I'd like to know more about performance with Atom, since I imagine using ZFS and FreeNAS can be CPU-intensive.<div><br></div><div>I'm definitely not looking for more than 2 SATA plugs to do RAID 1 mirroring, but i'll check out the Supermicro boards.<br>
<div><br clear="all">--Cameron<a href="http://ghostfreeman.net" target="_blank"></a><br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Sep 16, 2012 at 8:51 PM, Greg Clifton <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:gccfof5@gmail.com" target="_blank">gccfof5@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
One problem with many of the Atom and Hudson A350 boards is a minimal number of SATA ports ( often only 2). If you are interested in an Atom board with more SATA ports, check out Supermicro's embedded product line, they have some with 4 or more SATA ports, but they ain't cheap. I recently came across a nano board that VIA is evidently producing in response to the Raspberry Pi and similar such products. It has 2 SATA ports and a quad core processor. Looks like it would make an adequate board to base a mirrored pair of drives off of, when it is available. I could envision such a device with a pair of hard drives "living" in the same case as a desktop system that might be your "main" computer. The article says the price is not yet set, but surely it will be less than $100:
<a href="http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/via-launches-tiny-quad-core-x86-epia-p910-board-2012097/" target="_blank">http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/via-launches-tiny-quad-core-x86-epia-p910-board-2012097/</a> <div><br>
</div><div>I would love to hear anybody's experience that has used an Atom, or esp. an A350 board for a NAS box, because that is an idea that I have been kicking around.</div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">
<div><br></div></font></span><div><span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888">GC</font></span><div><div class="h5"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sun, Sep 16, 2012 at 4:59 PM, JD <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jdp@algoloma.com" target="_blank">jdp@algoloma.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Backups don't need RAID. You want RAID on the main storage, if that is a<br>
requirement.<br>
<br>
For simple backups, buy a USB3 dock and connect it to a router with USB ports<br>
for storage. Using a dock means he has "unlimited storage", just swap in a new<br>
2TB hdd when the old one fills up. If performance isn't good enough, newer<br>
routers should support USB3 soon. Even some of those $50 media streaming<br>
devices will share USB HDD storage on the network. I'm positive that a WD-TV<br>
Live HD does. At 100base-tx, it is painfully slow compared to everything else<br>
that is GigE connected here.<br>
<br>
USB3 is not a good idea for anything other than backups or streaming media,<br>
IMHO. There has been a queuing issue with USB for years. It handles 1 or 2<br>
different requests at a time nicely, but not 5-20 like a full OS will make.<br>
There are eSATA docks for that, but then he needs to leave a PC on all the time.<br>
eSATA behaves just like internal disks. Same performance, same command set.<br>
<br>
I wouldn't completely knock out building a NAS-PC either. The AMD APUs and Atom<br>
APUs can use 20W of power + however many HDDs are inside. Last month if saw<br>
(and purchased) a Slickdeal E-350 MB+APU+case for $100. That's hard to beat on<br>
the price. Drop in 1-2G of old RAM and an old HDD means a new system is ready<br>
and will be stingy on electricity. I am not using it as a NAS, but might in the<br>
future.<br>
<br>
I have a home-built NAS with an external 4 disk array currently. That is primary<br>
storage running Linux software RAID. To back it up, a USB3 WD external disk is<br>
used. Simple, cheap and effective. If the backup disk fails - oh well. That<br>
same disk array has been moved between systems and Linux installs multiple<br>
times. It was a non-event every time, extremely flexible. Software RAID can be<br>
slower than HW-RAID. The RAID5 here is much less speed than a single WD Black<br>
drive for writes. The OS disk cache is about 4G on that box, so the first 4G of<br>
transfer is always 65-75MB/s. Writing large files (10-22G HD recordings) to the<br>
single Black drive achieves about 40MB/s over the network, after the cache is<br>
full. Going to the RAID5 storage might get 10MB/s after the cache is full.<br>
Same client, same server, same network, just the storage being written onto is<br>
different. Guess which drive I transfer new files onto over the network? To be<br>
fair, the Black drives are fairly new and the disks in the array are 5.5+ yrs<br>
old. I'm burning in replacement HDDs as I write this.<br>
<br>
With purchased NAS devices, much flexibility is gone. There are limits set by<br>
the maker. I guess that is what you are asking - about those limitations?<br>
<br>
Anyway, I hope these ideas are helpful to finding the best answer for his needs.<br>
<div><div><br>
<br>
On 09/16/2012 12:56 PM, John Anderson wrote:<br>
> I guess the issues other than the basic one of price would be:<br>
> reliablility.<br>
><br>
> raid 1<br>
><br>
> Ability to pop a drive out and read it if the unit fries. Are there<br>
> systems with software versus hardware raid? My understanding is that<br>
> software is easier to recover if the hardware fails.<br>
><br>
> Transfer speed is probably not an issue. This is more for the first<br>
> layer of backup for multiple pc's in the household. It probably won't be<br>
> getting hammered on a regular basis.<br>
><br>
> On 09/16/2012 12:39 PM, JD wrote:<br>
>> On 09/16/2012 12:02 PM, John Anderson wrote:<br>
>>> Any recommendations/cautions about picking up a home nas? It's for my<br>
>>> brother in law so he probably won't want a re-purposed PC. Looking to<br>
>>> spend <$500<br>
>> You usually get what you pay for.<br>
>> <a href="http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-charts/view" target="_blank">http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-charts/view</a> will get you (or him) started.<br>
>><br>
>> There are many other caveats, but without requirements or use scenarios, I can't<br>
>> begin to make any suggestions.<br>
>><br>
>> If he wants low price over all else, there are cheap 1 or 2 disk options without<br>
>> any advanced capabilities. However, these have pretty poor performance, but that<br>
>> may not be an issue.<br>
>><br>
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