File Server

Hi,

I'm wanting to network 8 computers together (about 3 notebooks and the rest desktops) and would quite like to have a proper file server e.t.c. What sort of product would I be looking at and how much would it cost. Also, if this idea is stupid on that sort of scale I should also quite like your experienced opinions si vous plait.

Thanks,

Matt. I

 

What do you want to do exactly with it?

 

I am wanting to have something that will serve all my files and programs and allow me to have one printer, one scanner e.t.c. Also would want to have internet going into it from my router and be able to plug my computers into it for internet. I don't need any wireless.

 

I you just want to share files a SMB NAS like A Snap Appliance products. I have the Older 4500 model it supports 2 gige ports. If you need application you need to move to a full server. You did not mentioned how much storage space you needed.

I would get a 16 port Manged GigE switch. This will give you room for expansion. As far as printer and Scanners. buy the ones that are truly networkable for greater flexability. Dont bother messing with adapters to put them on the network. If they were design for the network they will have a network card installed.

 

&blue68f100: Thanks very, very much. I'll have a look at the model you mentioned - I really appreciate your advice. It would be quite nice if I did have applications. How much money would the full server cost?

EDIT: Following your advice I was looking at this model: http://www.peripheralstorage.com/html/snap_server_110.html What would be your advice? I've given you some rep for your advice so far as a token of appreciation.

 

For a bussiness you need redundentcy in the data. that model (110) does not provide it and will be super slow. At a min 410, preferably something in the 5X0 class. I know from experience if you are going to store you files on a server you need speed and redundentcy. If you do not you will be waiting for things to happen. With redundency, if you loose one drive no data is lost. All you need to do is replace the HD and it will auto repair the Raid 5 Array.
The unit are expensive, my 4500 retailed for $5000. and that was 4-5 yrs ago. The newer ones still run about the same price but are faster, and more energy effecent.

What are the size of the data files being stored, large or a lot of small files. If photo or movie requires alot of space. Remember with RAID5 storage, a 1T (1000meg) will only have a 750meg max, if you use snapshots for backup closer to 650meg. Basicly 4x 250gigHD - 1 drive = 750meg

 

You can build a server for a lot less than that appliance. A case, a solid motherboard, budget processor and a bit of RAM, good NIC, and quality power supply is all you need in addition to the RAID controller (3ware 9650SE is good) and hard drives. Throw Debian on running samba and a simple iptable and you're set.

Also remember that redundancy IS NOT A BACKUP. Redundancy fails, and it doesn't protect against user error.

Don't forget the battery backup unit for your RAID card.

I attached a pdf of a quick workup, add a few hundred if you want to go true server quality, with a Tyan or Supermicro motherboard and an EATX case. Note the power supply is already EPS12v compatible. As is it came out to about $1500, and you could do it right for about $2000. For well under the $5000 of that appliance you can get a nice little rack and rack mounted switch in addition to a very nice server with room to spare for more switches, patch panels, and servers in the future.

I'd suggest either having another large drive to backup to in this machine, or even better, on a share on another machine in another part of the building and on a different circuit.

 

Wow! Thanks! I've attached a PDF of what I'm building at the moment - I originally intended it as a high performance video/graphics designing, DX programming and web design PC but could I partition the HD so I could boot into either server or standalone?

 

Home built units are good for the technical savie users, that are currently using linux. But for a easy to use NAS Server go with the snap. Or you may spend all your time tring to get all the setting right or hire an consultant to do it for you. With the snap you just plug it in, very easy to setup.

The problem with home built is when you loose a HD in the raid 5 array. If you mess up here all is lost. If you decide to go that way. Fail a drive and see how long it takes to have the unit repaired and backup. Wiith a snap is only the time need to replace the drive and hot swap in. Do not need to power the unit down. On these home built rad if you were to loose your raid card you may loose everything. In most cases you have to find the exact same card and firmware for it to work. I have seen many cases where firmware not compatiable damage the existing array.

You will find if your not technically encline all of the setup by cmd line will drive you nuts. and one little error and yo may loose it all.

www.smallnetbuilder.com did a article on what was needed to setup a small graphics company. It was very good on how a network should be design for maximun effiency.

Don't let the cost put you in a position your not comfortable with. Then ask your self are you going to do the required backup for a catastropic failure? Or User error. Another thing to be aware of.

 

Well, you could, but you lose the level of availability. And if you try to run a workstation as a fileserver simultaneously you'll hurt reliability, and you probably will just switching back and forth.

I just don't see it being worth $5000 when it can be done for less. A roll your own solution is just as reliable (especially if you go for a low end Xeon w/ a Tyan or Supermicro board) for so much less, it's just there's more room for administrator error. I feel comfortable with that risk, administering a small network in a print shop myself, but I've been running Linux on my own desktops and server for a few years now. I also have the benefit of being able to configure the machine to serve ftp for customer uploads and copiers which remote scan to ftp, as a bridging router, and to serve printers.

I wouldn't multipurpose a machine like you're thinking, but it's up to you.

That said, I'm sure you could get away with a NAS box for much, much less.

 

Just my 2 cents, go larger than a raid 5 array. statics show, and from my personal experience too, that drives often fail in pairs which would leave a raid 5 array unusable. You want to be able to trust your data is safe on a file server, and i would not feel safe with a raid 5 unless you are doing weekly backups on tape drives or on an external hard drive or something similar.

 

You can run 7 drives in a raid 5 array and still have a hot spare.

 

@blue68f100: Thanks very much for that link. I've done alot of research on servers by using that site. I've made a list of what I want from my NAS. It goes something like this:

CAPACITY
500GB

FEATURES
Built in Scheduled backups to USB attached drives (but not essential with hot swappable drives).
I don't want/need media serving.
Access control isn't essential in the slightest.
I'm not sure what network filesystems are so I don't know whether I want them or not.

FTP: Yes of course I was this.
Print server: Would be preferable only I appreciate unreliability.
HTTP Server: YES YES YES
Download Client: Would be nice.

But, in favour of price and not really caring about noise, I was looking at this: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/29616/75/ But, living in the UK, will new egg ship?

&Ethyriel: Thank you very much for your advice as well. I'm looking at things I can throw together to create a nice, cheap, reliable server. I want to leave all options open at the moment.

@nizzy1115: Thanks also for your advice - I'll take head of both yours and blue68f100's again depending in which direction I decide to go.

 

I was also wondering about this model. They're both about the same price - which is better for my needs. I think the one that I mentioned previously (in last post) but am open to suggestions. http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/24945/75/1/1/

Also, do both models come with hard disks or does that depend on the seller?

EDIT: What's up with the new look of NBR? I like it but the network load speed seems a bit slower... probably my connection more than anything though!

 

The Infant's gives you have the option to provide your own drives. These have come a long way, but are not in the same class as the snaps. One of those units I think had a GigE but not the GigE speed. The Infant will be quieter than the snap. It may fill your need though, but you will notice the speed to be a bit slow if more than a couple of users are access it at the same time. But it may be a starting point for you. As you company grows you can expand. You can also use online storage. Storage is cheap these days and many motherboards support raid 0, 1, & 5 with some 0+1 & 10. You can run raid on the local workstations, then backup to the NAS. This gives you 2 backup, with one being 1(+) rev behind. You should also have offsite storage too, making 3.

But with any NAS you need a backup program. Just because a unit is in raid5 redundant array you can still have hardware failure. I keep expressing this because it is always over looked with small bussiness on a tight budget. But then you need to ask your self if it goes down can you still operate.

The snap comes with server backup software, just need to connect your tape unit. Or use their server to server sync software. This is what most use, to a slower unit. This way if for some reason every thing goes down you just change the pointer to the other unit. And your back on line while you correct the problem with the other unit.

Now if you are only going to use it for backup of your work stations, you need to know how much changing data do you have. If you have 6 pc needing 100+gig every night, you may want a unit that can handle it with the alotted time.

By brother has his own video editing company and he uses any where from 500meg to 10T depending on the size of the job.

I would sit down and figure how much storage space is needed per machine. Then you need to also know how long you will need these files availabe. So if you need them for a month, this is data that you can not (or may not want to) archive off the server.

For a cheap out you can always build a PC with a MB that has raid capabilities rather cheap these days. And use it for you NAS.

What ever you deside to do, run a UPS that can do auto auto shutdown if your not around, incase of power loss. RAID's do not like be shutdown improperly. With some units you are in big trouble if this happens. Like loose all data. So include a UPS (APC) in your parts list. Cheap insurance to bad power.

 

Hi,

Thanks very much for all the help you've given me all the way through this discussion. You seem really experienced and know what you're talking about.

I've decided to go with this product: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/29616/75/ as a start and then when I've got more money (i.e. am not a student any more) I think I'll upgrade to a full server so I can run apps or maybe even to a snap for speed.

I also thought I'd get this UPS: http://www.amazon.co.uk/APC-Back-UPS-CS-650VA-Connector/dp/B0002V73O8/ref=pd_sbs_ce_title_1 any thoughts?

Again,

Thanks very much!

Matt. I

 

Good decision, that is the best way to get going. You can always upgrade later on.

The key with any UPS is how much run (backup) time you have, and will it carry the load. The VA = Volts x Amps. You must include inrush current numbers. Other wise you will not be able to startup your equipment. You only want to back up criticle equipment, cpu, monitor, network. DO NOT connect printers to them. APC has a calculator on there web site that you select your equipment and it will calculate your needed based on desired battery backup time. At a min you need 5 min. I prefer 15-20min. And I never load a unit over 80%, which gives me more backup time.

I would move up to the Smart-UPS over the Backup model for slightly more money. I have both. The Smart-UPS is design more for work stations and servers. Either model can do a auto shutdown of 1 station. The Smarts-UPS gives you a 5 user liescen, so multiple pc's can be shutdown. I have the networks cards in all of mine. These cards expensive, so ebay is the only way to get one reasonable priced. With the network cards it can auto shutdown equipment on the network besides work stations. I do not recall if the Thecus supports auto shutdown, most do. If it does I would definately move up to the Smart-UPS. Any NAS does not like being shut down improperly, power outages can kill your Raid5 Array. Most all NAS's will start a resync on startup, if it detects a problem. The Backups are design for small home networks, basic functions. The SmartUPS only gives you backup power outlets, so a surge protector is needed too for non criticle items like printers, scanners ... The backups model gives you std surge protection and battery backup. But you only have 3 recpt of each, where the SmartUPS give 6-8 recpt, all Battery backup.

 

Great! Thanks sooo much for the help you've given me over the past couple of days and all the effort you've put into helping me.

I'll get the Smart-UPS because I like the idea of the auto-shutdown. If I was to be out of the house at the time would the auto shutdown automatically power it down?

Also, will shutting down the NAS be covered in the instruction booklet or is there a special way of doing it?

Thanks again very much,

Matt. I

 

Most units will either have a switch on the front, that you push to start the shutdown sequence. And have a software cmd too. Since most all run some kind of Linux firmware the software shutdown is built in. So yes it should be in the manual.

These units are nothing more than a imbeded computer running linux with samba. The shell/interface takes away the cmd line interface and gives you a gui that most users can follow/use. So like any other pc shutting them down in the middle of something they complain. Since this is a file server it will have files open as it handles the request, read/write/send ... The reason they must be shut down properly. If not they will go through a resync process thats checks all the files for parity errors. This process can take many hrs depending on how much data is there. You can still use the NAS's while this is being done.

The big server like I have can take several minutes for them to shutdown, and 5-6 min to startup. Since mine is a FTP server too, I have it set auto boot when power is restored. Which means that I had a power failure that lasted oven an hour. And it will only reboot after the batteries have been recharged backup to 25%. I have this delay on purpose. A lot of times the power will try to startup and go back down. This just eliminates bouncing the server. My smaller servers I have to manually startup after a power failure. But we have only had rolling blackout in my area once in the early spring. This lasted for several days during peak loads. The utility provider had plants down for there annual maintance.

The smartups are heavy, my 1000 and 1500VA weigh in at 54 lbs. The Backups units only weight 25lbs.

I forgot to mention that the APC have connections for ethernet cables (broadband) and phone lines (dsl). Use them I have seen may times that the surge would come through the phone line and take them down. I'm on Fiber Optic System now so that is not likely to happen to me anymore.

 

Great! Yeh I'd heard that ethernet cables sometimes had surges so thanks for the APC advice and thanks again for all the advice that you have given me. I'll probably have config errors and stuff when I buy it so I presume I'll be consulting your expertise again then if that's all right? Seems like a long startup/shutdown time so thanks for preparing me for this so I don't think that I've done something wrong when I get it!

Thanks again,

Matt I