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Homemade 16TB NAS - BlackDwarf

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Re: Homemade 16TB NAS - BlackDwarf

#21

Post by silasb »

enneff wrote: post #18
pielud wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you had good luck with this? I'm running zfs on an open solaris server, but I hate solaris and would like to switch to linux. I never got the impression that zfs on fuse was stable enough to trust with all of my data.

I use ZFS under FreeBSD 8-RELEASE in a 6x1.5tb raidz2 (dual-parity) and it is rock solid. The benefit of running ZFS under FreeBSD over Linux is that you don't need to use FUSE, as ZFS has been really well integrated with FreeBSD's filesystem layer.

Would you mind writing up a tutorial. I am interesting in ZFS under FreeBSD, I have 8-Release downloaded and ready to go. Still working on getting the hardware up and running for it though.

Are you using 64-bit? I heard ZFS loves 64-bit.

Re: Homemade 16TB NAS - BlackDwarf

#22

Post by lutorm »

StarLite wrote: post #8

Looks nice :D I hope he has better results with Raid5 then me tho. I have reverted back to a dual drive NAS for stability after having raid 5 servers for a long time. Somehow IDE and SATA drives and raid cards don't cut it for me. I have lost my data so freaking often by corrupt arrays it's not fun anymore. The first server I had used a Promise card (Supertrak SX6000) card (with 4 * 80 GB drives) that gave me nothing…

Funny. I've used an ARC-1260 in a 10x500gb raid-6 array for several years and it has never gone down. I've RMAd probably 4 drives to WD under warranty.

I've also had 2 software 5x1tb raid-5 arrays for about 2 years and they've never even lost a drive. Apparently WD improved their RE drives between the 500gb and 1tb versions, the difference in failure rate is huge.

Re: Homemade 16TB NAS - BlackDwarf

#23

Post by lutorm »

Nice job, though I shudder to think about the vibration noise made by 8 hard-mounted drives in an aluminum enclosure... I'd be surprised if it didn't sound like a mouse stuck in a coke can full of nuts (the threaded, metal kind, that is... ;-)

Re: Homemade 16TB NAS - BlackDwarf

#24

Post by lutorm »

invisible wrote: post #16
ErrantX wrote: post #3

Uh oh... I see Green Power HDD's. We used them for a while in big Raid configurations and their failure rate is bad.

Always use black HDDs for servers man (if using WD)!

Why not use the Raid Edition drives if you're at it? Supposedly better mtbf, longer warranty, and the to-me-unquantifiably-better TLER feature.

Re: Homemade 16TB NAS - BlackDwarf

#25

Post by lutorm »

jacquesm wrote: post #4

There is something funny in the name here, given that a black dwarf is what results after a star has gone through a melt-down and I think that is a serious risk with that many drives in such a tight enclosure. He seems to have that factor under control though, 90 watts under load really isn't that bad. Reminds me of this: http://www.clustercompute.com/ , no longer in service because it got replaced by a single gpu ca…

It's all about airflow. Those GP drives don't use more than 5W each so as long as you have good airflow around all of them it won't be a problem.

Re: Homemade 16TB NAS - BlackDwarf

#27

Post by bcl »

That a nice project and all, too bad he's likely to have it go TU on him when his first drive fails.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/why-raid-5-stops-working-i...

I would also be concerned with the single point of failure with his fan. If that seizes up for any reason the temp in that thing is going to skyrocket very quickly.

Personally, after I outgrow my current RAID5 -- similar to the one I built here (http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6558), but using SATA drives now -- I'm going to switch over to mirrored large drives instead of RAID5. As long as I don't start videotaping every second of the kid's lives I should be ok.

Re: Homemade 16TB NAS - BlackDwarf

#29

Post by johnohara »

StarLite wrote: post #8

Looks nice :D I hope he has better results with Raid5 then me tho. I have reverted back to a dual drive NAS for stability after having raid 5 servers for a long time. Somehow IDE and SATA drives and raid cards don't cut it for me. I have lost my data so freaking often by corrupt arrays it's not fun anymore. The first server I had used a Promise card (Supertrak SX6000) card (with 4 * 80 GB drives) that gave me nothing…

"Eventually I just sold the whole damn thing..."

Buyer beware.

Re: Homemade 16TB NAS - BlackDwarf

#30

Post by res0nat0r »

I purchased a NAS array from http://lime-technology.com/ and couldn't be happier with it. 15 drives in a standard form factor case running off of an internal USB key slackware custom distro. Only one drive is needed for parity and you can swap drive sizes as much as you want, just as long as the parity drive is as wide as your largest data drive.

It is running its own version of raid called unRAID, which is a RAID4 derivative. No data is striped across any of the drives so your data loss is contained to the single drive with issues if it is not repairable by parity. The servers are great for the price, check them out.

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