Questions about NAS

[whoololon]

The main thing is to be very clear about what you want to prioritize with RAID: security, speed or capacity. For example, a 0+1 versus a 1+0: same performance, same capacity, however the fault tolerance is much greater in the 1+0.

A level 3, 4, or 5 of three units only allows the failure of one of them, 2 for a 5EE, but for that it is better to have a level 6; obviously you can use striping to improve performance, at the cost of having to invest in more units; which in turn increases the possibility of a disk failing (obviously).

Source: Wikipedia.

Regarding nesting, the positive thing is the great improvement in performance/redundancy that they offer at a main level, the disadvantage is scalability.

Level 5+0, for example, is a level 0 with the data scheme of a level 5, resulting in two groups of three units. It is a good balance between redundancy, performance and reliability, admitting the failure of a disk from each group. A 6+0 is the same but with one more disk in each group.

I talk about levels 5 and 6 recurrently because they are the most used, but of course each one should use the one that suits them best. There would be more.

It is true that the Achilles' heel of NAS, apart from the price, is that you have no guarantees that you can take your RAID from an obsolete model to a more current one, even without leaving the same brand. And it is not even necessary that it fails, just that the manufacturer leaves it without support so that we cross our fingers.

Mind you, I'm not saying there are no guarantees, just that it is not 100% safe. Equally, a software RAID on a PC is not the panacea: you lose the OS, you lose the RAID.

That said, a NAS, apart from being more efficient, can do things that with a PC you will not be able to do, or it will cost you an arm and a leg to do them (making a RAID of certain levels, or creating nested levels, for example) although perhaps, depending on the use, we do not miss them much.

My suggestion, try setting it up on a PC and run it for a few days with data that you don't mind losing; if things go well, then you get into the thick of it and refine it, if it goes wrong, then you have to look for a NAS that meets your needs.

...and give yourself at least a thumbs up for those of us who have to keep going rain or shine.

[cobito]

El tema de los NAS y RAID es bastante complejo, pero he intentado resumirlo de la manera más clara posible. Aquí tienes un resumen de los puntos clave: 1. **Elegir una Distro NAS**: - **OpenMediaVault (OMV)**: Es una buena opción por su estabilidad, facilidad de uso y soporte para RAID. Es basado en Debian, lo que facilita la gestión y actualización. - **FreeNAS**: Ofrece características avanzadas como ZFS, que incluye compresión y cifrado, y un sistema de archivos RAID-Z que es más robusto. Sin embargo, es basado en FreeBSD, lo que puede requerir más conocimiento técnico. 2. **Simulacro de NAS con Virtualización**: - **Simulacro de RAID**: Usando OMV en una máquina virtual, se pueden simular diferentes escenarios como la sustitución de discos, ampliación de capacidad, y fallos de discos. - **Proceso de Reconstrucción**: La reconstrucción de RAID en OMV es manual en algunos casos, especialmente si el disco falla en caliente. FreeNAS maneja mejor estos procesos de manera automática. 3. **Consideraciones Económicas**: - **OMV vs. FreeNAS**: Desde el punto de vista económico, la diferencia entre un NAS preconstruido (como QNAP TS-431K) y un PC con componentes básicos es mínima. Un PC ofrece más versatilidad y posibilidades de actualización. - **Copias de Seguridad**: El plan 321 (tres copias en dos medios diferentes) es ideal pero puede ser costoso. Una opción más asequible es usar servicios en la nube (Google Drive, Dropbox) y discos duros locales. 4. **Fallos y Recuperación**: - **Fallos de Discos**: La sustitución de un disco en caliente puede requerir reconstrucción manual. FreeNAS maneja mejor estos procesos de manera automática. - **Sistema de Archivos**: OMV usa mdadm para RAID, mientras que FreeNAS usa ZFS, que ofrece características avanzadas como compresión y cifrado. 5. **SAI (Sistema de Alimentación Ininterrumpida)**: - **Importancia**: Un SAI es crucial para proteger contra cortes de suministro eléctrico, que pueden causar fallos catastróficos. Algunos NAS preconstruidos como la My Cloud EX4100 incluyen SAI integrado. 6. **Recomendaciones Finales**: - **OMV**: Ideal para usuarios que buscan estabilidad y facilidad de uso, con un buen equilibrio entre coste y funcionalidad. - **FreeNAS**: Recomendado para usuarios más técnicos que buscan características avanzadas y un sistema de archivos robusto como ZFS. Espero que esta información te sea útil. Si tienes más preguntas o necesitas más detalles, no dudes en preguntar. ¡Buena suerte con tu proyecto!

[_Neptunno_]

Well, taking advantage of the fact that I just replied in another post about the NAS topic, although I confess that I haven't read the entire thread, but it's interesting and I assure you that when I messed around with OpenMediaVault I would have appreciated it.

I went through a similar process, I wanted to mess around with a NAS or software oriented to that purpose. Although I end up a bit tired after weeks of reading and testing. For my taste, I found the raid issue in FreeNAS too complex (in addition to the memory requirements) and in Nas4free (Now Xigmanas) I have a similar problem… considering that in my company they have developed a system based on nas4free to manage preservation systems and to see a little how the programmers deal with it, I lost the desire to complicate myself.
Although I use it little, for me OpenMediaVault was the easiest to mess around with, configure and recover a disk from a raid 1 in case of loss. I recognize that the FreeNas interface is better and more powerful, but it doesn't compensate for the hassle.

From the experience of someone with little knowledge of Linux, with little desire to lose hours and hours (which I have already lost) in case of any problems and whose information to store is of everyday use… I opted for OMV. That is, if you don't ask me much because if I don't use it I forget many things jajaja.
I rely more on the team with Windows server 2012 R2, because for me it's more practical and because one of the programmers from my job was the one who told me!! And if someone who is dealing every day with a Xigmanas configuration in an enterprise mode to manage servers with 16 or 20 disks of 6Tb each advises you to use Win server and not complicate your existence, I think there's a reason for it.
Moreover, after what I've messed around with I can assure you that I understand my colleague jajaja.

A hug Cobito!

[_Neptunno_]

@cobito said in Doubts about NAS:

@whoololon Thanks for the contribution.

I've been reading about RAID 5 but I still don't understand it. It says that at least 3 disks are needed. Does that mean I can use as many disks as I want and one of them could fail? And with RAID 6 it's the same but with one more disk?

1- The fact that the controller must be identical for a change is what made me decide for software (what you mentioned in 5). On the other hand, if I buy a NAS box, the box will break and the brand that made it will disappear, could I still access the data using a box from another manufacturer or from any PC? Because in case that each manufacturer uses their own way of doing RAID, apart from the price, that's another good reason not to want a NAS box.

6- Of the important things, there will always be at least one backup. But having a copy of the whole set doesn't make sense. For example, if I decide to put the data from the Peertube instance, only the videos in native resolution need to be copied since the rest of the resolutions can be re-transcoded, among other cases (we're talking about several terabytes that can be recovered by other means). Indeed, according to the link you've put, it seems that it can be done using the current data set.

When I return from vacation, I'll continue to investigate the matter.

The subject of Raid has always given me a lot of curiosity even passion, and for years I've wanted to tinker with the different models but I've only tried 0, 1, 5 and 10(1+0), but in the long run I've realized that it's important not to complicate too much and that when implementing that Raid it's good to have secure copies and to be clear about the risks and advantages of each system.

RAID 5 is quite famous as it has great performance like a raid 0 but with the security of a 1, although I emphasize that it's something similar but not the same. I think that at the level of performance and security a Raid 10 is more optimal, having two groups of disks in raid 0 and at the same time those disks in Raid 1.
Of course, in this case you need to have at least 4 disks, when with Raid 5 the minimum is 3, this is why Raid 5 is more used.
As a personal and work experience, the danger of a raid 5 is if you have very large disks, the reconstruction in case of a disk failure is very long and slow with the possible problem that during that process another disk fails and you lose all the information. Then there's the problem of the controller, that if it fails I'm not sure if in all cases it's easy to restart a raid 5 (the same would happen with a raid 0 where the controller fails).
Perhaps this point may be wrong and much progress has been made on this topic, but I remember a few years ago that it used to be a serious problem.

As I'm very simple in the end I see a Raid 1 as safer and easier, at worst you can use one of the mirror disks and access its data from any other computer without even having a Raid controller (I'm talking from what I've seen, but I appreciate any other point of view). It's clear that everything depends on the size of the data we handle since if you need to buy very large disks they can cost an arm and a leg and it's cheaper to get 3 for a Raid 5 of less capacity but that when added up make the TB you need.

Anyway, I hope to have contributed something interesting, goodbye!!

[cobito]

@_Neptunno_ yo ahora mismo al reves; me apetece perder un poco de tiempo con estas cosas. Es algo que nunca he tocado y siempre le he tenido curiosidad. Hace años (antes de los SSD) me picó el gusanillo por ganar velocidad y ahora me ha vuelto el interés porque la colección de discos duros que tengo es engorrosa, poco eficiente con el espacio, poco fiable y hasta cierto punto, caótica.

Bueno, sigamos con el lío.

La posibilidad de comprimir datos de ZFS con FreeNAS junto al uso de la RAM como caché ha hecho que esta opción despierte mi interés. Lo de la RAM como caché me resulta interesante más como una forma de reducir la actividad de los discos duros y aumentar su vida útil que como un medio de aumentar el rendimiento. El rendimiento no es importante para mi más allá de tener tasas de unas pocas decenas de MB/s que me permitan hacer streaming de video.

Freenas

Voy a repetir el mismo ejercicio que he hecho con OMV (con algunos añadidos).

Montando RAID-z (equivalente a RAID5)

Las unidades RAID en FreeNAS se llaman "pools". Parece ser que la creación de un "pool" consume unos 4GB de disco. De esa forma, si uso 3 discos de 8GB, tengo como resultado una unidad de 12GB. Para confirmar esto, he puesto 3 discos de 4GB obteniendo una unidad resultante de 4GB.

Dejemos de momento los 3 discos de 8GB para hacer el RAID-z.

Las opciones "ADD DATA/CACHE/LOG/SPARE" no sé para qué son y la verdad es que no me motiva demasiado averiguar para qué están ahí. El proceso de creación es bastante rápido:

La unidad parece que se monta en /mnt:

Compresión

Antes de hacerle perrerías, quiero probar una de las características que podría hacer decidirme: la compresión.

Primero voy a copiar un video susceptible de alcanzar un alto grado de compresión (es un archivo mp4 con bitrate constante y pocos cambios en la imagen) usando lz4 (la opción que viene por defecto y que, según he leído, tiene la mejor relación ratio de compresión/consumo de CPU).

El archivo mp4 ocupa 3.5GB:

El resultado es bastante espectacular (ocupa menos de la mitad) y durante la copia, el consumo de CPU más allá del demonio sshd, ha sido muy reducido.

Después de borrar el video, ahora voy a copiar la base de datos del foro (Redis) que tiene un tamaño de 1.4GB:

Aquí el ahorro es menor (un 25% aproximadamente).

Borro todo y copio 1GB de fotos JPG:

Apenas un 10% y aquí el uso de CPU sí ha sido bastante elevando.

Borro todo y copio el episodio de una serie en H.264 que ocupa 2.7GB:

Este también ha sido un proceso intenso en consumo de CPU. El ahorro es de solo un 3%.

Si se copia una imagen ISO de una distribución Linux, el ratio vuelve a ser del 3%.

Para terminar, se lo voy a poner fácil. Voy a copiar 1.5GB de logs Apache de una de las webs:

Pues nada, el archivo de 1.5GB pasa a ocupar 140MB.

Para ponerlo en perspectiva, suponiendo el peor caso posible (el vídeo con un ratio del 3%), en un sistema de archivos de 8TB, supondría un ahorro de unos 240GB. Si se ponen como ejemplo la fotos JPG, el ahorro sería de cerca de 800GB.

En mi caso, tengo claro que merece la pena la compresión, sin ningún tipo de duda. Además existen otras medidas de ahorro como la "deduplicación" que hace que varias copias de un mismo archivo ocupen solo como uno de ellos. Esto es algo que no voy a usar y no lo voy a probar, pero el concepto es sencillo.

Peta un disco duro

Al quitar un disco duro sale esto:

Cuando se añade un disco en blanco, hay que hacer clic en el icono de configuración del "pool" luego en "Status":

Ahí seleccionamos "Replace" en el disco que ha desaparecido:

Finalmente, seleccionamos la unidad en blanco que se ha introducido:

El proceso tardará un rato:

Al final es la misma historia que con OMV.

Ampliación de capacidad añadiendo un nuevo disco

Al intentar expandir el "pool", no he podido (me da un error diciendo que no hay suficientes discos). Según la documentación, no es posible añadir un solo disco en un RAID-z sino que solo se pueden añadir el mismo número de discos que había inicialmente, en este caso, 3 discos. Con eso, se conseguiría algo similar a un RAID5+0, que no es lo que yo estoy buscando, porque ese caso implica tener dos discos de paridad en vez de uno solo.

Es decir, que solo se puede hacer un RAID-z equivalente a un RAID5 en la creación del "pool" pero luego ya te quedan anclado con eso.

Esto la verdad es que es una gran decepción.

Ampliación de capacidad intercambiando un disco de 8GB por uno de 12GB.

El proceso va a ser el mismo que hice con OMV: reemplazar un disco y regenerar RAID, reemplazar el siguiente, etc.

Cuando finaliza el proceso, no encuentro ninguna opción para expandir el sistema de archivos. Leyendo por ahí, dicen que debería ser un proceso automático en el momento en el que todos los discos sean del mismo tamaño, pero después de reiniciar el sistema, sigo teniendo 14GB disponibles.

Así que no sé qué hacer para que vea la nueva capacidad (unos 20GB).

Conclusiones

Ventajas de OMV: Sencillo, estándar, estable, más posibilidades de ampliación, basado en Debian.
Desventajas OMV: Simple/obsoleto (no tiene compresión ni caché).

Ventajas de FreeNAS: incluye últimos avances (compresión, cifrado, protocolos de comunicaciones).
Desventajas FreeNAS: no-estándar*, menos estable, menos posibilidades de ampliación, basado en FreeBSD**.

*Según he leído, FreeNAS activa características de ZFS que no están marcadas como estables. Eso tiene dos consecuencias negativas de peso: una es que la mayoría de distros no son capaces de leer las particiones ZFS creadas en FreeNAS (en caso de fallo, esto es crítico) y la otra es que se están usando características no tan probadas.

**Esto es una opinión personal. Por ejemplo, no sé cómo se lleva el soporte de hardware en FreeBSD (si en el futuro decido poner un Zen8, ¿va a detectar correctamente todo mi hardware? ¿va a usar las técnicas de ahorro de energía? etc, etc, etc). No me hace gracia tener mis datos en manos de un sistema que no conozco. Todo esto tiene además una serie de ramificaciones que no me gustan: ¿qué ocurre si el soporte de FreeNAS desaparece? ¿Qué ocurre si por la razón que sea, no puedo usar FreeNAS para recuperar mis datos? ¿Y si tengo que echar mano de la consola? Ni si quiera sé instalar paquetes en caso de que necesite herramientas que no vienen por defecto.

Si os digo la verdad, desde que he descubierto que no puedo ampliar el "pool" añadiendo discos (que es la forma más económica y sencilla), se me ha caído el mito. Si fuera a montar un RAID con 16 discos con vistas a que me duren 20 años, es probable que eligiera FreeNAS. Pero quiero empezar con algo básico (3 discos) e ir ampliando conforme lo vaya necesitando. Y para eso, FreeNAS me parece una mala opción.

En la próxima entrega, hablaré de la configuración de hardware. De momento, encontrar una caja que me guste está siendo complicado.

[cobito]

In this response, I will be posting the hardware I am choosing.

Case

Store link

To be honest, there's not much to choose from. I think I've seen a total of 3 different models with 4 caddies for 3.5" drives.

Controller

Store link

If I end up choosing the flash memory, I'll remove it. It's 40€ that will only be used to connect the system drive.

Power Supply

Store link

Well, there's not much to choose from in Flex ATX either. I think it's a decent power supply.

Motherboard

Store link

I just realized it's microATX and I think the case is miniITX, so it doesn't fit.

Processor

Store link

A Ryzen 3 3200G that, thanks to @Namiga, we know how it performs.

Memory

Store link

2x8GB. It should be more than enough for this capacity and future expansions.

Hard Drives

Store link

Tomorrow I'll replace them with the RED. In total, there are 3x4TB.

UPS

Store link

Something basic but with plenty of power. According to a quick calculation, the NAS shouldn't reach 100W at full load.

[Mystique]

And this? Are you preparing something?

To start, a 4-sata card in a box with 4... you don't need more, what's the point of that controller? With PCI 1x it's useless
Do you want it for a cache disk? Use the M.2

About the disks, RED for NAS and PURPLE for video surveillance. And don't worry about the RED SMR as long as you buy the EFRX which are not SMR (the SMR ones are the EFAX)

And put 4 equal disks, don't leave it halfway with 3

RAM: depending on the distro, calculate 1 GB for every TB of storage you put in. With 4TB disks you should be fine with 16 GB (2x8) and if you need more in the future, you still have two free slots on the card

Processor, if you only want to store, you have enough. If you're going to use Plex and transcoding, take advantage now and put something more powerful

[cobito]

@Mystique Oops, I didn't know you could read this.

The list comes in the wake of this. I had been thinking of making an inquiry this week.

The SATA controller is for the system drive, which will be a 2.5" internal hard drive. The 4 Sata on the board go to the box caddys and the reason for using 3 drives instead of 4 is that at the moment with 8TB (RAID 5) I am more than satisfied, but I want to have the possibility of hot expansion in the future.

About the Red and Purple drives, as much as I have read around I don't see anything other than the obvious that one is for video surveillance and the other for NAS. It was one of the questions I had pending.

The gadget is intended exclusively for storage with OpenMediaVault.

[Mystique]

I see everything...

OMV doesn't boot from USB? Most people do it and once it loads into RAM it's not accessible...

[_Neptunno_]

@cobito is that I once found myself in the same situation as you, I felt like wasting time researching and testing on virtual machines, to get a feel for this little world. I was also lucky enough to see some things at work, where the base is in Xigmanas and I started to get small ideas of how everything works.
But after a lot of testing, researching and realizing that I needed to learn more things to have my data under control...I ended up with OMV because of its simplicity and because when the raid degraded it was easier for me to repair the problem. My biggest concern is having control over my data, which unfortunately Windows gives me.

And although I have OMV working, I have practically touched it very little and it frustrates me because if I have to do some rescue I will have to spend some time...although for example with Xigmanas or FreeNas I would probably have an even worse time.
By the way, if you want to do some testing with Xigmanas...it might be an option that interests you, I don't know.

By the way, great tests and the information you provide. A thousand thanks for the hard work, really

Take care!

P.D: I am now doing a course on Windows server 2016/2019 but I will see if I finish it and install a machine with Linux to have more knowledge and be able to consider this option for storing data and being able to recover it in case of a possible failure.
I bought an OEM license of 2012 R2 and with a low-power Xeon 1150 I have my small server set up...but in the future it would be great to be able to use a Linux server or to delve deeper into Nas based on Linux distro.

[_Neptunno_]

@Mystique said in nas hardware:

I see it all...

OMV doesn't boot from usb? Most people do and once it loads into RAM it's not accessible...

In my case I have it with a 16GB 2.0 USB (in my case I don't know why but the 3.0 ones wouldn't read for booting, even though it's a 775 board).
The only thing that worries me a bit is the degradation of the flash memory, with what I've read it's a good idea to make a backup of the configuration and when that memory fails you put another one... the only thing is that the restoration thing seemed to cause problems and I directly made an ISO, so I avoided any hassle.
@cobito initially thought about putting a disk but in the long run it seemed like too much space (even if it's 2.5 a usb memory is smaller) and a lot of wasted size.
However if your intention is to do some scraping on that disk of configurations and such, go ahead

[_Neptunno_]

@cobito said in nas hardware:

About the Red and Purple drives, despite all I've read around, I don't see anything beyond the obvious that one is for video surveillance and the other for NAS. That was one of the questions I had pending.

The "Purples" are for surveillance systems since they are constantly writing and their characteristics are to offer good performance for this type of task. I don't know more characteristics, but I bet they will have worse performance for reading information since their mission is to write at full capacity.
The "Reds" are intended for storage because, among other things, they have anti-vibration systems that help improve their durability (small vibrations that the drives emit and, when they are together, can end up damaging the drive), which is why they are used for NAS and some servers.

I also didn't know certain characteristics of drives, but in the long run you realize small details that, after years or a few months, could cause problems in the long run.

[cobito]

Since the cake has been discovered, I'll tie the thread here.

@Mystique the truth is that I hadn't thought of the USB memory. I have around here a few 2.5" hard drives of 120 and 160GB and I had planned to use one of them.

@_Neptunno_ This week I'll have time, so I'll probably start playing with Xigmanas. The truth is that I didn't know it. At first glance (reading over on their website) it seems that it's cooked in the same pot as FreeNAS.

On the subject of Linux vs Windows, in the end they are two different operating systems. The practical reasons why I like Linux is for its modularity but it's clear that the homogeneity of Windows ends up being more comfortable. In the end I have who knows how many text files with procedures to do things: update the forum platform, Peertube, crontab, SSL certificate management, etc... because they are things that I touch from figs to brevas and I forget. On the one hand it's a pain but on the other hand you have absolute freedom to do whatever you want. In addition, the documentation and support in known distros (Debian in my case) is immense.

Continuing with the USB topic, if @Mystique is right that it loads into a ramdisk, in principle there wouldn't be as much problem of degradation. It would save me 40€ from the controller. It's something I'll think about.

Regarding the types of disks, it's a bit clearer to me. In price the difference is minimal so if the Reds have the vibration issue, I'll go for them.

[Mystique]

@_Neptunno_ said in NAS doubts:

In my case I have it with a 16GB 2.0 USB (in my case I don't know why but the 3.0 ones didn't read them to boot, although it's on a board for 775).

I also had the same problem with freenas when I started, that the usb 3 gave more problems than the 2

@cobito most distributions for NAS boot from usb and it's not touched again. Using a disk is completely wasting it (and useless in my opinion)
For that, use it as cache, that you might use it more. I put a 250 GB SSD for the movie volume (4x6TB) although I ended up removing it

As I said, I started with freenas and as I couldn't get what I wanted, I moved to xpenology. Much easier to set up and use. And as I said, in my case the usb is a bootloader that loads the system initially and then it's not used. The system and applications are on the first volume that is created at the beginning

[_Neptunno_]

@Mystique said in Dudas sobre NAS:

xpenology

In case @cobito wants some information about Xpenology (the operating system that uses Synology Nas):

[cobito]

Xigmanas

At the suggestion of @_Neptunno_, I've taken a look at XigmaNAS. The essence is quite similar to FreeNAS but with additional options. Of all the interfaces I've seen so far, this is the least user-friendly.

Please note that in these tests I am omitting most of the features, such as the repertoire of communication protocols.

Since ZFS is not capable of adding new disks to a "pool", I will focus on RAID functions.

Preparing the system

Once installed, you have to manually add the disks:

Just like FreeNAS (something I haven't commented on in its mini-analysis) and unlike OMV, it is possible to choose the power consumption policy of each drive.

Once added, you have to format them in "Software RAID" format (otherwise, you can't create the RAID), which I find a bit disconcerting, to be honest:

Once formatted, you can now create the RAID:

XigmaNAS has the novelty so far of the possibility of creating a "JBOD" drive (acronym for "simply, a handful of disks"). It is not a RAID but what it does is to unite the capacities of different disks (which can have different sizes) and store data contiguously. If one of the disks breaks, you lose the data that was on that disk but not the data on the rest. It may be interesting for storing things without much value, but having a semi-serious NAS with this, I don't think it's a good idea.

As you can see, there is no option to create a RAID 5 and I can't find information about it out there, so if I haven't missed something, this distro is not for me. Having ZFS, it is possible that the higher levels are reserved for this file system.

Xpenology

Reading these instructions, I think I'm going to skip this option directly. In the "Known compatible motherboards" section, only 4 models appear and for one of them, WOL doesn't even work. I imagine it will be compatible with more boards and, in the end, being able to detect the hard drives and the network card is enough. But I don't want to deal with systems that don't detect all my hardware and don't use all the energy-saving capabilities.

Moreover, they ask for an email to download it and on top of that, it has to be valid because they send the link to that address.

Now that, seeing the images, the interface looks impeccable.

Anyway, I think I'm going to go for OMV for the reasons I've already mentioned: it allows RAID 5 (which lets me do the type of expansions I'm looking for) and is based on Debian. For now, I don't need more than that and the rest of the options I've tried fail in one thing or another that I consider essential.

In the coming days, I'll talk a bit about the hardware. I already put a list of components, but the case is mini-ITX and the board I put is microATX. Seeing the few miniITX options for the B450, I'm reconsidering, either the case or the platform because by changing a couple of things, there could be a significant economic saving.

[_Neptunno_]

@cobito the ZFS system seems to be a strong point in these systems and quite robust, but in the end you go through what happened to me, maybe I'm a bit "square" but I like to be able to have clear what I do and more when I put my data on that Nas/Server.
Taking advantage of my work situation I am doing an online course of Windows Server 2016/2019, precisely yesterday I was with the section of storage and configurations. I realize that FreeNas and XigmaNas operate in a similar way to the storage pool (Storage Groups), so it doesn't seem to me a much more robust way than I thought.
In Win Server 2012-2016-2019 you can group a set of disks and within that group you can generate a simple type (Raid 0), Mirror (Raid 1) or Parity (Raid5), you can even generate three types at once... or two types, according to your need.
And subsequently you add hard drives to that group or groups and expand the capacity.

Maybe with FreeNas it works that way, but it seems to me something more simple and effective in Windows Server.

Well, I'm glad you made your decision with OMV. It's always good to consult you when it hits me hard

About Xpenology, it's true it has a brutal look (it's noticeable it's oriented for NAS) but now that you mention it I remember that I found it a bit complicated and decided not to try it.
It's more this system I think would be the best of all... or I have that feeling.

Regards!!

[Mystique]

@cobito said in Questions about NAS:

Xpenology

Reading these instructions, I think I will skip this option. In the "Known compatible motherboards" section, only 4 models appear and for one of them, WOL does not even work. I imagine it will be compatible with more boards and, in the end, being able to detect the hard drives and the network card is enough. But I don't want to mess around with systems that don't detect all my hardware and don't use all the energy-saving capabilities.

In addition, they asked for an email to download it and on top of that, it has to be valid because they send the link to that address.

My board works perfectly and I don't look at whether there was a list of compatible boards. And I'm going in reckless mode with AMD!!!
It's easier to set up than it looks. The only thing that's a bit complicated is preparing the USB to boot, the rest is "windows" mode with everything (yes, yes, next, finish)

About the email, don't you know the free email services that last 5 minutes to receive that link? (emailondeck.com for example)

[cobito]

@Mystique Yes, I know them but I'm lazy. Besides, why can't they leave a direct link? That style puts me off (I'm talking about "philosophical" issues rather than practical or technical ones). In FreeNAS they do the same but at least you can put a fake email.

The problem with using an operating system that doesn't have support for the chipset, processor and/or iGPU is that you're left with things like pstates or graphics modes (even if it's in text mode) without being properly managed. That's more temperature in all components and sometimes even stability problems. And that's not counting the performance hit that this entails. It's most likely that everything will work correctly, but I prefer to avoid it.

@_Neptunno_ ZFS seems to me a great advance with respect to standard RAID and I understand that there are distros completely focused on it. For me, the perfect system would be a FreeNAS based on Debian with a ZFS that allowed expanding "pools" with new disks. But for now, ZFS only seems to me the best option when you set up something where you're not going to put new disks.

[cobito]

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Hardware

Hace unos días puse un post con los componentes, pero fue un poco precipitado. Aquí voy a exponer las distintas opciones para ver qué opináis, porque aquí sí que voy un poco a ciegas.

1. Hardware común a todas las opciones

A continuación mostraré varias opciones con distintos formatos (mini-ITX ó ATX) y distintas plataformas. Todas ellas tendrán este hardware en común:

1.1. Discos duros (WD NAS Red de 4TB)

Serán 3 discos de 4TB. La razón de elegir este tamaño es que en estos momentos es el que tiene el precio más bajo por TB y porque el tamaño total, suple más que de sobra mis necesidades a corto plazo.

Por cierto @Mystique, comentaste que el código de fabricante tiene que terminar en EFRX supongo que por el tema del escándalo de los SMR. La cuestión es (dejando el rendimiento de lado), ¿sería un problema si todos los discos son SMR? ¿O el incremento de rendimiento es algo por lo que realmente merece la pena pillar los CMR? Lo digo porque parece que son un poco difíciles de encontrar en estos momentos. Todo esto lo empezaré a mover en septiembre, así que puede que para entonces no sea ya un problema. Es por saber, más que nada.

Página de producto: enlace
Detalles técnicos: PDF
Consumo al arranque: 3x 21W= 63W
Consumo en operación: 3x 4.5W= 13.5W
Precio: 3x130€= 390€.

1.2. Memoria (Crucial Ballistix UDIMM 3000 MHZ PC4 24000 CL15)

Son dos módulos DDR4 de 8GB CL15. Creo que esta cantidad es adecuada para este NAS teniendo en cuenta las futuras ampliaciones de disco duro.

Página del producto: enlace
Consumo: Sin información
Precio: 87€

1.3. SAI (Phoenix 850sps)

Todo lo que tengo que tener protegido, lo tengo ya. Para el NAS quiero algo independiente. Quiero que en su conjunto no dependa de terceros PCs y eso incluye la alimentación. He elegido algo básico porque el NAS no va a necesitar grandes potencias y menos una vez que los discos hayan arrancado.

Página del producto: enlace
Detalles técnicos: PDF
Potencia aparente: 850VA
Potencia activa: 480W
Precio: 60€

1.4. Pendrive para sistema (Sandisk 32GB Ultra Fit)

Es una memoria USB que físicamente apenas sobresale el conector USB.

Precio: 8€

2. Formato mini-ITX

2.1 Hardware común para todas las opciones mini-ITX

Además de los discos, RAM, SAI y memoria USB mencionados más arriba, el hardware común para este formato, es el siguiente:

2.1.1. Caja (Inter-Tech SC-4100)

He estado buscando cajas NAS con 4 bahías con conexión en caliente y creo que he encontrado dos o tres opciones. De ellas, la única que medio me ha gustado es esta. El problema es que es mini-ITX y el repertorio de placas es bastante limitado en este segmento.

Página del producto: enlace
Detalles técnicos: PDF
Precio: 84€

2.1.2. Fuente (Seasonic SSP-300SUB)

En esta opción, el consumo total máximo (con los discos arrancados) es de cerca de 300W. A mi personalmente, me parece una burrada para un NAS y más teniendo en cuenta que las fuentes Flex ATX más grandes que he encontrado rondan esa potencia.

Esta es una fuente Flex ATX de 300W con sello 80+ Bronze sin corrección de factor de potencia.

Precio: 47€

2.2. Opción mini-ITX #1 (Plataforma B450)

2.2.1. Placa base (Gigabyte B450 I AORUS Pro Wifi)

Al igual que con la caja, las opciones son muy limitadas. Sinceramente, me parece una placa excesiva para algo como un NAS, pero es que no hay nada más básico con este chipset en mini-ITX.

Página del producto: enlace
Consumo a plena carga: 210W (fuente)
Consumo en reposo: 46W.
Precio: 128€

2.2.2 Procesador (Ryzen 3 3200G)

No hay mucho que comentar. Son 4 núcleos Zen+ sin SMT.

Rendimiento: Resultado HLBM
TDP: 65W
Precio: 98€

Total de la opción#1: 902€

(452€ sin discos ni SAI por comparar con cajas NAS).

2.3 Opción mini-ITX #2 (Plataforma A320M)

Aquí se rebaja la categoría del procesador.

2.3.1. Placa base (ASRock A320M-ITX)

Es de lo muy poco que hay.

Página del producto: enlace
Consumo: Sin información
Precio: 92€

2.3.2. Procesador (Athlon 200GE)

Nos acercamos a lo más básico de AMD pero nos quedamos en Zen (aunque sean sólo dos núcleos).

TDP: 35W
Precio: 58€

Total de la opción#2: 826€

(376€ sin discos ni SAI por comparar con cajas NAS)

2.4. Opción mini-ITX #3 (Plataforma Goldmont Plus)

Nos vamos a la gama más básica de procesadores.

2.4.1. Placa + CPU (Asus Prime J4005I-C)

Una placa con CPU integrada que lleva refrigeración pasiva.
Página del producto: enlace
TDP procesador: 10W
TDP resto de placa: Sin información
Precio: 110€

Total de la opción#3: 786€

(336€ sin discos ni SAI por comparar con cajas NAS)

Las opciones mini-ITX tienen un coste más elevado que las ATX debido a que la caja, la fuente y las placas mini-ITX son más caras que sus homólogas ATX. Si nos olvidamos del volumen que ocupa y del caddy para los discos duros (dejándolos internos), estos son los precios para las plataformas anteriores:

3. Formato ATX

Además de los discos, RAM, SAI y memoria USB mencionados más arriba, el hardware común para este formato, es el siguiente:

3.1. Hardware común para todas las opciones ATX

3.1.1. Caja (Nox PAX)

Me da igual el modelo. Que tenga espacio para 4 discos internos de 3.5". Esta me vale.

Página del producto: enlace
Precio: 38€

3.1.2. Fuente (Coolbox Deeppower BR-650)

Es una fuente normal, con sello 80+ bronze (equivalente a la Flex ATX) pero con el doble de potencia.

Página del producto: enlace
Precio: 42€

3.2. Opción #1 ATX (Plataforma B450)

El procesadores el mismo que en la opción mini-ITX (Ryzen 3 3200G).

3.2.1. Placa base (Gigabyte AMD B450M DS3H)

Esta lleva 4 slots de memoria en vez de los 2 de la mini-ITX.

Página del producto: enlace
Precio: 76€

Total de la opción#1 ATX: 791€

(341€ sin discos ni SAI por comparar con cajas NAS)

3.3. Opción #2 ATX (Plataforma A320M)

Mismo procesador de la opción mini-ITX (Athlon 200GE).

3.3.1. Placa base (Asus Prime A320M-R)

Precio: 69€

Total de la opción#2 ATX: 744€

(294€ sin discos ni SAI por comparar con cajas NAS)

3.4. Opción #3 ATX (Plataforma Goldmont Plus)

Misma placa + CPU de la opción mini-ITX (Asus Prime J4005I-C).

Total de la opción#3 ATX: 727€

(277€ sin discos ni SAI por comparar con cajas NAS)

En resumen

Opción	CPU	Precio mini-ITX	Precio ATX
#1	Ryzen 3 3200G	902€	791€
#2	Athlon 200GE	826€	744€
#3	Celeron J4005	786€	727€

El rango de precios va de los 727€ a los 902€ (175€ de diferencia que darían para un disco de 4TB adicional y una cena para dos).

Personalmente, la opción que más me gusta es la #3 mini-ITX (786€) por el consumo y porque estoy casi seguro de que la placa va a entrar en la caja. Aquí lo que no tengo tan claro es que ese Celeron J4005 vaya a ser capaz de ofrecer toda la velocidad. Según he visto por ahí, las CPUs de las cajas NAS no son especialmente rápidas. Veo que los fabricantes alardean de meter procesadores Cortex-A15 con dos núcleos a 1.7Ghz y estoy bastante seguro de que ese Celeron rinde mejor que esos ARM.

El problema de las opciones #1 y #2 mini-ITX (placas AM4) es que me da miendo que el disipador choque con algo (no he encontrado información al respecto). Eso sin contar el consumo mostruoso de la plataforma B450 y lo justa que queda la fuente.

Y de las opciones ATX, los ahorros van de los 60 a los 110€ con respecto a la mini-ITX. No sé hasta qué punto merece la pena ese ahorro a cambio de tener tamaño armatoste para un simple NAS.

Por recordar, la velocidad bruta, no es una prioridad para mi (más allá de poder mover datos a unas pocas decenas de MB/s). El cacharro se va a usar exclusivamente como NAS.

¡Gracias!