Project - File Server

[sp00nhead]

YoYoyo

Coz i'm a dirty pirate collector of media my poor old file server and its 2 x1Tb external usb drives are all full, i decided it was time to build a new NAS/home server/big box'o'hard drives

While stroking my beard as to what kit to use, i saw an offer of the day on BOFFER(which is bigpockets.co.uk) for a ATOM based debadged dell pc. - http://www.bigpockets.co.uk/product.php?product=BAREBONE-001&title=Debadged+Dell+A100-L6+Barebones+PC+-+1.6Ghz+Atom+CPU+-+Motherboard+-+180w+PSU



Its a Product Name: Debadged Dell A100-L6 Barebones PC - 1.6Ghz Atom CPU - Motherboard - 180w PSU

Just the right Spec for my NAS i thought, whipping out the credit card.
After reading about it (after buying, i has skillz) It only has 2Sata ports, only 10/100 network (not gigabit) and only 1 PCi slot.

but it was only £50 so i thought it'd do. main use will be downloading stuff and then feeding my TV box and maybe some squeeze boxes with music, so network speed should be fine

[sp00nhead]

So after waiting a few day i get the PC





Now while i was waiting i was looking up what OS to use.
As i'm a linux ninja Ubuntu Was my first choice as i know the system and how to set it all up.

But i'm also lazy
and i'd need to edit loads of settings and muck about to get the base OS into the uber NAS of doom i wanted.

so it was down to either FreeNAS (which i was keen to try) or UnRAID, free for 3 disks or $60 for upto 6disks
There was also Openfiler which was tempting but needed a more powerful system as its more enterpise then home based.

So Freenas it is

[sp00nhead]

FreeNas

FreeNAS is a FreeBSD based distro build just for running lots of hard drive on a network. One of its cool features is it supports the mega ace filesystem - ZFS.
ZFS is a very powerful system SUN developed for its Open Solaris OS and it has tonnes of feature, which i cant be arsed typing, google it! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS)
The main thing i was interested the software raiding and storage pooling . Its better then the raid you get on your motherboards and the cheap raid cards.
Also there a good community and forum/irc so i'd have lots of help if i had any issues
FreeNas will run off a USB stick, which will leave all the connectors free for storage drives!

So a quick check of what i can do with

• Fault-torrent storage
• Monitoring and backup of data with email alerts
• Share folders over the network
• Run a bit-torrent client with RSS to get my TV shows
• Easy to manage web interface
  
  sounds good to me

[sp00nhead]

Now you might have been looking at this, and think SP00N, its only got 2 sata ports, surly your not goign to use USB for all your drives!!!

i did think about it, but not for long. I'll be using USB for backup and non-raided archiving of random stuff i don't want to delete

As the only option i have is a PCI SATA card, off to ebay i went and just grabbed teh first straight 4 port sata card i found. £12 from Hong Kong, can't complain, even came with 2 sata cables (why not 4 ??)

A few days later here it is, well wrapped up

LOL


So we're getting there.
Next up is the drives.
Currently i have 1Tb online and another few Tb as offline backup (stored in a old shoebox with antistatic bags)
As i'm out of space, I need at least to start with 3Tb. so i could do 3x1.5Tb or 4x1Tb (you loose one drive to teh raid magic)


As i was looking, i got my daily email from HotUkDeals. Scan had 2TB drive for £85. free delivery if you sign up with AVforums = Win.
2Tb samsung drives... hum samsung is not my first choice for HDD, but in teh last few years they have really improved and in most tests are in 2nd or 3rd place, not last like afew years ago.
They are also Eco drives which is important as this box will be on 24x7. no need to be fast or quick, just low power


so i went for 3x 2TB SSUNG F3EG HD203WI SATA2. This will give me 4Tb for sexy storage, with 3 ports left to add the same again when i run low ,by which time 5tb drives will be out

While on scans site picked up 2 120mm fans, some extra sata power cables as my PSU only has 2.

[sp00nhead]

So came home tonight and City Link had managed not to screw the delivery up!!!

Its A Box!!

Well packed in soft poppy stuff

3x 2Tb Samsung drives, 2x 120mm fans, a y splitter for the fan cables and a 3way sata power cable

2000Gb... Muhahahaaaa (times 3 )


For a cheap fan it looks the part, even has a hologram in the middle, came with screws and power adapter cable (which i need)

Right well its all piled up on the bed for now.
I ballsed up as only can fit one 120mm fan at the front, the rear hole is only 96mm... so need to make a new hole

Also grabbed an old 512mb USB stick to use as my boot drive and a stick of 512Mb DDR2 ram out of my bits box.

Its too nice outside so BBQ time. But more to follow soon

[R0adki11]

Looks awesome so far, remind me i need to build myself some kind of file server at some point all these portable hard drives are ok, but not a secure long term solution.

Hope to see some new pictures soon

[sp00nhead]

Well as the massive feet ball fan i am, i decided to use the time to put this together.

Not much to say really. Popped the front off so i could screw one of the fans in to blow some air over the drives.


Plugged the first drive in and just did a quick boot to check that both teh BIOS and the sata card could see it. Woop, 1907730MB detected.


Added teh other 2 drives and wired up



All done.
Now to boot up and config

[sp00nhead]

I'll not go into depth on the config, theres loads of better guides on the net.

booted up, got teh ip address via plugging in a screen to teh box, once booted it has a console with the IP address and some options to reset the password and manage teh network settings.

Loggign into teh bx via a web browser i jumped over to the disk settings and started to follow teh raidz1 guide.
added my 3 drives, named teh set and left it for 5 mins while it did teh magic.

and in teh end i have....
Name Size Used Free Capacity Health AltRoot
storage1 5.46T 104K 3.58T 0% ONLINE -

3.58Tb of protected raided storage to fill....

not quite as much as i had hoped, but its a good starting point. i can see me adding 3 more 2tb drives before teh end of teh year.

still todo,
copy my existing data over, will take ages
setup network share
look at all the power saving option, spinning drives down etc


I'm sure theres loads more i'll be tweaking to this in teh next few weeks., i'll keep you all posted

[sp00nhead]

Quick update.

Need more RAM. machine panicked when i stared to stream video over the network. Reading the ZFS documents seems more ram is better for performance, so i'll pop a 2Gb stick in and then see how it goes

Also teh PSU is abit loud, so while i have to box open i'll see about opening teh PSU and removing teh fan, then adding the 2nd 120mm fan somehow to help cool it

[Warning]

water cool make a custom block and pipe work xD