Reply to: Small PC case

[DirtyDog]

I bought 5 external 4TB Hitachi enclosures as it was the cheapest way of getting 4TB disks (which were very rare) at the time. ZFS gives you a bit of confidence that there's data integrity. In a previous storage array I used Western Digital Green drives. TBH haven't noticed the difference.

Hopefully the last question....

How did you get 5 drives in there? I can see from the tech spec sheet space for four of them - is it as easy as plugging one into the DVD space?

[b0redom]

I bought 5 external 4TB Hitachi enclosures as it was the cheapest way of getting 4TB disks (which were very rare) at the time. ZFS gives you a bit of confidence that there's data integrity. In a previous storage array I used Western Digital Green drives. TBH haven't noticed the difference.

[DirtyDog]

I use an HP Microserver as a NAS. It's got 5x4TB drives in RAID-Z (ZFS's implementation of RAID-5). The OS I use is FreeNAS:

FreeNAS Project - Open Source Storage - FreeNAS Project

You can install that on (and indeed it's designed to be run from) a USB stick - I use a 16GB HP one. The Microserver has an internal USB header so there's nothing left dangling around.

Also of note, if you're hoping to store VM images on your NAS, I'd stick with wired over wireless for reliability and more importantly performance.

Do you happen to know what drives you got? My server arrives tomorrow, but I haven't got any drives on order yet as I wanted to make sure I could get the thing working with FreeNAS before I bought loads of drives which then sat around gathering dust.

I've seen which 16GB RAM pack from Crucial to get, but again am holding off until I know I'll have time to sort it all out.

Ta.

[Boo]

Can you just use one of these as a cheap NAS? Cheapest NAS on eBuyer is £280 for a 4-bay, plus the drives.

Just wondered if it was nice and straightforward to get one of these, whack a few disks in it, and set it up as a NAS with a RAID array.

Yes, FreeNAS or NAS4Free (different variations on the same thing) will work fine on an N54L, mine is running FreeNAS and I have 3 off 3TB drives + the 250GB drive it came with as well as a DVD drive and 16GB RAM. All works great and I can even boot it off an external eSATA dock is I need to runs a special OS or something to play with when I am not using the NAS.

Boo

[DirtyDog]

The HP servers are back on £100 cashback for February - just ordered one to build a NAS at some stage.

[The Spartan]

Thanks b0redom I just ordered some hard drives and a 16GB USB to install FreeNAS

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

[DirtyDog]

From what I've read it's quite easy to set them up as NAS. It maybe a bit more expensive but the processor's in most NAS are under powered.

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Thanks.

I've just realised that I have a drive on my desk which I never even bother to plug in any more - powered it up to find that there's another 6TB of space left, so I'll stick it into my existing NAS via USB.

[b0redom]

I use an HP Microserver as a NAS. It's got 5x4TB drives in RAID-Z (ZFS's implementation of RAID-5). The OS I use is FreeNAS:

FreeNAS Project - Open Source Storage - FreeNAS Project

You can install that on (and indeed it's designed to be run from) a USB stick - I use a 16GB HP one. The Microserver has an internal USB header so there's nothing left dangling around.

Also of note, if you're hoping to store VM images on your NAS, I'd stick with wired over wireless for reliability and more importantly performance.

[The Spartan]

From what I've read it's quite easy to set them up as NAS. It maybe a bit more expensive but the processor's in most NAS are under powered.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk

[DirtyDog]

Aw you gave up just too soon! The offer is on again:
HP ProLiant G7 N54L 2.2GHz MicroServer- Ebuyer | Ebuyer.com

£129.85 inc VAT after cash back... I have one in the office here for backups, they are great value for money!

Can you just use one of these as a cheap NAS? Cheapest NAS on eBuyer is £280 for a 4-bay, plus the drives.

Just wondered if it was nice and straightforward to get one of these, whack a few disks in it, and set it up as a NAS with a RAID array.

[FiveTimes]

Thanks buddy that's really good advice, just one more question on the spec it says it'll take a maximum of 4 x 2TB drives has anyone used this with drives with more storage than 2TB? as I'm about to order some WD red.

I have 2x3TB green drives plus the 250GB one that came with it. Other people I know have 5x3TB (you can actually fit 2 where the optical drive can go)

I'd order 3TB ones if you can. I got them for ~ 80 quid

[The Spartan]

If you want to power it on then it comes with Wake on Lan.

Also if you get a decent corsair flash drive, create a bootable usb drive and put xbmc ubuntu on it. That way if you want you can easily switch it to a media centre.

Thanks buddy that's really good advice, just one more question on the spec it says it'll take a maximum of 4 x 2TB drives has anyone used this with drives with more storage than 2TB? as I'm about to order some WD red.

[FiveTimes]

I did think about using powerlines but I'm already using a few around the house so I wanted to keep it wireless. As for remote power down I didn't even consider that. I'm looking to use it as a NAS and also for so work with VM's I've not much a clue when it come to this stuff as you can tell.

If you want to power it on then it comes with Wake on Lan.

Also if you get a decent corsair flash drive, create a bootable usb drive and put xbmc ubuntu on it. That way if you want you can easily switch it to a media centre.

[The Spartan]

I did think about using powerlines but I'm already using a few around the house so I wanted to keep it wireless. As for remote power down I didn't even consider that. I'm looking to use it as a NAS and also for so work with VM's I've not much a clue when it come to this stuff as you can tell.

[stek]

I bought one too (HP Proliant G7), can anyone recommend a decent pcie card for remote/wireless access?

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You mean a LOM/iLOM/FSP/IMM sort of thing - to power on/off remotely?