Hello all,
I'm in the middle of deciding what direction I want to go for my new home NAS.
I've never used SnapRAID, but I want to try it with OpenMediaVault.
Option 1: HP Chromebox w/ Intel Celeron 2955U 1.40 GHz, 4GB RAM, USB3, 1Gb NIC, custom firmware to install other OS.
Option 2: Banana Pi Pro w/1GB RAM, SATA Port Multiplier, 1Gb NIC.
The common gear: ICY DOCK Black Vortex MB174U3S-4SB 4 Bay USB 3.0 & eSATA and 3x 3TB WD Red drives.
I've read SnapRAID works better with SATA drives, but the Banana Pi Pro only has 1GB of RAM so will that be an issue with the amount of storage I'm starting with? I'll add a 4th 3TB drive later on.
Any guidance on this?
Thanks!
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What is your budget and size requirements? Both of those seem like hacky solutions to trust data to in my opinion when you can get something like the Dell T110 or the Lenovo TS140 for a couple hundred dollars and get a real computer. I know that $200+ is significantly more money than a Banana Pi Pro, but the hardware is also WAY better (Xeon/i3 CPU, 4GB of RAM, multiple SATAIII heads, etc). They both go on sale all the time, so keep your eyes peeled (banana pun intended :) ). Also, these computers are both very quiet and idle at less than 40 watts, so not too bad on the home friendly aspect either.
I'd at least try to start with 2GB of RAM to give yourself a buffer to prevent out of memory issues. Although, newer versions of SnapRAID require far less RAM than it used to (even then, it wasn't that bad).
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Thanks rubylaser. My budget: cheap. I'm just trying to throw together a solution that will be cheap to buy and run along with some stability. I already own the ChromeBox, but I've read a doc that says SnapRAID and USB3 don't always work well together. I don't want a large-ish box like the ones you've listed althought I agree those would be a more desirable solution. Thnx!
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So, you are going to run (4) external USB3 drives with all associated wiring and power bricks, but a mid-tower ATX case that's quiet with everything enclosed safely inside that uses enterprise parts seems too big?
Sorry sarcasm :) Anyways, I undestand the desire for small and cheap. I honestly woudn't run my important home data off USB devices, but that is your call. USB can work, but I would want to have a decent CPU and at least 2GB of RAM, so your Chromebox should work. I would not buy the Banana Pi Pro as that seems like a waste of money when if you saved a little more you could get a real computer.
Please check out the ICY DOCK Black Vortex enclosure I listed in the first post. http://amzn.to/20JEUlS
The ChromeBox hooked to this enclosure via USB3, of course the LED will have to be turned off. One USB cable and two power bricks. I'd say that not too bad...esspecially if I need to replace a part or expand.
Thanks for the help.
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Well frankly in the triple digits ($$$) you're better off with any small desktop PC (with at least 4 SATA ports which I guess most have) but now that you've got the hardware ... I don't know. You can try with the chromebook first. I did have my NAS for a long while and multiple hardware generations on USB (2!), as long as it gaves you no grief and it is stable it should be fine for basic stuff. However snapraid can be quite intensive, what I did (and it worked perfectly even with huge drives) was basically incremental backup with rsync --backup and some options to save all changed/deleted files at each run. It worked well even on the NSLU2, probably the first device of this kind (think 32MB RAM, it still runs some kind of current debian, I'll try to update it if I''m too bored this weekend!).
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
Hello all,
I'm in the middle of deciding what direction I want to go for my new home NAS.
I've never used SnapRAID, but I want to try it with OpenMediaVault.
Option 1: HP Chromebox w/ Intel Celeron 2955U 1.40 GHz, 4GB RAM, USB3, 1Gb NIC, custom firmware to install other OS.
Option 2: Banana Pi Pro w/1GB RAM, SATA Port Multiplier, 1Gb NIC.
The common gear: ICY DOCK Black Vortex MB174U3S-4SB 4 Bay USB 3.0 & eSATA and 3x 3TB WD Red drives.
I've read SnapRAID works better with SATA drives, but the Banana Pi Pro only has 1GB of RAM so will that be an issue with the amount of storage I'm starting with? I'll add a 4th 3TB drive later on.
Any guidance on this?
Thanks!
What is your budget and size requirements? Both of those seem like hacky solutions to trust data to in my opinion when you can get something like the Dell T110 or the Lenovo TS140 for a couple hundred dollars and get a real computer. I know that $200+ is significantly more money than a Banana Pi Pro, but the hardware is also WAY better (Xeon/i3 CPU, 4GB of RAM, multiple SATAIII heads, etc). They both go on sale all the time, so keep your eyes peeled (banana pun intended :) ). Also, these computers are both very quiet and idle at less than 40 watts, so not too bad on the home friendly aspect either.
I'd at least try to start with 2GB of RAM to give yourself a buffer to prevent out of memory issues. Although, newer versions of SnapRAID require far less RAM than it used to (even then, it wasn't that bad).
Thanks rubylaser. My budget: cheap. I'm just trying to throw together a solution that will be cheap to buy and run along with some stability. I already own the ChromeBox, but I've read a doc that says SnapRAID and USB3 don't always work well together. I don't want a large-ish box like the ones you've listed althought I agree those would be a more desirable solution. Thnx!
So, you are going to run (4) external USB3 drives with all associated wiring and power bricks, but a mid-tower ATX case that's quiet with everything enclosed safely inside that uses enterprise parts seems too big?
Sorry sarcasm :) Anyways, I undestand the desire for small and cheap. I honestly woudn't run my important home data off USB devices, but that is your call. USB can work, but I would want to have a decent CPU and at least 2GB of RAM, so your Chromebox should work. I would not buy the Banana Pi Pro as that seems like a waste of money when if you saved a little more you could get a real computer.
Maybe investigate some mini-itx cases like these to migrate into in the future...
http://www.amazon.com/SilverStone-Technology-Mini-ITX-Computer-DS380B/dp/B00IAELTAI/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1454975065&sr=8-9&keywords=silverstone+itx&tag=servecom-20
http://www.u-nas.com/xcart/product.php?productid=17610
Please check out the ICY DOCK Black Vortex enclosure I listed in the first post.
http://amzn.to/20JEUlS
The ChromeBox hooked to this enclosure via USB3, of course the LED will have to be turned off. One USB cable and two power bricks. I'd say that not too bad...esspecially if I need to replace a part or expand.
Thanks for the help.
Well frankly in the triple digits ($$$) you're better off with any small desktop PC (with at least 4 SATA ports which I guess most have) but now that you've got the hardware ... I don't know. You can try with the chromebook first. I did have my NAS for a long while and multiple hardware generations on USB (2!), as long as it gaves you no grief and it is stable it should be fine for basic stuff. However snapraid can be quite intensive, what I did (and it worked perfectly even with huge drives) was basically incremental backup with rsync --backup and some options to save all changed/deleted files at each run. It worked well even on the NSLU2, probably the first device of this kind (think 32MB RAM, it still runs some kind of current debian, I'll try to update it if I''m too bored this weekend!).