Building an AMD OMV box

  • Hi,


    I'm new with building NAS. Just got a deal the other day on these hardware:


    Processor: AMD A4 6300
    Board: Biostar A70U3P
    RAM: 4GB Hynix DDR3 1600


    When looking for more info on building NAS I came across some post on other forums that some NAS OS like FreeNAS and NAS4Free don't play well with AMD processor cos their lineage from FreeBSD. AFAIK OMV is based on Debian. Will using AMD hardware with OMV cause problems?


    My 2nd question is about the casing. I'm planning on using 4 NAS HDD + 1 SSD for the OS. The NAS itself will be used mainly for file server with at most 2 users across several devices, and occasional media streaming (no transcoding). Cos space is an issue, I can't use a mid tower case without remodeling the room. I found a case, Silverstone SG 11, which fits the space perfectly. I've checked Fractal Design Node 804, which aside from cost, I still have to remodel the room cos of it's height. My take is, if I use the 804, the remodeling will allow me to use lower priced mid tower case anyway.


    My concern about SG-11 is about airflow & heat, esp HDD heat. I checked commercial NAS builds like QNAP TS-431 and Synology DS-419. Those builds are jam packed with only 1x 4" fan. So, are my concern unfounded about the SG-11 case? Anyone built a NAS with it? The NAS will be on 24/7 unless there's a power outage.


    3rd, and last, question is about power supply. Is 430w PSU enough for this build? I may add another NIC (DLink). I'm thinking on Corsair CX-430.


    Thanks

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    1. AMD is fine. The bigger issue I see (which some have reported has been fixed w/ updates) is the NIC on your BioStar board (Realtek 8111G). I, and many others, had a lot of problems out of that device back in the day. I've had it about 3yrs, but haven't used it in over 2. It may work fine, but if you start noticing things like the NAS won't shutdown over SSH/webUI, sometimes it's fast and great, other times it drops altogether, etc.. it might be wise to toss an Intel NIC in the box (that's what I did)


    2. Not really familiar with that case, but just looking at it, your concerns about airflow seem valid. Thinking outside the box a little bit.. Can you put a better case somewhere else, and then run cat6 cable from your router to the NAS? You only need a display during initial setup. Seen many pics where folks have put them in closets, in basements on shelves, etc.


    3. The PSU should be fine. I've not looked at all the power specs on your stuff, but I can't imagine a scenario where a 430w power supply wouldn't run this.

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    Cos space is an issue, I can't use a mid tower case without remodeling the room. I found a case, Silverstone SG 11, which fits the space perfectly

    Since it appears that your NAS may be in open living spaces, think about the noise made by case fans and the power supply. Think about buying items that are advertised as "quiet" and their check reviews.

  • 6 TB each, non RAID setup (each HDD will be available at separate mount points)

    Then one single ODROID HC2 won't be enough since 24TB HDDs don't exist yet. Otherwise you could have a look how @Adoby deals with such a challenge with his fanless HC2 setups.


    Based on the use case you describe (NAS only) you could go easily with one HC2 (CPU performance and RAM are more than enough) but I guess it's here more about 'NAS tinkering' then 'boring NAS that simply works and outperforms 99% of x86 NAS boxes'?


    If it's about wasting energy for nothing and generating fan noise (the x86 route) I would look at a setup that's at least ECC RAM capable for data integrity (that's the beauty with more recent AMD offerings -- ECC RAM support even with cheap AMD CPUs -- but that's something for OMV5 since kernel used on OMV4 installation media doesn't deal that good with brand new hardware)

  • 1. AMD is fine. The bigger issue I see (which some have reported has been fixed w/ updates) is the NIC on your BioStar board (Realtek 8111G). I, and many others, had a lot of problems out of that device back in the day. I've had it about 3yrs, but haven't used it in over 2. It may work fine, but if you start noticing things like the NAS won't shutdown over SSH/webUI, sometimes it's fast and great, other times it drops altogether, etc.. it might be wise to toss an Intel NIC in the box (that's what I did)


    2. Not really familiar with that case, but just looking at it, your concerns about airflow seem valid. Thinking outside the box a little bit.. Can you put a better case somewhere else, and then run cat6 cable from your router to the NAS? You only need a display during initial setup. Seen many pics where folks have put them in closets, in basements on shelves, etc.


    3. The PSU should be fine. I've not looked at all the power specs on your stuff, but I can't imagine a scenario where a 430w power supply wouldn't run this.

    1. Regarding the NIC, will this work ( Intel PWLA8390MT PCI NIC )?


    2. Remodeling it is then :) . I'll try to keep it minimal and look for other possibilities. What do you think about this case ( Aerocool VS-9 )?


    3. With the Aerocool case supporting 9 bays, if I were to expand the setup from 4x 6TB HDD to 9x 6TB later on, can 430w PSU handle it?

  • Regarding the NIC, will this work ( Intel PWLA8390MT PCI NIC )?

    Sure. Your mainboard has one PCI slot so you can insert old, slow, horribly expensive and inefficient PCI network cards. Makes absolutely no sense of course :)


    BTW: Whether a '430w PSU' can handle 9 times spinning rust or not depends on how much it is able to provide stably on the 12V rail since when you power up your tinker setup each 3.5" HDD might draw up to 2A peak consumption on the 12V rail alone. Good luck with the whole approach!

  • Then one single ODROID HC2 won't be enough since 24TB HDDs don't exist yet. Otherwise you could have a look how @Adoby deals with such a challenge with his fanless HC2 setups.
    Based on the use case you describe (NAS only) you could go easily with one HC2 (CPU performance and RAM are more than enough) but I guess it's here more about 'NAS tinkering' then 'boring NAS that simply works and outperforms 99% of x86 NAS boxes'?


    If it's about wasting energy for nothing and generating fan noise (the x86 route) I would look at a setup that's at least ECC RAM capable for data integrity (that's the beauty with more recent AMD offerings -- ECC RAM support even with cheap AMD CPUs -- but that's something for OMV5 since kernel used on OMV4 installation media doesn't deal that good with brand new hardware)

    Thanks for the heads up about ODROID. 24TB HDD might not exist yet, but 4x ODROID+6TB HDD is. Then it's about allocating different IP addresses for each units. It's not too dissimilar with the original setup cos I plan to access each drive individually (no RAID / other linear setup).


    The thing is, how does it handle large file transfers? Transferring 200GB+ files back and forth from the main PC and NAS will be a feature of this build.

  • The thing is, how does it handle large file transfers? Transferring 200GB+ files back and forth from the main PC and NAS will be a feature of this build

    No problems whatsoever. If your main PC is running Windows 7 or later you get well above 100 MB/s in both directions with an HC2 and a somewhat recent SATA disk in it (with older 3.5" HDD or 2.5" HDD the disk itself becomes the bottleneck once its filled due to something called 'Zone Bit Recording' storing more data on the outer tracks resulting in lower transfer speeds on the inner tracks).


    Reason for the +100 MB/s with Windows 7 or above: see https://www.helios.de/web/EN/support/TI/157.html starting at 'Windows Explorer CopyFile behavior'. I bet ODROID HC2 with our official image outperforms 99% of x86 based OMV installations easily due to better settings. And you would need NBase-T or 10GbE to outperform such an HC2 installation anyway since it saturates Gigabit Ethernet already :)


    BTW: If you go the HC2 route I would evaluate choosing 12TB disks with 2 shares each instead since most likely better capacity/price ratio if taking the device prices into account as well.

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    Thanks for the heads up about ODROID. 24TB HDD might not exist yet, but 4x ODROID+6TB HDD is. Then it's about allocating different IP addresses for each units. It's not too dissimilar with the original setup cos I plan to access each drive individually (no RAID / other linear setup).
    The thing is, how does it handle large file transfers? Transferring 200GB+ files back and forth from the main PC and NAS will be a feature of this build.

    As @tkaiser says, for a HC2 you really might want to consider a 12TB HDD. I use Seagate IronWolf 12TB. If you consider price per TB and factor in the cost of the NAS were the drive will sit, powersupply, cables and network port in a switch and everything, then a big HDD is very cost effective. Also it is nice with fewer moving parts that can fail. I also suspect that it is typically more power efficient with one big 12TB HDD than two smaller 6TB.


    Moving big files back and forth is no problem. The HC2 is likely to keep the GbE saturated during the whole file transfer. At least if you use a decent HDD. Many very small files is less likely to keep the GbE saturated. But that is true for other NAS hardware as well.


    As long as you use a HC2 mostly as a fileserver and media streaming, it is perfectly fine have the root fs on a SD card. Just make sure to have the media server database and metadata on the HDD, not on the SD.


    You can read more about my blinking bookshelf living room HC2 NAS "cluster" setup here. Currently there are six HC2 there. Currently around 52TB on the bookshelf. (3x12TB+2x8TB+512GB). Three HC2 with 28 TB are used for backups of the other HC2 as well as backups of my laptop, PC, tablet and phone.. There is 24TB in another room for secondary backups.


    I run NFS on all my NAS and also on my Linux laptop and desktop computer. Using autofs I can make it easy to access all shares on all NAS to and from all devices. Shares are automatically/dynamically mounted when they are accessed, if they are available. I use SMB/CIFS for android clients. Static leased IP numbers are assigned from an OpenWRT mini router running dnsmasq.


    I don't run my six HC2s fanless. I have one "Ultra Low Noise" ULN Noctua fan running at the slowest, most quiet, speed. Works fine and is inaudible. One low speed fan for six HC2 is plenty. In the livingroom I can faintly hear the drives working under load. But then I am typically streaming media and the sound from the streaming media playing makes it inaudible. Unless I stream the drives are spun down and everything is totally quiet.


    I live far out in the countryside, and it is really quiet. So even a normally quiet PC with very good quiet CPU, PSU and case fans is very noisy to me.


    HC2s are indeed a little boring. I had some problems in the beginning, but now they just work. Quiet, fast and efficient. But several HC2 in a "cluster" are fun. And they and the switch all blink very nice in the dark. Like a little vintage high tech movie prop in the book shelf. 8)

  • I've look up your post. Nice setup. A question though, what PSU do you use for the setup?

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    I got this PSU.


    https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B01MRSAT39


    Most 12 volt PSU, with enough capacity, would do. Thera are lots of different models and types. This was the biggest fan-less I could find. Also it allows the voltage to be adjusted slightly.


    It might be a little big. I considered having a bank of relays, SSRs or MOSFETs and an Arduino. That way there could be a staggered delay, perhaps half a minute or so, when turning on the HC2s. As it is now there is a big power draw spike when all the devices turn on and spin up at the same time. If I add more devices I might try it.


    Perhaps something like this, together with an ESP8266 with 8 free GPIO pins.


    https://www.amazon.de/SainSmar…dul-Arduino/dp/B007F93PF6



    A HC2 may draw 12V 2A while turning on. During normal use, much less. I run a switch, fan and WiFi mesh unit on the PSU as well.

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