My NAS build - Server quality :)

Bonobo · 4. Juli 2013

Hello, I hope the community doesn't mine my first post a question and discussion on my setup! A little back ground... I would consider myself tech savvy, but I have never built or run a server before. I have also never user Linux, setup a bare metal or VMM server.

I want to build a server primarily for personal back up and storage of movies to stream to my Boxee. I would also like to run a Minecraft server for my co-workers, family and friends. On top of all that, I would like to build a Cloud server, so I get to my stuff at work, upload photos as I go, and maybe even stream a movie to my iPad when I am on the train in the morning and at night.

Here is my build as it stands.
LIAN LI PC-V354B
SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCM-F-O
Intel Xeon E3-1230 V2
Memory - HP ECC DDR3 1333 4x 8GB
Rosewill Fortress 550w
8Gb Flash - USB 2.0
4x WD - Red 3TB
1x Samsung SSD

I guess like most people, I was going to try FreeNAS, hence the server quality build. On my community forums someone suggested I look at OMV as an alternative. So far, from my research, I am really liking the fact I can add drive to my raid without destroying my data pool. Also it seem the hardware requirements at not as high (I can not find the "minimum requirements" on the main page).

Few questions...

What are the minimum and maximum hardware requirements for OMV?
How would you setup my setup? Run OMV from my SSD, or a USB Stick? Is there a benefit to even having a SSD vs. regular HDD.
Can OMV support a Minecraft server from its OS, Can I even run one?

I'll have a lot more questions... but that is a good start!

tekkb · 4. Juli 2013

Use an SSD as the system drive. Looking at your components you are well above any kind of minimum. There are 32bit ISO's so I would say that is minimum and maybe 1 gig ram for 32 bit. With 64 bit I would say any low end 64 bit processor from amd/intel and 2 gigs of ram.

If you search google you will find tutorials on how to setup a Minecraft server on Debian Squeeze. OMV is based on Debian Squeeze. Anything that works on Debian Squeeze pretty much will work on OMV.

davidh2k · 4. Juli 2013

As iam running 'some' minecraft servers myself, i will take you to the neccessary steps quickly.

Code

adduser minecraft

fill out the password etc., no need to add phonenumber etc.

Code

apt-get install screen

this package is neccessary to run minecraft without an open shell (like a backgrounder)
login directly with the user 'minecraft' - don't change to the user via su! (screen does not work via su!)

Code

wget https://s3.amazonaws.com/Minecraft.Download/versions/1.6.1/minecraft_server.1.6.1.jar

This Downloads the newest 1.6.1 server jar. Maybe you need to recheck the minecraft website in case a newer release happened.
start the server for the first time with following command (to generate config files etc.)

Code

java -Xmx1024M -Xms1024M -jar minecraft_server.jar nogui

You can stop the server after the world is done via 'stop'
Now you can edit the server.properties to your personal needs.
If you now want to run your minecraft headless you create a script called 'start.sh' - replace 'Yourdesiredscreenname' with minecraftsrv01 or something you like

Code

echo "screen -dmS Yourdesiredscreenname java -Xmx1024M -Xms1024M -jar minecraft_server.jar nogui" > start.sh
chmod u+x start.sh

You start the server via

Code

./start.sh

If you now want to attach to this screen you type in

Code

screen -r

If this is the only server running it will directly attach. If you have more screens open/running multiple servers it will post something like the following:

Code

minecraft@srv001:~$ screen -r
There are several suitable screens on:
        32547.MC_GK_Hard        (07/02/2013 05:27:19 PM)        (Detached)
        32206.MC_GK_Jump_SaE    (07/02/2013 05:17:32 PM)        (Detached)
        13431.Minecraft150_standard_v2  (04/17/2013 04:38:56 PM)        (Detached)
        13362.MC_Herobrines_Mansion     (04/17/2013 04:38:19 PM)        (Detached)
        10634.Minecraftgroupbuilding    (04/16/2013 10:57:03 PM)        (Detached)
        478.MC_500JTS   (04/01/2013 02:38:53 AM)        (Detached)
Type "screen [-d] -r [pid.]tty.host" to resume one of them.

Then you have to type in

Code

screen -r 32547

to attach to the first server.
You Detach (send him to the background) from the screen via STRG + A + D

If you have further Questions, shoot.

Greetings
David

Bonobo · 5. Juli 2013

I have been doing a lot of research and uTube watching, but i have a few more questions...

- What is the favourite filesystem to use for a home user? EXT4 I am still debating on how to setup my file system... I was thinking of waiting for another $130 sale on the WD red 3tb and picking up a fifth drive. Then maybe setting up a DEV mirror for my critical data backup (photos, documents, etc) and then doing another raid0 setup for the rest, movies, music, and other

- Also I read a number of posts on setting a ZFS filesystem in OMV... It can be done, but I have to use a Plugin? I have read that a ZFS setup in a VM environment is not to reliable. And that question ties into my next question...

- When setting up OMV; Can I create a OMV Bare Metal setup to take advantage of the Intellipower, and SMART monitoring available with OMV and my drives?
Side questions - Setting up a bare metal NAS, can I still setup other plugins, i.e. MineCraft, DLNA and others?

- Does OMV support ECC Memory?

Thank you again for your help!

knumsi · 5. Juli 2013

As my HP Microserver (N40L and N54L) are using ECC-RAM i can say that it is working very well

My Filesystem is EXT4, ZFS is too complicated for me. (as more errors could occur when rising complexity of a system) And ZFS is not officially supported.

For the backups take a look at the 3-Places-Rule (a thread here in the forum). Dont store backups in the same System, Room, Building, Location if you want to have it more secure

What is a "bare metal NAS"? OMV is set on top of debian. Everything (as i know) that runs on debian squeeze can be run additionally on your NAS.

davidh2k · 5. Juli 2013

For the Filesystem use either XFS or EXT4, its up to you. I use XFS and get slightly better speeds (in my personal setup! - testing, nothing that actually gets better performance over network). You could also use EXT4, it is recommend by some other users. I wouldnt recommend ZFS for beginners, its only needed for data deduplication...
Don't use Raid0. It isn't a real Raid scheme and you start crying if one HDD fails!
The WD Red are THE hard disk atm for home nas usage, i use 5 of them myself in a raid 5 (hardware controller!)
Of course you can install OMV onto debian (squeeze!), if thats what you asking. You can add more services yourself afterwards.

http://forums.openmediavault.org/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=2140

Greetings
David

Jetzt mitmachen!