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**UtwigMU** · 20 March 2013, 07:54

I'm very busy (12h work days, dual shifts) so I didn't read everything carefully.

Just now i'm finishing migration from linux PC router + linux PC samba + mail server to mikrotik router wiht pptp VPN + Synology NAS imap mail server, www mail server, ftp server, samba server.

Samba I just rsynced shares over and chowned and chmoded them

With mail since there are only 2 users they uploaded mail to their new imap accounts.

It's pretty smooth as both things use Linux so it's very easy. Synology NAS I like since the few I have around customers are very stable though if you really want to start running scripts and configure stuff in text files (you can do everything easy in web management which is very good), you have to keep note since I don't think upgrade will keep custom settings.

NAS is very nice but I wouldn't put business mail server on one, though I just did it. permissions and ownership of files are generally root root and 777 or 755

With Synology you can create hybrid RAID and expand RAID level and volumes.

http://forum.synology.com/wiki/index.php/How_to_expand_the_RAID_Volume_with_additional_disks

You can buy used NAS probably for 50 euros and a mikrotik router. Then you can start with 1TB drives and expand. Once you need more space buy bigger NAS with 5 drive bays and rsync.

I wouldn't go with disk on router since:
- USB disks are not as stable as in NAS or server
- Mikrotik router is very basic, I need to check whether it supports samba at all
- router you restart from time to time
- it would be hard to install packages
- it sits facing internet so it's more security risk to keep data there

Mikrotik supports samba. I'm running RC 6.11 instead of 5.23 - has fancy touch LCD features

VJ · 20 March 2013, 09:31

Originally posted by UtwigMU View Post

Just now i'm finishing migration from linux PC router + linux PC samba + mail server to mikrotik router wiht pptp VPN + Synology NAS imap mail server, www mail server, ftp server, samba server.

Interesting, I also considered the PC router/server option, but think it might be too much hassle and the more expensive solution. Seeing that you moved away from it, seems like a confirmation of this.

Originally posted by UtwigMU View Post

You can buy used NAS probably for 50 euros and a mikrotik router. Then you can start with 1TB drives and expand. Once you need more space buy bigger NAS with 5 drive bays and rsync.

Well, I'm not too keen on buying second hand gear... So the NAS gets more expensive, especially multi-bay NAS. A single disk NAS seemed a bit weird (pointless?), but reading your other comments it may not be.

Originally posted by UtwigMU View Post

I wouldn't go with disk on router since:
- USB disks are not as stable as in NAS or server
- Mikrotik router is very basic, I need to check whether it supports samba at all
- router you restart from time to time
- it would be hard to install packages
- it sits facing internet so it's more security risk to keep data there

Netgear and WD have routers with room for a harddisk, so that might be slightly better than a USB connected disk. Not sure I'm that tempted to install packages, but yes... if the NAS needs to support more standards or so, this might be important.
Theoretically, I would guess that the harddisk on/in the router is on the LAN side rather than the internet side, but you do have a point that it may be less secure...

So I could consider my plan as initially, but rather than looking for a router with good NAS support, I could just get a non-raid5 NAS. And this now just made me wonder if a network media player (dune, tivx, popcorn hour, ... - although they are not gigabit...) with a drive buy might not be a good candidate for the NAS I need. It could be hooked up to the TV in the bedroom, which is already one client (I was not planning on buying a new TV yet, so no smart TV at this point).

(I love being able to think out loud here and get interesting feedback)

**dZeus** · 20 March 2013, 10:45

first of all: with the house renovation, was cabling with e.g. Cat5e and installation of rack space for stuff like a switch, NAS, router, etc. part of it?

I wouldn't suggest a router with NAS, as you'll be very limited with the NAS features.

For the router, it all depends on the speed of you internet connection and what kind of WiFi speeds you want to get. For ADSL internet and 802.11g WLAN speeds (~22 Mbps net throughput), there's no reason not to go for a cheap second hand WRT54G* and put OpenWRT Backfire on it for customization. For faster speeds and 802.11n (dual band), the Netgear WNDR3800, WNDR3700v1 or v2 are highly recommended. Note that if you use your router for the internal switch capability too, then of course it matters whether it offers gigabit speeds.

NAS wise... all depends on what you want. You can run an external drive bay through eSATA if you want to expand a single-drive NAS, although it needs SATA port multiplier support. I'm going this route with my QNAP TS-119 + a Lian Li EX-50 5-bay eSATA enclosure.
Personally I'd be wary to buy any NAS that doesn't allow you to run an alternate OS; For example, on my QNAP TS-119 I'm running Debian Wheezy which offers an incredible amount of packages that can be installed. If you rely on the build-in OS functionality, you'll be limited to what features are offered. Also, with custom OS support, FreeNAS or Openmediavault are nice options if you want to have software particularly tailored for NAS usage. Openmediavault has a web gui that doesn't require you to have much knowledge on Linux, Debian, protocols, etc. to get things to work.

**Jammrock** · 20 March 2013, 12:42

Wireless router wise I would go with ASUS. I've had great luck with mine, and they all get pretty stellar reviews these days. I can push file transfers up to 111MB/s through the Gb switch and wireless performance is always top of the pack.

For the NAS/Server part, an HP ProLiant Microserver is a nice box. Has an internal USB 2.0 port for a USB flash drive, low power processor, 4 x 3.5" drive bays (not hot swappale unfortunately), and low-profile 5.25" drive bay. It's not super speedy, but it's enough that I can live transcode 720p video to play on my satellite receiver. You can also use the 5.25" bay for a fifth drive with a molex to SATA power adapter.

Load Hyper-V Server or ESXi on a USB drive and boot from there. Put your virtual machines on the fifth drive (a SATA II SSD would work wonders), FreeNAS, home server, whatever... and use the 4 main drives for your storage pool.

Or run FreeNAS off the USB drive and use all 4-5 drives as your storage pool. Or any other USB bootable operating system.

If you ever need to expand there are eSATA ports on the box, a PCIe x16 slot and a PCIe x1 slot (unless you go for the digital KVM management card, which takes up this slot), and plenty of USB. All 2.0 unfortunately, but you can add a USB 3.0 card if you're not a fan of eSATA and USB 2.0.

Best of all the box isn't that expensive. I got it on sale for $280 USD with a 2TB HDD. The newer model, 54l, is a little higher in price. I have the older 40l model and it works great. Running Windows Server 2012 Essentials on it with PlexApp for media sharing and it works like a champ.

Error

http://shopping1.hp.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/WW-USSMBPublicStore-Site/en_US/-/USD/ViewProductDetail-Start?ProductUUID=n7IQ7EN5vrIAAAE6jsBsy1QS&CatalogCategoryID=H20Q7EN5z88AAAEuEQIsTi_9

**UtwigMU** · 20 March 2013, 20:19

Another idea is to just replace power-hungry Xeon with Atom. Buy supermicro mini ITX board with Atom or or mATX and low voltage Xeon (if you need vmware, apps...) and just reuse existing case and drives.

429 Too Fast, you are temporarily banned

http://geizhals.de/?cat=mbson&xf=544_Supermicro#xf_top

The X9SBAA for example even has a freaking onboard Matrox G200 card so you can stay with spirit

VJ · 21 March 2013, 07:21

Originally posted by dZeus View Post

first of all: with the house renovation, was cabling with e.g. Cat5e and installation of rack space for stuff like a switch, NAS, router, etc. part of it?

Yes: Cat6 cabling even, all going to a patch panel in a location in the corridor. Telephone, power and even satellite cables all go to that location. There is a switch (found a nice offer on a Dlink gigabit switch last year). The location is 60cm deep, 30 cm high and 120cm wide, so ample room for router, NAS, or even small rack space

Originally posted by dZeus View Post

I wouldn't suggest a router with NAS, as you'll be very limited with the NAS features.

Ok, second same vote on that.

Originally posted by dZeus View Post

For the router, it all depends on the speed of you internet connection and what kind of WiFi speeds you want to get. For ADSL internet and 802.11g WLAN speeds (~22 Mbps net throughput), there's no reason not to go for a cheap second hand WRT54G* and put OpenWRT Backfire on it for customization. For faster speeds and 802.11n (dual band), the Netgear WNDR3800, WNDR3700v1 or v2 are highly recommended. Note that if you use your router for the internal switch capability too, then of course it matters whether it offers gigabit speeds.

I have a separate switch, and internet speeds are not super fast (2-6 Mbit). As I have full cabling everywhere, wifi would only be for things such as mobile phones and iPad (which is used for Skype though). Problem is that the building is an old, prestigious communist building, which means 40cm thick concrete/granite walls with multiple steel netting inside. So wifi signal decreases very fast, and I should not expect very high speeds. But I might still use my old router as an access point in the room where I need it most.

Originally posted by dZeus View Post

NAS wise... all depends on what you want. You can run an external drive bay through eSATA if you want to expand a single-drive NAS, although it needs SATA port multiplier support. I'm going this route with my QNAP TS-119 + a Lian Li EX-50 5-bay eSATA enclosure.
Personally I'd be wary to buy any NAS that doesn't allow you to run an alternate OS

Interesting! I hadn't considered alternate OS on a NAS (I thought they all were quite locked in).

Originally posted by Jammrock View Post

Wireless router wise I would go with ASUS. I've had great luck with mine, and they all get pretty stellar reviews these days. I can push file transfers up to 111MB/s through the Gb switch and wireless performance is always top of the pack.

Never considered Asus as a router... Thanks for the suggestions (I'll look into it).

Originally posted by Jammrock View Post

For the NAS/Server part, an HP ProLiant Microserver is a nice box. Has an internal USB 2.0 port for a USB flash drive, low power processor, 4 x 3.5" drive bays (not hot swappale unfortunately), and low-profile 5.25" drive bay. It's not super speedy, but it's enough that I can live transcode 720p video to play on my satellite receiver. You can also use the 5.25" bay for a fifth drive with a molex to SATA power adapter.

Nice suggestion, but it is computer... I was planning a computer but that would be a bit later still (read below)

Originally posted by UtwigMU View Post

Another idea is to just replace power-hungry Xeon with Atom. Buy supermicro mini ITX board with Atom or or mATX and low voltage Xeon (if you need vmware, apps...) and just reuse existing case and drives.

I use the current Xeon also for other things, so it is not just server. I have a simple Atom system, and while it probably is ok for server purposes, it at times feels behind the dual Xeon.
I had a nice built computer (Core i7), but it got severely damaged during shipment to Poland (UPS eventually paid up, but it left me without that computer, after which I just got the simple Atom). My plan is still to build a more powerful system at one point as a server, but I don't want to do it now (too many other expenses, no real necessity as I can manage). This is why I would put off getting a small computer or something more expensive until I know better what to get.
In the ideal server, I would for instance put satellite tuners, so that it acts as a full media server, including live/recorded tv ( http://dvblogic.com/en ). Interestingly, I just noticed that they have addons for different NAS (qnap, netgear, ...), so that is very interesting.

So it looks like for now router and separate nas (not raid5, but well chosen to support eSata, other OS and perhaps dvblogic) seems to be the simplest option that offers enough functionality...

**UtwigMU** · 21 March 2013, 09:33

My idea is to decouple server from workstation as it's too power hungry and you don't want to install/uninstall/change server much. Set it and forget it for 5 years. For example my server for 5 years was Sempron 1.6GHz on nForce 4 motherboard with 2GB and latter 3GB. Once the board died I just replaced it with HP 7400 desktop motherboard with core2 duo and 4GB (OS remained). I also replaced 300GB drive with two 2TB WD Greenpowers (backup and bare metal restore) in Windows RAID 1. The OS install is 3 years old.

Then it would be best to just put large drives in Atom and have that as server and replace Xeon with something like 1156 i3. You can also buy used i7 1366 + CPU + Mobo + RAM for about 300 EUR.

I have just server and 2 laptops though (one is an old mobile workstation).

With mikrotik RB 2011 you pay price of good home router + Gb switch and get corporate router with 5 Gb + 5 100Mb ports.

VJ · 21 March 2013, 10:24

Yes... Well, I'm not using it that much as a work station, and usually use virtual machines and virtual workspace solutions for different things in order to keep the main system clean (the computer is running Windows Server, as that OS really works the best on that platform). And as server: I don't really 24/7 uptime, but would like to have access to music, films, etc. Now, the server is in a different room, and switching it on when needed is even an option. But it is a bit overkill when just listening to music, hence putting a copy on a simple NAS is an option: server for safe storage, simple NAS for access.

I'm not a big fan of second hand equipment, so that is why I'm not considering that route. The current Atom I have is very limited (Zotac mini pc, got it for a ridiculous price) and mainly serves as media player platform. The computer UPS dropped was built for gaming/entertainment (I really wanted to game a bit more), so I want to rebuild it at one point. One option might be to rebuild it into a htpc/fileserver combination (a combination often seen, even though I wonder about the noise/heat issues of such a thing). Or my next build may just be a dedicated server. Or just a htpc/gaming system and turn the Atom into a file server (but it only has 1 eSata port, and I think it does not support eSata multipliers - nVidia ION platform; and a few USB2 ports).
Either way, building a new system might be next year or so, but I need the router much earlier than that (and this is independent of a computer) and I'd like easier access to my media.

**dZeus** · 21 March 2013, 14:14

keep in mind that for most purposes, a NAS won't need much horsepower or RAM if it runs a flavour of Linux.

Exceptions to this are:
- ZFS (which eats RAM for breakfast for features like de-duplication as I've been told)
- IPsec (quite a few platforms offer hardware acceleration for 3DES and AES though)
- video transcoding

My QNAP TS-119 has 512MB RAM, and I barely touch more than 150MB used by programs (the rest is for I/O cache). And I'm running
- kerberos server
- ldap server
- IMAP/SMTP server
- SMB server
- NFS server
- DLNA/uPNP MediaRenderer (for playing back music over the network to my stereo)
- DLNA/uPNP MediaServer (access to all my music and videos to DLNA compliant programs/devices)
- DNS server authoritative for my local domain
- webserver with PHP support
- MySQL database server
- iSCSI target (dedicated storage for virtual machines)
- NTP server (for the local domain)
- Radius server (for EAP-TLS authentication of WLAN and VPN clients)
- airplay (streaming audio from Apple apps/devices)
- avahi server (advertising support for airplay with Zeroconf)
- ftp server
- SSH server
- encrypted storage of personal documents

The major downside to running Linux is that you need to spend quite a bit of time to get stuff to work. But on the upside it often increases your understanding of how stuff works (as you need to troubleshoot all kinds of unexpected issues that might, no actually _will_ pop up).

Your Atom would probably be fine as a NAS, as it likely has a more powerful CPU than my current NAS which has no issue running the stuff I listed above.

**MultimediaMan** · 23 March 2013, 04:44

I still use SmoothWall Express for my parent's house... I've switched to PFSense for my home network (it's just doing routing/Firewall/NTP duties). Still running the SuperMicro Atoms (I've got four of the damn things now...).

MBD-X7SPA-HF-O 4GB and an Add-in Intel 1000PT Dual Port NIC (PFSense Router); IPTables/NAT/NTP

MBD-X7SPE-HF-D525-O for the Domain Controller

MBD-X7SPE-HF-D525-O running CentOS x64 for DHCP/DNS/NTP/Syslog/TFTP

MBD-X7SPE-HF-D525-O and an Add-in Intel 1000PT Dual Port NIC running FreeNAS for iSCSI

Total power draw is about 400 watts give or take the FreeNAS hard disks. With the exception of the FreeNAS machine, all are Solid State/Flash-based storage.

There are more machines, but they run off the FreeNAS: iSCSI-booted ESXi or Hyper-V Hosts. The rest are appliances (two DD-WRT APs, two Printers, two Managed Switches) or endpoint Workstations (Win7/8 or CentOS).

VJ · 23 March 2013, 05:14

Originally posted by dZeus View Post

keep in mind that for most purposes, a NAS won't need much horsepower or RAM if it runs a flavour of Linux.

Exceptions to this are:
- ZFS (which eats RAM for breakfast for features like de-duplication as I've been told)
- IPsec (quite a few platforms offer hardware acceleration for 3DES and AES though)
- video transcoding

In the ideal situation, I think I would need to have transcoding, to avoid having to store different formats and to avoid conversion before playback. But it is something I would consider for the next step. I want to set up my network first, even with the power hungry Xeon as fileserver and and see how it goes.
The transcoding might not be necessary if all clients can play back the format. So it may make more sense to have pc clients and a regular NAS than have a powerful NAS-server that does transcoding, and other clients. At the moment I'm still not sure what would be best. I'm basically looking at *just* two main video playback clients, and 2-3 audio playback clients (not including e.g. a workstation, but that is a PC that can playback anything anyway).

Having music duplicated as MP3 is not a big deal (one player I have does not support FLAC). One video client at the moment is the Atom, for the other one I was thinking of a smart TV (like Samsung or so). But I just learned we might get my girlfriend's old TV, in which case it will not be a smart TV and we might need a playback client (temporarily, this could be a laptop).

So initial setup would be:
- Xeon server
- Router
- Atom (video client)
- laptop (video client)
- network radios (audio clients)

Possible options:
1. Add regular NAS (no transcoding), rebuild the PC UPS dropped (would also allow gaming)
2. Build server NAS (transcoding), use simple media playback client (for video).

Reading my options, I'm beginning to prefer option 1 more and more: it allows me to build the PC like before, a silent HTPC with gaming capabilities (it was not so silent while gaming, but it was deadsilent for normal playback) - it also held the satellite tuner.

Then it still remains the question of a raid5 NAS or just a simple NAS that holds copies of the most commonly used files. But I could start off with a simple one, and always extend it with a raid5 esata box (if I select it properly).

Originally posted by dZeus View Post

Your Atom would probably be fine as a NAS, as it likely has a more powerful CPU than my current NAS which has no issue running the stuff I listed above.

The problem is not in the CPU, but in the device: it is a Zotac mini pc, meaning there are no expansion slots (well, there is an internal mini PCIe if you break open the box, although that one is probably currently used by wifi), one single eSata (that has no multiplier support) and some USB2 connectors. So they are the bottlenecks for the NAS. I would guess such a Lian-Li EX-50 hardware type eSata raid box should not be a problem though?

Originally posted by MultimediaMan View Post

I still use SmoothWall Express for my parent's house... I've switched to PFSense for my home network (it's just doing routing/Firewall/NTP duties). Still running the SuperMicro Atoms (I've got four of the damn things now...).

That is one route is was also considering: I've already come across interesting cases that hold e.g. 2 mITX boards and have hotswap drive cages. One could be an Atom to act as router/firewall/..., the other could be fileserver (and more powerfull than Atom if I need transcoding). But it would be overkill for my needs...

**dZeus** · 23 March 2013, 08:36

I *think* you can run an eSATA box in RAID mode on a eSATA connector without port multiplier support. However, that is not what I'm going to do, because of the following scenario:
- your RAID5 array is working fine, until one day, *poof* the raid controller is a goner.

The only way to get your data back is to find another controller with the same firmware revision (and the stars need to be aligned, run three rounds in the room while flapping your arms like a chicken, etc.).

I'd much rather take a slight speed hit and run software RAID off the eSATA box in port multiplier mode, and know that if there's a problem with the controller I can still recover all my RAID5 data.

For your Zotac, this might be an option:

Page not found - BVM Ltd

http://www.bvm-store.com/ProductDetail.asp?fdProductId=631

note that it probably is geared towards system integrators for embedded use, so it is important to check driver support first.

**Pace** · 23 March 2013, 09:59

Originally posted by MultimediaMan View Post

MBD-X7SPA-HF-O 4GB and an Add-in Intel 1000PT Dual Port NIC (PFSense Router); IPTables/NAT/NTP

MBD-X7SPE-HF-D525-O for the Domain Controller

MBD-X7SPE-HF-D525-O running CentOS x64 for DHCP/DNS/NTP/Syslog/TFTP

MBD-X7SPE-HF-D525-O and an Add-in Intel 1000PT Dual Port NIC running FreeNAS for iSCSI

What do you mount these in?

VJ · 25 March 2013, 04:03

Originally posted by dZeus View Post

I *think* you can run an eSATA box in RAID mode on a eSATA connector without port multiplier support. However, that is not what I'm going to do, because of the following scenario:
- your RAID5 array is working fine, until one day, *poof* the raid controller is a goner.

True...

At the moment, I'm running a hardware RAID5 in my server, but all data is backed up to different harddisks and on DVD. The raid5 is mainly for easy access and to overcome single disk failures (which are more likely that controller failure). Loss of the raid would be annoying, but I would not loose any data. As it is also just for personal data, any downtime of the raid is not affecting my work or so.

Originally posted by dZeus View Post

I'd much rather take a slight speed hit and run software RAID off the eSATA box in port multiplier mode, and know that if there's a problem with the controller I can still recover all my RAID5 data.

For your Zotac, this might be an option:

Page not found - BVM Ltd

http://www.bvm-store.com/ProductDetail.asp?fdProductId=631

note that it probably is geared towards system integrators for embedded use, so it is important to check driver support first.

I've found even mainstream manufacturers offering PCIe sata cards, so that is indeed an option. Biggest issue is that the mainboard in the Zotac is not a standard form factor, and there is no room in the case to put anything else. I'm not even sure there is a mini PCIe, and if there is it might be difficult to route SATA cables:

404 Not Found

http://www.zotacusa.com/forum/topic/1982-mini-mag-hd-nd01-memory/page__view__findpost__p__4912

It would also allow "just" a raid0. Stupid question: does a hardware raid0 have the same issues if the controller fails? I thought not, and in that case a hardware eSata raid0 could also do the trick.

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looking for router and NAS...

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