The right raid array for NAS

[General Maximus]

I currently have two NAS servers which contain a single 3TB drive and I have run out of space so I am looking to replace them with something like this http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...pf_rd_i=468294

My question is this:

I defo want to use raid 5 because I'll cry if a hdd fails and I lose everything but I would like to know if there is a way that I can still merge 3 drives together to create one volume like in raid 0 so I just see one big 12TB drive? I will be using the drive as a media server so I am assuming that the devices which view the media will just list the folders regardless of which drive they are on. From my perspective in terms of managing the data I don't want to have to worry about running out of space on a particular drive and then have to start putting the same type of content onto another drive. I would rather have one big 12TB volume and use as much space as I want to. As an example, say I have catergory a, b and c on there and had a drive for each because there are 3 categories, I might only have 500gb of category a but 6TB of category b and I don't want to have to have one drive full of category b and then have it spill onto another drive as well. If I had one big 12TB volume I could just have a folder for each and they would take up as much space as they needed to without me having to worry about how I organise the data.

[Sephiroth]

Mon General, you might care to await a contribution from Horseman who seems to know this stuff. I no longer recall my past on logical vs physical media.

[Ignitionnet]

t

Originally Posted by General Maximus

I currently have two NAS servers which contain a single 3TB drive and I have run out of space so I am looking to replace them with something like this http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...pf_rd_i=468294

My question is this:

I defo want to use raid 5 because I'll cry if a hdd fails and I lose everything but I would like to know if there is a way that I can still merge 3 drives together to create one volume like in raid 0 so I just see one big 12TB drive?

Yep - that's what RAID 5 looks like, RAID 0 except losing some capacity to the parity data. Both stripe data across disks so you see a single logical drive regardless of the number of physical drives.

You should be aware that you're going to lose 1/3rd of the entire space to parity data though, and that RAID 5 isn't exactly incredible as far as recovery of data goes. You may find that you'd rather simply back it all up for performance, or if you really want to be secure and don't mind losing the space use RAID 1+0.

Incidentally your storage requirements are insane. I can't even fill a single 3TB drive let alone 2 of them! Then again maybe your storage requirements are normal and I just don't have much content locally, I'm very 'cloudy'.

[General Maximus]

that's good knews, I was under the impression that with raid 5 I would lose one of the 4tb drives to parity and the other 3 would remain seperate logical drives. If it stipes the data and it displays it as one logical drive like in raid 0 I'll be delighted because that is exactly what I wanted.

I know raid 1+0 is the ideal solution but I won't really gain capacity wise from that. As I mentioned above, I have already got 6TBs which are full and I wanted to double to 12TB. The only reason why I am going for a 16TB nas is because I thought I would lose 4tb to parity which still leaves me with the desired 12TB. If I did raid 1+0 I wouldn't really gain much because I would be back down to 8TB. I wanted to get the disk station and get rid of my two 3TB drives so it isn't as if it would be 8TB + 6TB (old drives) although I might consider keeping one of them.

[Qtx]

Synology products do allow you to expand volumes so multiple disks look like one drive. Not something I have done myself but I know it's possible.

Keep in mind that you won't be able to put your existing disks in to a Synology/Qnap/etc without the NAS wanting to wipe and prepare those disks for use in the array. Either putting in fresh disks and copying over or backing up somewhere else first would be an option in this type of scenario.

Finding my two bay 4GB NAS isn't enough so looking to upgrade too. The Synology DS 412+ is a better option than the 413J looking at the specs. 413J is a Marvel Kirkwood 1.6Ghz ARM based chip with 512MB memory and USB2 whereas the 412+ is an Intel Atom 2.13Ghz dual core with 1GB memory and USB 3. The speed difference in using it should be a lot better, worth spending that little extra imo.

The way I look at things is I don't need the extra speed raid gives and a lot of the stuff on my disks can be got again. So I have no raid and only backup/mirror a few crucial directories from one disk to another. If one disk goes down I still have another copy of my data. Gives me peace of mind as well as more space overall. I share certain folders on each disk which makes it more simple for me to index folders with XBMC and such like although I am at mercy of the problem you explained above in relation to some things taking more space.

All Synology products have the same DSM software, so looking at mine, I think it's Disk groups which is the part that lets you expand volumes

[General Maximus]

The 413 sounds good and I like the idea that you can create a group of disks. Formatting etc isn't an issue because I was going to buy a 16TB NAS so it would already be populated with new drives. The only niggle I have got with all of this is the capacity vs redundancy arguement. I have got 3.5TB of various hdds attached to my pc locally so when I first started out I was able to backup stuff. I have already got too much to be able to go that now and I defo can't afford to backup 12TBs of stuff. I know I can download all of it again but it would be the time it takes to do it. I could keep my current two NAS' for backup purposes but I was going to get the synology and sell my buffalo and seagate.

I really do like the look of the 413+, the only bummer is that it doesn't mention a print server as one of the features and the 412 and 414 do.

[Qtx]

With broadband getting faster and faster, as well as my sources being reliable and fast, it made the decision of not backing up the majority of my files using RAID an easy choice. It's not for everyone though

The Synology software (DSM) is pretty much identical between all of their products, so if one product has print server capabilities, the others will. Could be they just missed it out in the description you saw. DSM 5 was recently released which gave all the new features to all their products which could take the update. Some of their older products, say 4 years and older for example, would be stuck on 4.3 or something like that but even then, they should all have pretty much the same capabilities but different specs and speed.

Originally Posted by Qtx

With broadband getting faster and faster, as well as my sources being reliable and fast, it made the decision of not backing up the majority of my files using RAID an easy choice. It's not for everyone though

The Synology software (DSM) is pretty much identical between all of their products, so if one product has print server capabilities, the others will. Could be they just missed it out in the description you saw. DSM 5 was recently released which gave all the new features to all their products which could take the update. Some of their older products, say 4 years and older for example, would be stuck on 4.3 or something like that but even then, they should all have pretty much the same capabilities but different specs and speed.

me too everything of import to me are encrypted on online in various places.Even bunged my mp3 collection on a site where before I would have not bothered and just got what I wanted again if I lost them.

[Ignitionnet]

Something to consider is perhaps buying a Microserver. I have this rather cheeky number in my living room.

[Qtx]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

Something to consider is perhaps buying a Microserver. I have this rather cheeky number in my living room.

I was eyeing up the N54L a few years ago for a NAS but decided for once I didn't want the hassle of building and configuring everything from scratch. It was a hard choice as you would get much better specs for your money with a microserver. The fact they tend to be noisy too was another factor. Wanted it in the front room connected to a switch near the tv so glad I went with the DS213J at the time It has a fan but it's so quiet I can't actually hear it even with the tv turned off

Might reconsider a microserver once the whole property is properly network wired so I can stick one in a utility room or another room.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

Something to consider is perhaps buying a Microserver. I have this rather cheeky number in my living room.

That's a good deal.

Long term (don't really have the money to do it at the moment), I've been looking at a large NAS. Actually primarily so I can ensure the family computers are backed up (even though it's on site, it's better than nothing) but I'd like to store some media, and stream it. Yes, I know that most NAS drives can do DNLA, but I have a variety of devices and I'd like a device with enough power to convert the media to whatever form is needed on the fly..

I use a package called Mezzmo to stream and convert the media. Be interesting to see if that microserver is up to the task of on the fly conversion.

[Qtx]

In the long term I would think transcoding of streaming media will be needed much less. Media players, tv's and even phones are already at a point where they can play pretty much every raw format. Even the TV in my bedroom has DTS support so I can stream the same mkv's as I use in the front room without any transcoding at all. Same with the mobile phone/tablet with the correct player although for mobile network speed a low powered NAS seems sufficient to transcode to that bitrate.

Serviio is similar to Mezzmo (used both in the past) and the Synology NAS have a Serviio package anyone can install, althoug hmileage will vary depending in the power of the particular model.

HP keep doing cash back deals on their micro servers so keep your eyes peeled on HUKD

[qasdfdsaq]

The HP microservers are indeed an exceedingly good deal. If my array didn't require 36 drive bays, I would probably be using one as well.

It also gives you the advantages of flexibility, allowing you to use more advanced filesystems like ZFS or BTRFS or UnRAID.

Nonetheless I see the original question has already been answered...

---------- Post added at 00:16 ---------- Previous post was at 00:07 ----------

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

and that RAID 5 isn't exactly incredible as far as recovery of data goes. You may find that you'd rather simply back it all up for performance, or if you really want to be secure and don't mind losing the space use RAID 1+0.

What he said. Also something that a lot of people overlook... RAID is not a substitute for a backup.

I cannot emphasize this enough.

Also I would suggest RAID 6 over RAID 1+0 if you wanted more security - RAID6 is guaranteed to survive any combination of any 2 drive failures, RAID1+0 will lose data in 33% of possible 2-drive failure combinations (and not to be confused with RAID 0+1 which will lose data in 66% of 2-drive failures).

Incidentally your storage requirements are insane. I can't even fill a single 3TB drive let alone 2 of them! Then again maybe your storage requirements are normal and I just don't have much content locally, I'm very 'cloudy'.

If you call a 4-bay NAS filled with 4TB drives is insane, I'd love to know how you'd describe my NAS setup in my utility room



---------- Post added at 00:19 ---------- Previous post was at 00:16 ----------

Originally Posted by Qtx

I was eyeing up the N54L a few years ago for a NAS but decided for once I didn't want the hassle of building and configuring everything from scratch. It was a hard choice as you would get much better specs for your money with a microserver. The fact they tend to be noisy too was another factor. Wanted it in the front room connected to a switch near the tv so glad I went with the DS213J at the time It has a fan but it's so quiet I can't actually hear it even with the tv turned off

Might reconsider a microserver once the whole property is properly network wired so I can stick one in a utility room or another room.

The HP is notoriously quiet thanks to its large diameter fans and passively cooled mainboard.

As far as the hassle of building and configuring - there's quite a few NAS-dedicated *nix distributions out there that install as an appliance and present the same sort of administrative web interface as the Synology NAS units.

---------- Post added at 00:28 ---------- Previous post was at 00:19 ----------

Originally Posted by Stuart

Yes, I know that most NAS drives can do DNLA, but I have a variety of devices and I'd like a device with enough power to convert the media to whatever form is needed on the fly..

I use a package called Mezzmo to stream and convert the media. Be interesting to see if that microserver is up to the task of on the fly conversion.

It depends more on the source content to be honest. Streaming encoders are really fast these days and use far less resources than archival encoders. I have a 2Ghz dual-core AMD Athlon64 system which is actually perfectly sufficient for encoding 1080p streaming content to various devices, as long as the source bitrate doesn't exceed ~20Mbps or so. Above that bitrate, it has too little CPU power to decode the source content quickly enough!

The N54L is a much newer architecture and faster so should have no problems.

[Qtx]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

T
The HP is notoriously quiet thanks to its large diameter fans and passively cooled mainboard.

As far as the hassle of building and configuring - there's quite a few NAS-dedicated *nix distributions out there that install as an appliance and present the same sort of administrative web interface as the Synology NAS units.

Read a number of reviews on the N54L that said it was too noisy to sit in a front room. So might be quieter than comparable size units but sounded noisy enough to annoy.

FreeNAS seems to be pretty popular as an alternative software and there is even a modified version of the synology DSM software called XPEnology that works in a virtual machine, although not made by them. Still a bit more configuring and mucking about than I wanted to do at the moment in time I brought mine