RAID/Nas/Hard drive Suggestions

[Hero_X]

Hey guys,

So with my recent external drive failing on me, I've become super paranoid about my shit and want to be prepared for next time when a drive fails.

That being said, I've been looking into a lot of RAID set ups and I guess best for reliability would be RAID 1.

I have few questions

1) is it better to set up RAID 1 on desktop or in a NAS? Which would give better performance or reliability?

2) Which drives would be better for NAS: WD Red or WD Black? Reds are "made for NAS" environment, however I'm not sure if I would be getting best performance on 5400 rpm, and as well they only come with 3 yr warranty. Would I be better off going for WD Black drives instead? I've read that they're more reliable but I'm not sure if they'd still be reliable in a NAS environment.

I'm more interested in the black drives as they are meant to provide more reliability but I don't want to use them in NAS if they're gonna breakdown/fail quicker.

3) I'm looking at QNAP TS-231 for NAS and it has two LAN ports, can these be simply connected to two ports on my router to double the bandwidth? or do I need to do something special to use two?

Thanks in advance, for your help and suggestions.

[schocker]

I currently have 2 nas boxes. I like having a dedicated box as opposed to putting them into my PC and needing it to be on all the time. The nas boxes also have nice interfaces (qnap and synology at least) and are pretty low on power draw. Reds are made specifically for nas boxes and work great. No issues with any of my 6 drives. I think the blacks would not do to well over time and they are very loud depending on the version. With the dual lan, I believe you have to have a specific type of switch to utilize it. Short blurb here that I think is correct:http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1841819/nas-dual-lan-port.html

One thing to also consider is looking at a 4 bay to start as when you are doing raid 1, it can fill up pretty quick depending on how you are using it.

[The_Penguin]

I've never really understood why people pay so much money for a "box to put disks in".
A friend bought a Synology box and keeps trying to get various software packages to run on it.
For not much more, I built an i7 system as a hypervisor running my entire infrastructure. Several linux VMs as firewall, mail server etc., a Win7 VM for NAS shares. Even with a real Adaptec RAID controller it didn't come in that much more expensive.

[schocker]

Originally posted by The_Penguin
I've never really understood why people pay so much money for a "box to put disks in".
A friend bought a Synology box and keeps trying to get various software packages to run on it.
For not much more, I built an i7 system as a hypervisor running my entire infrastructure. Several linux VMs as firewall, mail server etc., a Win7 VM for NAS shares. Even with a real Adaptec RAID controller it didn't come in that much more expensive.
Less power, ease of use, dedicated apps from manufacturers, smaller footprint, quieter, can use out of the box etc. I looked at building a box before I bought mine first but for my use it just wasn't worth it.

[Hero_X]

Originally posted by The_Penguin
I've never really understood why people pay so much money for a "box to put disks in".
A friend bought a Synology box and keeps trying to get various software packages to run on it.
For not much more, I built an i7 system as a hypervisor running my entire infrastructure. Several linux VMs as firewall, mail server etc., a Win7 VM for NAS shares. Even with a real Adaptec RAID controller it didn't come in that much more expensive.

I was looking around and for a NAS I could get a Qnap 2 bay + two red 2tb drives for 450$.

Would the i7 system you built cost less than that or close to that? I'm genuinely interested because if so I'd rather build something myself and go that route. I really don't care about small footprint.

[eblend]

I would go with the red drives if I were you. The difference between NAS drives and others, is the TLER capability, which allows the raid controller to resolve drive issues, instead of the drive itself trying to sort the problem out...and timing out...dropping out of the raid array. The drive issues I am talking about is not a drive failing, but more to do with a busy disk that drops out because it doesn't respond in time, a NAS drive won't do this as the raid controller would take care of the drive control.

I am with The_Penguin on this one though, I run a 20 bay encolosure at home with multiple VMs and multiple virtual volumes with various storage spaces with various levels of redundancy, works well for me. Got like 5 VMs running on that for domain controllers. Plex, Sonarr ect. Been a solid setup. All that takes up 120W to run according to my UPS, so isn't all that much considering the capabilities.

[eblend]

Originally posted by Hero_X



Would the i7 system you built cost less than that or close to that? I'm genuinely interested because if so I'd rather build something myself and go that route. I really don't care about small footprint.

No, it would be much more expensive, it's more of an enthusiast thing to do and have to have the knowledge. I work in IT so this stuff is fun for me, others prefer the simplicity of a made NAS box.

[Hero_X]

Wow. Lol eblend you really are crazy, 20 bay enclosure!

You're right, a set up like yours is truly something for an enthusiast.

I'm looking for just straight forward functionality.

In regards to TLER, I was reading an article, which said that TLER may not even be necessary in a nas box with soft raid controller:

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-features/31202-should-you-use-tler-drives-in-your-raid-nas

So I'm not really sure if it's required or not.


Originally posted by eblend
I would go with the red drives if I were you. The difference between NAS drives and others, is the TLER capability, which allows the raid controller to resolve drive issues....

Would you recommend red drives even for non-nas environment, such as just having a desktop with raided drives?

[Mitsu3000gt]

I have 2 WD reds in my Synology and it's been great for ~2 years. Absolutely love the thing and it's dead quiet.

[The_Penguin]

Originally posted by Hero_X


I was looking around and for a NAS I could get a Qnap 2 bay + two red 2tb drives for 450$.

Would the i7 system you built cost less than that or close to that? I'm genuinely interested because if so I'd rather build something myself and go that route. I really don't care about small footprint.

No, definitely more than that. I should have clarified, his was at least a 4 bay, maybe 5 was just over $1000.00

[Xtrema]

Synology fan here. A bit more but hassle free. I'm done wasting time with PCs. I need stuff to work out of the box. Not messing around with driver and crap.

Then again, I do have a 24 core HP server at home that is rock solid with VMWare to mess with. So the need to mess with PC is lessen other than my gaming rig.

For OP, you can't go wrong with either Synology or QNAP. Synology got a better suite of software, QNAP has stronger hardware if you want it to be a media server. 2 bay with 2TB only yield 2TB of mirrored storage, make sure that's enough. Synology can upgrade on the fly (1 drive at a time), I'm sure QNAP has similar feature but double check.

[ipeefreely]

+3 for build something yourself route

Mine's been up and running on a i5 2500k since 2010! :)

I run multiple VMs on Server 2012 R2 now and use Server 2012 R2 Essentials (in a VM) to do my backups and give me remote access (I'm not in IT so it's the easiest way for me).

Finally picked up a 24 bay Norco when they were on sale last Christmas. :D


Originally posted by Hero_X
3) I'm looking at QNAP TS-231 for NAS and it has two LAN ports, can these be simply connected to two ports on my router to double the bandwidth? or do I need to do something special to use two?
You'll need a managed/smart switch to team the NICs (and you'd need a team on the other end to get double the speed as well).

You'll only get fail over if you can't do link aggregation.

I finally got around last month to setting a few teams on my network and it's pretty cool see 225MB/s when transferring large files! :burnout:

[Hero_X]

Thanks for your response everyone,

but i still was looking for an answer for this one:


1) is it better to set up RAID 1 on desktop or in a NAS? Which would give better performance or reliability?

[JustinMCS]

You could do RAID 5 with 3 disks and then when a disk fails it can rebuild the array and you get more storage space. IF you have two 1 TB disks, that's a total of 1 TB of space. IF you have three 1 TB disks, you get 2 TB storage space.

I am running an SSD for OS and three 750s in RAID 5 in my desktop all running from the motherboard using Intel Rapid Storage.

And to answer your question on reliability on NAS or in the desktop, it all is dandy until your RAID controller dies lol. I don't think one is worse than the other?

[Hero_X]

^

I don't have a RAID card or anything, so it would be software raid.

so not sure if there would be an issue in that regards?

[eblend]

Originally posted by Hero_X
^

I don't have a RAID card or anything, so it would be software raid.

so not sure if there would be an issue in that regards?

Not really. If your mobo dies you can just rebuild the computer and your disks should pick up under a new mobo/new windows install. Really up to you. If you leave your PC on 24/7 anyways, then you could just put the disks in there and call it a day. If you have a newer OS (win 10) then you could use storage spaces, it's the better software raid configuration than the old windows raid.

[Hero_X]

Hey everyone,

So a brief update, I ended up getting a Qnap ts-231 and using it with 2x4tb drives.

I wanted to ask about transfer speeds. If I'm on a comp that's connected to router wirelessly, how much transfer speed can I expect?

Right now, if i was to transfer a 4gb file from my desktop to the nas (desktop connected wirelessly) I'm getting about 20 MB/s transfer speed to the nas, and about 30 MB/s from the nas to desktop.


Is this normal? or do i need to do some tweaking to get the speeds to go higher?

[taemo]

30MB/s is 240Mbps which is plenty fast on wireless for now.

if you want to go faster then you'll have to go wired with a 1Gb switch.

[Sdeibert]

Originally posted by Hero_X
Hey everyone,

So a brief update, I ended up getting a Qnap ts-231 and using it with 2x4tb drives.

I wanted to ask about transfer speeds. If I'm on a comp that's connected to router wirelessly, how much transfer speed can I expect?

Right now, if i was to transfer a 4gb file from my desktop to the nas (desktop connected wirelessly) I'm getting about 20 MB/s transfer speed to the nas, and about 30 MB/s from the nas to desktop.


Is this normal? or do i need to do some tweaking to get the speeds to go higher?

I can get 70-80 MB/s from laptop to QNAP 451+. But that's SSD (Laptop) & wired, both ways.

If I use the wireless on the laptop I'll be around that 20 MB/s mark too.

I know my speeds jumped a bit when I put my new router in but my old one was,,, well old. Like 10 years old.

[Anomaly]

From my QNAP TS-859 to my desktop (SSD) I get between 300-350mbp (40ish MB\s). Are you using both Ethernet ports on the QNAP or just 1? If your switch supports it, you can setup LACP and utilize both links.

[Hero_X]

^

Unfortunately I don't have an additional switch to use, and my router doesn't support link aggregation. So I only have one connection to the router from the QNAP.

[taemo]

Originally posted by Hero_X
^

Unfortunately I don't have an additional switch to use, and my router doesn't support link aggregation. So I only have one connection to the router from the QNAP.

they are pretty cheap now a days
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX14597

Been running a D-Link 5port Gigabit switch since 2012 in our new place and still running well.
90-100MB/s back and forth from my TS-421 and my PCs

[Hero_X]

Is there a way to mirror an existing drive?

I have one 2tb drive in my desktop, and just got another one. I want to set them up for redundancy, either RAID 1 or Storage Spaces. I don't know if RAID is better than storage spaces or vice versa but i've been told these are two good options.

That being said, I already have data on the existing drive (drive 1). Is it possible to install another drive (drive 2) and have it synchronize with the existing one (without any formatting of the existing drive)?

I'm asking because drive 1 has a lot of data on it and I don't want to move it off to other drives then put it back on... lol just would save me some time if i didn't have to do that.


Plz let me know. Thanks

[colsankey]

There couldd be software i dont know about, but in a typical nirrot situation. You configure the raid and it initializes the array, and data on the disks is cleared.

I would copy it elsewhere, or get 2 new disks and setup a clean mirror and then copy the data over.

[Sean7]

Everyone running RAID 5 should read this article:

https://subnetmask255x4.wordpress.com/2008/10/28/sata-unrecoverable-errors-and-how-that-impacts-raid/

Basically with 4TB+ drives, your raid has a very high probability of failing entirely when rebuilding just one of your disks with these "cheap" 1x10^14 error rate drives.
RAID 6 should be the minimum if you have critical data and look for drives with 1x10^15 error rates if possible.

Or have backups of your backups

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by Sean7
Everyone running RAID 5 should read this article:

https://subnetmask255x4.wordpress.com/2008/10/28/sata-unrecoverable-errors-and-how-that-impacts-raid/

Basically with 4TB+ drives, your raid has a very high probability of failing entirely when rebuilding just one of your disks with these "cheap" 1x10^14 error rate drives.
RAID 6 should be the minimum if you have critical data and look for drives with 1x10^15 error rates if possible.

Or have backups of your backups

Good point.

Enterprise has moved to triple redundancy now in dealing with the new 16TB SSDs drives.