NAS - Time to choose

  • Hello,


    I'm planning to create my homemade NAS with OMV 3.


    My hardware :
    - motherboard : Gigabyte Z270 wifi;
    - CPU : I3 7100T kabylake;
    - 16 GB RAM DDR4 ;
    - Case : Fractal Node 304 ;
    - 2 x 4TB HDD segate (+ maybe 2 x 2TB WD Red from a previous NAS)


    Use of the NAS will be :


    - Media centre for Kodi or Plex connected via smb to a Xiaomi MIBOX (Kodi or Plex on the box connected via SMB to the movies and series) + Sickrage + openvpn
    - data storage for work : i need secure access to this data : sensitive data will be store on the NAS : sp maybe encryption on disk and nextcloud for external acces with ssl encryption.
    - share data, calendar... with my wife ;


    First, i read a lot about the OS : FREENAS, NAS4FREE, UBUNTU SERVER, ROCKSTOR, OMV...


    I tried all this OS via VMs. I 'm not sure wich OS i prefer but :


    - i know that ZFS is a great FS but i'm not sure that i will need such a FS for my use. Further more, since i had a smal amount of disk right now, i will maybe extend my pool soon and i read ZFS couldn't handle it.


    So i decide that maybe the best choice was to use BTRFS as FS as it's seems to handle that. I use ubuntu server with BTRFS + webmin. work's great. But i prefer omv webinterface. So i wanted to know if handling BTRFS with OMV was easy ? And if it was possible to extend the pool easily ? Or, is it better to install Ubuntu server or a classic debian then OMV ontop ?


    I also heard about XFS but i didn't find many explanation...


    Then i read about the RAID.


    As i only have 2 disk right know i'm thinking the best is to go for a RAID 1 system ? is it the better choice ?


    Concerning my data i was planning to use Nextcloud. Is it fully compatible with OMV ? Should i use the plugin (if there is one) or install it as a standalone app via apt-get install ?


    Regarding my media center, i always have problem with the sickrage plugin that doesn't allow me to get the update (i got this message "you're branch is ahead of master...". Is that just me ? same question. Should i use the plugin or tried to install it manually ?


    A bunch of question ^^


    THx for reading me.

  • Plex or Kodi are very different. Plex is client server software that relies on a powerful server to stream (and sometimes transcode) video to multiple light clients. Kodi runs on the client and reads media over SMB. So your hardware choice depends on your software choice.
    What's wrong with ext4 as a file system?
    RAID is not backup. It's a high availability solution, which is probably something that you don't need on a media server.
    There is no plugin for NextCloud any more, but there are instructions for installing it alongside OMV in this forum.

  • Thx for answering.

    Plex or Kodi are very different. Plex is client server software that relies on a powerful server to stream (and sometimes transcode) video to multiple light clients. Kodi runs on the client and reads media over SMB. So your hardware choice depends on your software choice.

    Considering my hardware (i know reverse thoughts), i guess i'll give Plex a try.

    What's wrong with ext4 as a file system?

    I read that Ext4 was not the best choices for NAS considering the snapshot / backup / smaller use of space for small files (data for my case) / checksum ... There is a lot of advantage i think to use the btrfs as my NAS is not only a Media center.


    RAID is not backup. It's a high availability solution, which is probably something that you don't need on a media server.
    There is no plugin for NextCloud any more, but there are instructions for installing it alongside OMV in this forum.

    I know that raid is not a backup solution. i need to be sure that the file i store will not be corrupted. But i don't think i can divide with two disk a RAID solution (for my work and personnal data) and a non raid solution (for movie

  • i know that ZFS is a great FS but i'm not sure that i will need such a FS for my use

    You are right, ZFS is great :)
    Due to its internal structure, it is highly recommended to use ECC RAM. Did your motherboard support this? Without ECC-support it is one more reason to choose another file system.

    OMV 3.0.100 (Gray style)

    ASRock Rack C2550D4I C0-stepping - 16GB ECC - 6x WD RED 3TB (ZFS 2x3 Striped RaidZ1) - Fractal Design Node 304 -

    3x WD80EMAZ Snapraid / MergerFS-pool via eSATA - 4-Bay ICYCube MB561U3S-4S with fan-mod

    Einmal editiert, zuletzt von cabrio_leo () aus folgendem Grund: typo

  • Well my motherboard support ECC ram and i have bought ECC Ram has i planned to use ZFS first. but the fact that i have to redo all the pool disk if i change the disk it's annoying.


    I'm trying to install btrfs in OMW 3 but i didn't find the plugin...

  • I use Raid5 with XFS for my media & nas server since years. Imho a good and easy solution for a media center.


    In your case it will be Raid1.


    P.S. did see your encryption requirement ... if you want to have your data secure, from paranoid point of view i wouldnt do it on the same machine where you run services like sickbeard or others with connection to the internet

    Tom


    ----


    HP N54L, 6GB, 5disc Raid5, SSD Boot with OMV 5
    HP N54L, 16GB, 4disc ZFS pool, SSD Boot with other NAS system

  • I'm going for a raid 1 (or mirroring as it is called in OMW). One question, should i format my drive before i start to build the RAID or could i do it after ?


    I know it's a bit incoherent to use my NAS for sensitive data but i didn't have much a choice. I dont believe i can find a way to keep this sensitive data isolated from the web as i need to access it from outside my local network.


    I guess my best solution is to get ssl encryption and netxcloud with encryption for the sensitive data. what do you think ?

  • If this is actually sensitive data (ie. business use) I think is is very irresponsible to store it alongside a personal htpc/nas.


    If there should ever be an attack on your NAS, and the attacker is able to extrude data from your machine, you could be subject to civil/judicial action.


    If you are not self employed you may also be placing your employer in a legally precarious situation in a number of different arenas.


    The fact that you think your best solution may be "ssl encrpytion" and "nextcloud with encryption" leads me to believe this is a bad idea. Please do not take offense.


    Once you choose a solution, please do read up a bit on securing servers! It is really not a matter of installing x, "set and forget". Maybe a regular home user can do this, but if you really want to store sensitive data on your home NAS I would implore you to do a bit more research.


    /paranoid

  • Hi!

    Well my motherboard support ECC ram and i have bought ECC Ram has i planned to use ZFS first. but the fact that i have to redo all the pool disk if i change the disk it's annoying.


    I'm trying to install btrfs in OMW 3 but i didn't find the plugin...

    Your CPU and motherboard does not support ECC.
    Just my two cents.

  • If you go with ZFS and therefor need ECC RAM, AMD Ryzen is a valuable alternative.
    It has (unofficial) ECC support even with cheap R3 processors and cheap boards I think.
    Might be worth a consideration but keep in mind they don't have an iGPU so you need a temporary GPU during install.

  • - Media centre for Kodi or Plex connected via smb to a Xiaomi MIBOX (Kodi or Plex on the box connected via SMB to the movies and series) + Sickrage + openvpn

    - Kodi is a client. However, it is possible to have the data on the machine, Kodi is on, shared to a streaming-client.
    - Plex is a fork of Kodi, which developed into a server type system (and certain features are commercial now). Plex usually is only needed, if you want to stream over small bandwith connections, since Plex can transcode the stuff you send (lower bitrate on the fly). But for this you need a powerful machine. Look here, on the Reddit Plex board, for more. These are some really cool build ideas. Like this one, for example: Plex Server Build Recommendation - UPDATED $350, 12-Core, 24 Thread, budget powerhouse!


    Kodi has much more community support than Plex. This means, it gives you much more and much recent services plugins for lots of media-streaming services on the web.


    If you have a streaming client with a media-player, you do not really need Kodi or Plex. You can just use the shared folders. Of course, having a little bit of Media library is nice, with all the bells and whistles, so it may be best to use Kodi, have it build a media-library and then use one of the Android remote controls, which use all of Kodis media-library features. I think the MIBOX runs Android?


    Zitat


    - data storage for work : i need secure access to this data : sensitive data will be store on the NAS : sp maybe encryption on disk and nextcloud for external acces with ssl encryption.
    - share data, calendar... with my wife ;


    Won't comment on this one, since I don't know much about encryption on NAS.


    Zitat


    - i know that ZFS is a great FS but i'm not sure that i will need such a FS for my use. Further more, since i had a smal amount of disk right now, i will maybe extend my pool soon and i read ZFS couldn't handle it.


    Both remarks are true. I use ZFS on a SmartOS (ex Solaris, Illumos derivate) host on a 16GB ECC RAM machine and I love it. As much as I hate, that expanding your storage pool needs a completly new setup. You can not just add one or more new disks to the old ones. That sucks big time!


    Zitat


    I also heard about XFS but i didn't find many explanation...


    XFS has been developed by Silicon Graphics, mainly for streaming huge large media-files. It's also pretty stable. XFS is a good filesystem for media-files, but maybe not the one you need on a Home NAS.

    Zitat


    Then i read about the RAID.

    Personally I dislike RAID. If I want redundancy (RAID 1) I better use a backup at home, plus, I back up my sensitive and important data encrypted to a cloud storage host. Is cheaper and more secure in the long run. RAID starts getting interesting with RAID5, but that is too resource hungry, especially since ZFS comes with RAID and volume-management built in. No need for a RAID controller, etc.


    Now, the question is always, how much money you want to invest. I find those builds on the Reddit forum I have shown you to be exceptionally clever. Of course, YMMV if you do not need that much CPU power.


    As for a modern and still affordable ECC system:


    CPU: Intel - Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor ($78.89)
    Motherboard: ASRock - E3C236D4U Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($219.99)
    Total: $298.88


    Of course, this needs ECC RAM (16GB+) enough HDD for your storage pool, a PSU, a case, fans and, eventually, an NVM SSD for the LARC2 cache and ZIL device. A 128GB device may suffice for this.


    It may first seem expensive, but the only really expensive part is the mobo, which, however, is a real server-mobo, coming with ECC support, IPMI (you can boot, use. install OS, configure the BIOS, etc. over LAN from another computer, total management/remote-control) and allows you to plug a USB stick right into the mobo, so you can keep your OS on this USB stick and boot from that. This is pretty common now in servers. Usually they copy the OS to a RAM disk, then and run from there. Also, this is a pretty recent mobo, that comes with NVM support, which may not be needed in a NAS, except if you go for ZFS, then such a super fast SSD is the best thing to do (after high amounts of expensive RAM, lol) for the L2ARC cahce and the ZIL, which you store on the second partition. But these are all power-user features, you may not want/need, Others have pointed out the new AMD CPUs for ECC, but I would not recommend with this Pentium being cheaper and installable on a real server-motherboard.
    I just wanted to point out, that these exist and allow for a small professional build.


    However, if you go ZFS you must think different: Ideally you use a Solaris derivate (SmartOS or OmnisOS come to mind) with native ZFS support (SmartOS being a hypervisor OS and OmniOS comparable to a monolithic Debian server. Both also offer Solaris Zones, which is something like native containers/VM on steroids, including a port of the Linux KVM, which lets you run any OS as a Solaris Zone - otherwise only Solaris as Solaris Zone)


    ZFS is memory hungry, it is greedy. It wants a lot of RAM for its LARC cache for optimum performance. Rule of thumb is 5GB RAM per 1TB storage. But this is really just a very rough value. Reality can look totally different, which may mean more RAM. In order to compensate for expensive DRAM prices, ZFS offers the L2ARC cache on an external disk device, usually an SSD, especially now with those NVMe SSD modules going in the GB/s regions one can come close to DRAM speeds. In theory at least. L2ARC and ZIL demands are very much debated on the net and offer depend on usage patterns.


    So, ZFS done right is more expensive than just throwing your last PC's hardware at it.


    I am well aware, that OMV is its own Debian distro and therefore senseless in a Solaris environment, but if ZFS is what you want, than I would go for the RealDeal(TM).


    Otherwise you may want to take the hardware you already mentioned, read up a little bit more on XFS vs. JFS vs. btrfs vs. ext4 and then decide, whether you need RAID at all, now, that the Duplicati plugin is in "testing" and use any of the free cloud providers as a back up backend for the important content. And if Google Drive, Dropbox, etc. are too small/expensive there is Backblaze b2 support in Duplicati as well. Remember: an electrical faliure can kill both of your RAID-1 disks at once.


    A more simple DLNA solution than Plex or Kodi may be advised, since you seem to use that machine only for serving data, not replaying it. You thin client (the media-streamer) doesn't need more than a DLNA server as a backend, or maybe just shares to browse.

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