I have one FreeNAS running on an HP Microserver Gen 8 (four bays, > RAID-Z2 double redundancy, which means two disks worth of usable > space). The OS is on an internal memory stick, the spinning drives > are all data drives. It's a nice solid piece of hardware and suitable > for home & small office. > > I also have FreeNAS running in a larger system which is based on an > Intel DBS1200V3RPS motherboard, a Xeon processor, lots of ECC memory, > and 36TB of disk. (6 SATA connectors on board, and 6TB drives were > the largest available at the time; it will get expanded soon via an > add-on RAID card running in JBOD mode.) It's a solid system. > > FreeNAS will do almost anything you'd expect of a storage device. > I'd suggest downloading it and trying it on a spare piece of (64bit) > hardware, but unless it's using ECC memory don't trust your production > data with it. I've exercised the disk replacement process once and > it went flawlessly. ('Twas far too early, but it was probably a > manufacturing flaw given the early failure.) > > If you're planning on doing data encryption or data duplication, make > sure you read into specific hardware requirements for that before you > go and buy stuff. > > And given which mailing list we're on, I'll add in that CentOS 5, 6, > and 7 NFS clients talk to it just fine. (And OS-X clients as well, > with both NFS and AFP. I don't have windows clients, but they shouldn't > be an issue.) > > Devin > > > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos >A little computer with two disk on RAID1 and http://www.nethserver.org/ is based in CentOS. Best regards, -- Oscar Osta Pueyo oostap.listas at gmail.com _kiakli_
On 11/18/2015 04:42 PM, John R Pierce wrote:> the /really/ hard one when rolling your own highly redundant systems > with high data integrity needed for things like transactional database > servers, is implementing redundant storage controllers with shared > writeback cache... you pretty much have to get into EMC class > hardware for this level of reliability with data integrity and > performance. and thats /really/ expensive stuff.Yes it is, because it really is that hard to do shared writeback cache. EMC, Nimble, NetApp, and the like cost what they do because of those HA features. EMC storage processors have specialized shared backplanes and replicated write caches just in case an SP goes down while the data to be written is in cache and has yet to be committed (so that the trespassing SP can write the correct data to disk). They also have dedicated battery backup units and the whole concept of the 'vault' drives to specifically save the write cache in a powerfail emergency. But I would love to see something in the free software space that did that kind of thing, with appropriate hardware.
Not sure if this will help, but our company is building out an open source NAS. We are still not completely done, but we are nearly done. If you would like to experiment , do let us know. Here is the docs link : https://fractalram.gitbooks.io/integralstor-unicell-v1-0-user-manual/content/ We should have the iso built out in another week. If this interests, and would love to experiment, do reply back as a PM, and I would direct you to the relative sources. On Fri, Nov 20, 2015 at 12:03 AM, Lamar Owen <lowen at pari.edu> wrote:> On 11/18/2015 04:42 PM, John R Pierce wrote: > >> the /really/ hard one when rolling your own highly redundant systems with >> high data integrity needed for things like transactional database servers, >> is implementing redundant storage controllers with shared writeback >> cache... you pretty much have to get into EMC class hardware for this >> level of reliability with data integrity and performance. and thats >> /really/ expensive stuff. >> > Yes it is, because it really is that hard to do shared writeback cache. > EMC, Nimble, NetApp, and the like cost what they do because of those HA > features. EMC storage processors have specialized shared backplanes and > replicated write caches just in case an SP goes down while the data to be > written is in cache and has yet to be committed (so that the trespassing SP > can write the correct data to disk). They also have dedicated battery > backup units and the whole concept of the 'vault' drives to specifically > save the write cache in a powerfail emergency. > > But I would love to see something in the free software space that did that > kind of thing, with appropriate hardware. > > > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos >-- Cheers -- S.Ramaseshan Engineer fractalio.com +919916394958
Are you familiar with GlusterFs / Ceph ? Eero 19.11.2015 8.34 ip. "Lamar Owen" <lowen at pari.edu> kirjoitti:> On 11/18/2015 04:42 PM, John R Pierce wrote: > >> the /really/ hard one when rolling your own highly redundant systems with >> high data integrity needed for things like transactional database servers, >> is implementing redundant storage controllers with shared writeback >> cache... you pretty much have to get into EMC class hardware for this >> level of reliability with data integrity and performance. and thats >> /really/ expensive stuff. >> > Yes it is, because it really is that hard to do shared writeback cache. > EMC, Nimble, NetApp, and the like cost what they do because of those HA > features. EMC storage processors have specialized shared backplanes and > replicated write caches just in case an SP goes down while the data to be > written is in cache and has yet to be committed (so that the trespassing SP > can write the correct data to disk). They also have dedicated battery > backup units and the whole concept of the 'vault' drives to specifically > save the write cache in a powerfail emergency. > > But I would love to see something in the free software space that did that > kind of thing, with appropriate hardware. > > _______________________________________________ > CentOS mailing list > CentOS at centos.org > https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos >
On 11/18/2015 10:31 AM, Tim Evans wrote:> I have an original-label Infrant (now NetGear) ReadyNAS storage > appliance that's been running for 8+ years. Except for replacing its > power supply, it has not skipped a beat in all this time. > > I use it primarily as a backup device (via NFS) for a couple of Linux > machines, (via SMB) for a couple of Windows PC's, and (via ftp) for web > sites at my hosting provider. > > SMART+ reporting shows ~75K hours operation, with zero sectors > reallocated, on each of the four disks. > > I'm thinking I should be looking for a replacement, even with all this > good info/luck. > > Would like to hear recommendations here. Besides the ReadyNAS, I have > worked with a Thecus NAS (don't recall model). What are the features I > should look at? >Just closing the loop here. Thanks for all the replies and recommendations. As usual, discussion went far and away beyond what I needed for my decision--but I was interested to read all the messages. For my home/home office solution, I've decided to stay with the ReadyNAS line (the Model 204, 4-slots, for $370, with four WD Red 2TB disks). Was tempted by the Thecus similar model N4800ECO ($100 more). The even-more-expensive QNAP TS453 Pro model seemed more than I needed, as did the Synology DS415+--and I was put off by a rather negative review of Synology service). -- Tim Evans |5 Chestnut Court 443-394-3864 |Owings Mills, MD 21117