New NAS build thoughts/opinions/suggestions

  • Hi guys,

    So ive been using an 11 yr old PC (Xeon 3.2 with 24Gb ddr2 ram) that i think is starting to give up the ghost, lots of random reboots etc, so figured time to bite the bullet and just build 1 with modern hardware.

    Here is what i am considering buying:

    --Cooler Master Elite 130 Mini ITX Tower Case

    --AMD Ryzen 3 3200G 3.6 GHz Quad-Core Processor

    --Gigabyte B450 I AORUS PRO WIFI Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard

    --ADATA XPG Z1 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 CL16 Memory

    --3 x Western Digital Red 4 TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive (plan to run it in RAID5)

    --2 x Sandisk 64Gb USB3.0 MIcro USB ( Install OMV onto first and 2nd as clone backup)

    --EVGA BQ 500 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply


    The main things i will be using the NAS for:

    --Storing movies and tv shows ( I use a Pi3 with openelec to play shows from fileshare, no issues so not going to install plex)

    --MotionEye camera surveillance ( I have 5 cameras around my house, 4 are IP cameras, 5th is USB which will be attached to the NAS)

    --Usual data storage for docs and backups of the Mrs and my laptops

    --qBittorent ( Because we all goto download our linux iso from torrent sites ;))


    Im not fussed if its overkill for my needs, but just want to make sure it will handle my needs without issues.

    You thoughts and suggestions would be greatly appreciated.( Im retired so im trying to do this on a budget.... ie most bang for my $$$)

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    Should work fine!


    One complication is that the 4TB Red drives might be SMR. Shingled Magnetic Recording. I am not sure. SMR may lead to very poor performance when used in a RAID. There has been a lot of discussion about this, since it is not always obvious if a drive is SMR or not.


    WD has published a list of drives using SMR.


    https://blog.westerndigital.com/wd-red-nas-drives/


    But perhaps you should reconsider RAID5? It seems to be an unnecessary complication? Also you don't mention anything about backups. I would argue that good backups are much more important than RAID. A simple and robust setup is to use two internal drives, one for normal shared storage and one for backups of the first. In addition perhaps backup to an external USB3 drive and/or another NAS or the Cloud.


    Cheap SMR drives are normally fine for non-RAID general storage.


    The praxis is to install OMV and then get shares up. And then install dockers for special functionality, like surveillance, media streaming and downloading. It might be a good idea to use a small and fast extra disk volume dedicated to docker usage. Perhaps a small SSD, just for dockers? This is to avoid wearing out the USB thumbdrive and to improve performance, especially if you use SMR drives for data storage, to allow the data volumes to be dedicated to store data that is rarely accessed using random writes. SMR and random writes is a bad combination.


    I don't know anything about "bBittorrent", I assume it is a bittorrent client? If that is not easily available as a docker, there are many alternatives.

    Be smart - be lazy. Clone your rootfs.
    OMV 5: 9 x Odroid HC2 + 1 x Odroid HC1 + 1 x Raspberry Pi 4

    5 Mal editiert, zuletzt von Adoby () aus folgendem Grund: SMR concerns

  • Thanks,

    Yeah, i have been tossing up whether to just go JBOD as i already have 2 x 4TB reds currently as JBOD, was going to buy 1 more so i could just bang it in as RAID5 .

    Just checked and my drives are SOHO (DMSMR) whatever that means ^^

    I have a 2 bay USB3 extarnal HDD caddy with 2 x 2TBś that i use for backing up onto currently.


    I planned in installing Docker etc onto the 4TB share as i dont want to kill the flash disks so fast.

    bBittorrent - my bad, typo, qBittorent :D running in docker.

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    If your 4TB WD Reds are SMR, then you may want to avoid storing the dockers on them and perhaps use a small SSD for dockers instead.


    Dockers often use a lot of random writes. That may cause significant write magnification causing the SMR drives to slow down and even wear out prematurely. A good SSD will handle that much better. That said, some of the newer quad-bit SSDs have poor write performance. Worth checking before you buy.

  • Ok, good to know.

    I have a spare Crucial MX100 2.5 500 Gig SSD.

    Should i keep as intended installing OMV onto 64GB Flash, and then have the 500Gb SSD where i install the docker and all Docker stacks?


    Sorry about all the questions, im new to OMV and linux , a VERY steep learning curve....

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    Many docker apps store frequently variable data and metadata. Perhaps in a database. This may lead to random writes. Examples are torrent download clients or media managers with frequently updated metadata.

    I have a spare Crucial MX100 2.5 500 Gig SSD.

    Should i keep as intended installing OMV onto 64GB Flash, and then have the 500Gb SSD where i install the docker and all Docker stacks?

    That is how I would do it. The rootfs on a USB thumb drive and the flash memory plugin installed. And everything docker on a SSD. Media files on spinning disks.

  • My use is about the same as your except only 3 cameras instead of 5. My ancient AMD A6-3500 tri-core stays around 20% load. I suggest you get as low power a CPU as they offer since any new model will be able to keep up. I think AMD has quad cores that take a mere 35 watts for the AM4 socket. Saves a lot of electric bill over time.

    If your system will be "headless" (no monitor) there is no need for the 'G' model CPU.

  • Since you have SMR drives you may want to avoid RAID solutions and use SnapRAID, to limit the write performance drop that such drives have.


    Also motion eye is not very lightweight. I have no idea how heavy can be 5 cameras but a friend with 2 cameras and a dual core CPU is at a constant 30% load.


    The energy discussion can be tricky. Look at your ideal or average system consumption, not the CPU TDP.

    I have a 65W CPU and I don't reach this consumption for the hole server even if I'm doing video encoding.

    For example my average consumption is between 20W (system idle and disks down) and 35W (all disks spinning and some CPU load).

    OMV BUILD - MY NAS KILLER - OMV 6.x + omvextrasorg (updated automatically every week)

    NAS Specs: Core i3-8300 - ASRock H370M-ITX/ac - 16GB RAM - Sandisk Ultra Flair 32GB (OMV), 256GB NVME SSD (Docker Apps), Several HDDs (Data) w/ SnapRAID - Fractal Design Node 304 - Be quiet! Pure Power 11 350W


    My all-in-one SnapRAID script!

  • Many docker apps store frequently variable data and metadata. Perhaps in a database. This may lead to random writes. Examples are torrent download clients or media managers with frequently updated metadata.

    That has nothing to do with docker then, but with the application.

    Docker allows separating data and application (images).

    Anyway: SMR only suffers from without interruption. The applications you mentioned should be no issue.

    And it is the first time I hear the claim that Flash is more robust against writes than a HDD...

    • Offizieller Beitrag

    Where does it say flash is more robust against writes than HDD? Flash is faster but all flash has limited write cycles. Flash will never mechanically wear out which does it make more robust that way but not in respect to writes.

    omv 7.0-32 sandworm | 64 bit | 6.5 proxmox kernel

    plugins :: omvextrasorg 7.0 | kvm 7.0.9 | compose 7.0.9 | cputemp 7.0 | mergerfs 7.0.3


    omv-extras.org plugins source code and issue tracker - github


    Please try ctrl-shift-R and read this before posting a question.

    Please put your OMV system details in your signature.
    Please don't PM for support... Too many PMs!

Jetzt mitmachen!

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