Basic server for family

Serephucus

Hi all,

Recently convinced the parents to invest in a basic home server to have a backup of stuff, so I got a WD Mirror yoke (2x2TB) on sale.

Long and short: Now looking to build an unRAID box on the cheap, because pre-built NAS's suck.

Anyone know of a small, cheap ITX case that'll hold two 3.5" spinners? Having trouble finding something that ticks all three of those boxes.

This whole thing will probably be used parts, so not looking to spend more than about €50 on the case.

Cheers!

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Would you think about picking this up.....exceptional value

http://www.adverts.ie/desktops/gaming-pc-i7-2600k-8gb-ram-2tb-hdd-free-graphics-card/12155374

Would fit lots of drives in that case too. The included drive could act as a cache drive or parity drive without erroding your capacity too much.

Johnboy1951

Use an old/discarded PC.
No great resources needed for a basic file or media server.
Heck a dual core P4 from the distant past would suffice.

Use it for a while and then decide if it needs better hardware.

You did say "on the cheap"

btkm8unsl0w5r4

You need a fair bit of ram. Not so much for unRaid but if you decide to save the 100 euro on the software and USB Stick (the GUID of the key is locked to the unRaid licence) and go with FreeNas. That needs a ton of Ram, one Gb per Tb of storage. There are pros and cons of both softwares, for a home server IMHO unRaid is better.

Thing is unRaid can run sync servers, plex servers, Kodi servers, time machine shares, virtual machines etc. I would not cust the arse off it with a really old machine. A Quad core is not a bad idea. Here is a Intel Avoton C2750 Octa-Core Processor transcoding one 1080p in plex and doing file storage, CPU usage gets fairly high. The parity information requires a reasonable bit of processing too.

Johnboy1951

Anaya Crooked Milkman wrote: »

You need a fair bit of ram. Not so much for unRaid but if you decide to save the 100 euro on the software and USB Stick (the GUID of the key is locked to the unRaid licence) and go with FreeNas. That needs a ton of Ram, one Gb per Tb of storage. There are pros and cons of both softwares, for a home server IMHO unRaid is better.

Thing is unRaid can run sync servers, plex servers, Kodi servers, time machine shares, virtual machines etc. I would not cust the arse off it with a really old machine. A Quad core is not a bad idea. Here is a Intel Avoton C2750 Octa-Core Processor transcoding one 1080p in plex and doing file storage, CPU usage gets fairly high. The parity information requires a reasonable bit of processing too.

That is a far cry from

a basic home server to have a backup of stuff

which is what the OP asked about.

Yes transcoding can take a lot of resources, but file serving does not.

Thankfully I have never had the need to transcode anything .... the players I use will deal with just about any format.

ED E

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

That is a far cry from

Also, unbeknownst to fitzgeme the OP is very familiar with the options in this domain.

Serephucus

Thanks for the options lads.

fitz, as ED pointed out, I'm actually quite familiar with both unRAID and the C2750 chipset, as I run both on my own home server. :P

While that system you linked is excellent value, it's far more power than is needed. My parents don't have any need for their own Plex server or anything intensive, so the most it'll be running is BitTorrent Sync, and maybe Crashplan or something. Any old POS hardware will do for the guts.

The main issue here is the approval factor. Because of where the router is, there aren't a lot of options for hiding things, so I'm looking for something like a Node 202, though it's a little more expensive than what I was hoping. It kinda rules out using an old machine too, though it would be cheaper to pick up than new ITX/SFX stuff.

Johnboy1951

You could also get a small case of sufficient size to take the HDDs, and stick in a R-Pi board and use the Pi as the server.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-howto/32053-make-your-own-raspberry-pi-nas

Serephucus

That might be nice as a pet project, but for something like this, I want something set-and-forget. I'm hoping for as little bollocking around as possible, hence something I'm familiar with.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

If your requirements are basic what was the issue with the original home nas?

What is the form factor of the motherboard you intend to use?

Serephucus

It's lovely and small, but the backup and syncing functionality isn't great. The client apps give almost no feedback, and don't connect with the server half the time. At least I know unRAID+docker will work the way I want.

ITX, ideally.

Cuddlesworth

Fork out for a Synology NAS? Most people I know end up with one at some point. They really have that corner of the market locked down.

Serephucus

Some of the higher end units look nice actually. Looks like I can get a Docker-compatible one for about €330 before drives. That should do everything I want (Though I thought that would be the case with WD's as well)... Decisions...

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Agreed, a freenas or unraid is more felxable but requires a lot of "tinkering" for family this can be a nightmare and time sponge. The synology and qnap units are pretty good. I had a few and the issue I had was the power supplies going, once in the middle of a RAID rebuild that caused catastrophic data loss.

What about a cloud based solution....how much data you taking about?

Serephucus

Anaya Crooked Milkman wrote: »

Agreed, a freenas or unraid is more felxable but requires a lot of "tinkering" for family this can be a nightmare and time sponge. The synology and qnap units are pretty good. I had a few and the issue I had was the power supplies going, once in the middle of a RAID rebuild that caused catastrophic data loss.

What about a cloud based solution....how much data you taking about?

Not much, if we discount image backups of systems (which I'd like, but it's not strictly necessary), we're probably looking at <100GB of files.

Syncing is also an issue though. My dad wants the option of having some or all documents/photos synced to his laptop/phone whenever he might want.

Cuddlesworth

Synology does it all.

https://www.synology.com/en-global/dsm/6.0/cloud_file_syncing

btkm8unsl0w5r4

A google drive / dropbox might be the easiest option. The sync software is simplistic and is a right left mirror only but it works across all devices. If he wants access over the web a nas box has to have an open port to the internet, something I am cautious about security wise.

Server could go as follows

Devices (pc, laptops etc) ---- google drive

---

sync to nas server and sync to all devices.

I run this way, however to get over the mirror problem I keep windows file history active and a weekly incremental backup, on the server to keep copies of deleted files. It stops a delete from propagating across all the devices at the same time. This model satisfies the rule of 3. 3 copies of all data, one on the device, one on the cloud, and one on a redundant device.

100gb on google drive costs about 3 USD a month. the apple and android apps are good, and its transparent to the user on the laptop of computer. The initial backup is time consuming.

Netgear Nas devices have a thing called netgear vault a cloud backup of the nas....total pox avoid.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Synology does it all.

https://www.synology.com/en-global/dsm/6.0/cloud_file_syncing

Yeah a good solution. The youtube gurus give them good reviews. Expensive yolks all the same but run a custom linux OS that seems solid. The Synology RAID format runs a nice parity system that avoids all the issues with RAID5/6. At low data volumes a RAID 1 might be a good option. I would say the OP got WD red drives out of the nas box, these are decent drives for NAS.