Newbie, Server hardware, Alpha software: My Winter NAS game

  • 10.11.2017
    Basically I wanted a server running in my apartment because I am not nerd enough yet... 24 hours later bought used Dell Edgepower R410 without actually checking anything. Another 24 hours later realise onboard PERC 6/i supports only up to 2TB drives only. Another 24 hours later try 8TB drive on motherboard sata port and it is recoqnized! Another 24 hours later try install OMV 3.0... realise no server hardware nic drivers because Debian about 12 hours later when somebody asked was your NIC broadcom... Installed Debian 9.20 with ton of non-free-firmwares, success! another 6 hours later realise you should not encrypt your drives because it is inconvenient and takes a lot time... 1 hour later try link bonding and break your network connection (way to go!). About 1 hour later you're on this forum posting your mysterious adventure into Linux distros and OMV!


    So hi, I am engineer student and decided that finally I need a proper NAS and give a whack of hammer to my old 1TB nas drive that was connected to my router. And so as you might read earlier I bought a server rack.



    Planned Target Server:

    • Dell Edgepower R410

      • 2x Xeon L5640 (6C/12T, 60W)
      • 4-128GB RAM? No idea so far how much ram I need... probably going to settle for 16GB...
      • OS on 30-120GB SSD
      • NAS storage should be at least 8TB, might go for RAID 5/6/10 + 8TB external storage
      • 500W reduntant PSU
      • 2Gbit bonded NIC
    • Debian 8.9 + OMV 3
    • many other services will be also running on that server later, hopefully NAS survives :evil:

    Current Server:

    • Dell Edgepower R410

      • 1x Xeon E5504 (4C/4T, 80W)
      • 4GB RAM
      • OS on 3x146GB RAID 5 array
      • NAS Storage: USB drive
      • 500W reduntant PSU
      • 1Gbit nic, other NIC not found after OS install ?(
    • Debian 9.20
  • 6 hours later realise you should not encrypt your drives because it is inconvenient and takes a lot time...

    Nerds will tell that you need hardware with some kind of crypto accceleration for fast encryption - e.g. an Intel CPU that supprts AES-NI, etc.. But there are other reasons why it may be problematic.

  • @tkaiser learning mainly how to do it, and very occasional lan-parties that friends and I are having during a year (~20 people). This NAS project is a long one because I want to do things properly and tinker system to my liking. A learning path of sorts, I have mainly used Windows since Windows 3.1 and after Windows 7 support ends I probably will migrate to some Linux Distro.


    Today plan is to modify a universal shelf rail to mount R410 on it. Size and sturdiness are just perfect for my rack.
    https://wiki.eth0.nl/index.php/LackRack

  • Are you going to use Virtualbox to play games in OMV?

    The plan is not to play games on server but host game servers that can be accessed with clients. Currently waiting for a SSD to arrive in mail. On the Black Friday I have to see which size hard drives I should buy.


    Services the server will provide:

    • Headless NAS service (OMV)
    • Backup location for snapshots of my computers, phones
    • Headless dedicated servers for some games (Factorio mainly atm)
    • Shell accounts for IRC use under group "IRC" for close friends who do not have 24/7 connection to IRC (yet)
    • Scanner service (because my current one is painful to use even though cost a small fortune back in 2010) and scanned pictures are then in specific folder
    • Host my personal webpage (I am data hoarding on one of the organization storage too much (300GB out of 600GB)). Mainly those pictures
    • Any other service that I want to run


    Also need to check does my external USB 3.0 sata enclosure support 8TB drives for offline back-upping but I plan to get back to this project soon.

  • Alright,


    Chinese SSD arrived finally and tested it on my Windows desktop first because my Server modifications are not year ready yet.


    Seems pretty same performance as with Intel 520 Series 60GB SSD, speed is limited by amount of flash chips on board so it cannot stripe data for higher write or read speeds. But on positive note write speed is always higher than read speed which I find a bit hilarious.


    After Christmas probably more blog like updates about my NAS journey... (perhaps I could write documentation when I discover things)

  • [ignore]Edit: damn lack of coffee... I read again my posted sentence and made a little sense even to me, so here we go again...[/ignore]


    Progress has been slow, some parts that I ordered arrived after Christmas, have been busy with other projects like cleaning my apartment because it was getting too full of stuff to work on anything.


    New parts arrived
    - 2x Toshiba N300 8TB NAS hard drives
    - 1x Kingspec T60 SSD for OS (one post above for benchmark results)
    - 1x Dell R410 1U CPU cooler (old new stock from ebay)
    - 1x Dell R410 HDD hotswap tray (old new stock from ebay)
    - 2x 2GB Kingston mem sticks, ECC (8GB total system RAM)
    - 3x 1.0 meter CAT7 cables for NICs (2x blue, 1x yellow)
    - 1U shelf racks, need new holes for server mounting but otherwise sturdy


    Parts ordered, have not yet arrived:
    - 2x MINI-SAS to 4x SATA reverse breakout cable
    - SLIM ODD to 2.5" HDD tray
    - USB 3.0 HDD Dock


    I was thinking making a journey blog / videos about this project, so suggestions are welcome.

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