Low-power is great but running a big RAID long-term without ECC gives me the heebee jeebies! Any good solutions for a similar system but more robust over 5+ years?
I think the trick is to go with a generation or two old Supermicro motherboard in whatever ATX case you can scrounge up, and then use either a low power Xeon or a Pentium/Celeron. Something like the X11SAE-F or X12SCA-F (or maybe even older) is plenty, though maybe not quite as low power. I still use an X9SCA+-F with some very old Xeon for a NAS and to run some LXC containers. It idles at maybe 20-30W instead of 5, but I've never had any issues with it, and I'm sure it's paid itself off many times over.
Even better, Supermicro will pick up the phone/answer emails, even if you bought a years-old secondhand server. They have the manuals, and are more than happy to help you out.
If you're on a budget, a used HP Z-Series workstation supports ECC ram. A bare-bones one is cheap, though the ECC memory can be expensive since it's not the (plentifully available) server type RDIMMs. Not a low-power setup either :)
Embedded SOCs like AMDs which are used by Synology etc such as AMD V2000.
If you want to step up to being able to serve an entire case or 4U of HDDs, you’re going to need pcie lanes though, in which case w680 with i5-12600k and a single ecc udimm and a SAS HBA in the pcie slot with integrated Ethernet is probably as low wattage as you
can get. Shame w680 platform cost is so high, am4/zen2 is cheaper to the point of still being viable.
You can also get Xeon, embedded Xeon, am5, am4 (without an iGPU).
There’s nothing inherently wrong with running a raid without ecc for 5 years, people do it all the time and things go fine.
Been thinking to just get a Synology with ECC support, but what I find weird is that the CPUs they use are 5+ years old. Feels wrong to buy something like that “new”
I'm running truenas on a used e3 1245 v5 ($30 on ebay) and an Asus workstation Mobo with 32 GB ECC and 4 spinning drives. Not sure individually, but the nas along with a i5 12400 compute machine, router, and switch use 100W from the wall during baseline operation (~30 containers). I'd consider that hugely efficient compared to some older workstations I've used as home servers.
I've been running a E3-1230v3 for over 10 years now. With 32GN ECC, 3 SSDs and 4 HDD and separate port for IPMI I'm averaging 35 W from the wall with a light load. Just ordered a Ryzen 7900 yesterday, and I guess the power consumption will be slightly higher for that one.
Apparently this board supports ecc with this chip:
Supermicro X13SAE W680 LGA1700 ATX Motherboard
Costs 550.
One option is building around that and having some pcie 4.0 to nvme boards hosting as many nvme drives as needed. Not cheap though but around home affordable.
I would never run a self-hosted nas when a synology/qnap are available as a dedicated appliance for around the same price.
The hardware is much more purpose equipped to store files long term and not the 2-3 years between consumer SSDs'
It's not to say self-hosting storage can't or shouldn't be done, its just about how many recoveries and transitions have you been through, because it's not an if, but a when.
The hardware is basically the same as self-hosted NAS, the motherboard could even be of a lower quality. The software though is closed source and most consumer NAS only get support for 4-5 years which is outrageous.
I bought a QNAP about a decade ago under the same assumption, but my experiences [0] there means I'm unlikely to buy a SOHO-level storage appliance ever again.
The tl;dr of my rant was around shortcomings in NFS permission configuration, and a failure of the iSCSI feature (the appliance crashed when you sent it data).
Further, these appliances invariably use vanilla RAM sticks, so you're exposed to gentle memory-based file corruption you probably won't notice for years.
So I'd argue the hardware is 'better equipped', and I'd also argue the software as shipped matches the marketing promises accompanying same.
Things have doubtless changed - I'm sure those bugs are long gone now - but unless you're looking at an ECC appliance, I'd say you're better off building your own white box.
rpcope1|2 years ago
sgarland|2 years ago
Love my X9 and X11 boards.
tyingq|2 years ago
faeriechangling|2 years ago
If you want to step up to being able to serve an entire case or 4U of HDDs, you’re going to need pcie lanes though, in which case w680 with i5-12600k and a single ecc udimm and a SAS HBA in the pcie slot with integrated Ethernet is probably as low wattage as you can get. Shame w680 platform cost is so high, am4/zen2 is cheaper to the point of still being viable.
You can also get Xeon, embedded Xeon, am5, am4 (without an iGPU).
There’s nothing inherently wrong with running a raid without ecc for 5 years, people do it all the time and things go fine.
eisa01|2 years ago
Same with TrueNas mini
jhot|2 years ago
NorwegianDude|2 years ago
ianai|2 years ago
Apparently this board supports ecc with this chip: Supermicro X13SAE W680 LGA1700 ATX Motherboard
Costs 550.
One option is building around that and having some pcie 4.0 to nvme boards hosting as many nvme drives as needed. Not cheap though but around home affordable.
ThatMedicIsASpy|2 years ago
And yes they start at around 500.
philjohn|2 years ago
a20eac1d|2 years ago
j45|2 years ago
The hardware is much more purpose equipped to store files long term and not the 2-3 years between consumer SSDs'
It's not to say self-hosting storage can't or shouldn't be done, its just about how many recoveries and transitions have you been through, because it's not an if, but a when.
justinsaccount|2 years ago
What hardware would that be, specifically? The low end embedded platforms that don't even support ECC?
> how many recoveries and transitions have you been through
3 or 4, at this point, using the same 2 disk zfs mirror upgraded from 1TB to 3TB to 10TB.
dbeley|2 years ago
Jedd|2 years ago
The tl;dr of my rant was around shortcomings in NFS permission configuration, and a failure of the iSCSI feature (the appliance crashed when you sent it data).
Further, these appliances invariably use vanilla RAM sticks, so you're exposed to gentle memory-based file corruption you probably won't notice for years.
So I'd argue the hardware is 'better equipped', and I'd also argue the software as shipped matches the marketing promises accompanying same.
Things have doubtless changed - I'm sure those bugs are long gone now - but unless you're looking at an ECC appliance, I'd say you're better off building your own white box.
[0] https://jeddi.org/b/brief-rant-on-trying-to-use-iscsi-on-a-q...