NAS mix - low cost, low energy

    This won't sound pretty, but here we go.
    I use bunch of WD Red 3TB HDDs. First HDD is pluged-in to Banana Pi (luks encrpyted), Second on my wokring PC Bitlocked, somehow backing up data of the one on Banan Pi.
    And couple more - Third and Fourth - 3TB HDDs on pc in living room with movies on it - not backed up.


    Rock64 got my attention based on obvious reasons but also as 4K player, then I have decided to get rid of on "monster" in my house - a desktop pc in living room. Also I'm reconsidering ASUS Tinker Board for 4K playback.... I keep researching...
    What concerns me more is where couple 3TB drives will go from living room...


    It looks like I am going to have one device with 3 HDDs in it.
    A second device will run rsync server to backup important data from First to Second HDD. (btw fifth hdd backup offsite not mentioned...).


    I would like to tidy things up somehow. Not to make it even more complicated... And FINALLY make it whole automatic.
    I like that I'm running Banana Pi 24/7 and not be bothered about energy consumption. My guess is my NAS build would have similar characteristics. Any recommendations for low cost, low energy, mixed HDD NAS for three HDDs?
    I just mention here Helios4 kick-starter which got into my attention but I don't know how far it is... Or something "bigger" (not ARM)?

    Something like this is worth a consideration: My "bottom drawer" NAS while I personally would still prefer ARM and spinning down disks when not needed (since I like 'less than 2W idle consumption' a lot more than ~20W).


    Anyway: the 'problem' with 3.5" HDD is that they need both 5V and 12V (with 2.5" HDDs and a good 5V/2A PSU + ARM board you're already set). Then 3.5" HDD usually have an enormous spin-up peak consumption of up to 2A on the 12V rail. And then PSUs usually are pretty inefficient in low load situations (especially below 20% of the rated capacity). In other words: operating 3 3.5" HDD as a JBOD could be done with a highly efficient 30W PSU while spinning them up all at the same time requires an 80W PSU which will later run at below 40% rated capacity).


    Checking skills level to implement sane 'staggered spin up' (possible with 'average disks' only when you control their powering so you need at least MOSFETs/relays to control their spin-up behaviour) and the need to build an enclosure I would most probably simply choose a HP Microserver for convenience and data integrity (ECC DRAM). Most probably I would search for a used N54L to avoid the usual hassles with bleeding edge hardware.

    Thanks tkaiser. I got better idea now of whole picture what I got. Basically running more TeraBytes of HDDs cost more. I had a look on HP N54L - nice little server, but after calculations, I'm already considering it NOT to run it 24/7 cause power consumption which might be about 50W up, which is quite still low for server but not enough for me.
    I think I might hide my old "monster in the closet" (about 110W consumption) and run it on demand as Secondary NAS - backup & media. Primary NAS would be Rock64 with one HDD. But I reconsider hassle to sell it and swap for N54L.

Jetzt mitmachen!

Sie haben noch kein Benutzerkonto auf unserer Seite? Registrieren Sie sich kostenlos und nehmen Sie an unserer Community teil!

Benutzerkonto erstellen Anmelden