Home NAS solution - How to contain costs

[TDi39]

Hello,

I'm building a NAS solution for my home lab, I don't have many requirements but it seems that whatever I choose, it's very expensive, mostly due to the ECC requirement, otherwise consumer class hardware could save me a lot of money.

Below is what I found out:

• MB and CPU make and model
  • Whatever I look here, it's incredibly expensive... Nothing less than 300 pounds.

• RAM 16GB ECC, I don't think I need more. 50 pounds if lucky, 100 pounds if DDR4.

• Hard drives
  • 256GB SSD boot drive, but also 128GB shouldn't be a problem
  • 3x12TB (600 pounds if lucky) (CRM disks), I still don't know exactly how ZFS works, but I aim to have RAID 1 sort of replica, 12TB worth of space is enough for me.

• Hard disk controllers
  • Standard SATA MB controller?

• Network cards
  • Standard MB network card? If I ever want to boost the network, I can take a 2.5 Gbit card that will be attached to my main development cluster, from where I backup VMs that are quite heavy. For the rest of the network ports instead, I don't have more than 1 Gbit ports in my switch/router anyway, plus it's not a requirement from my side to go beyond 1 Gbit.

Online I see many people with super NAS at home, their requirements are always much higher than mine, so I wonder if there is a way to lower down the cost in my case, thanks.
I backup 5-6 machines but they don't cause a huge volume of data transfer, it's little stuff apart the 1st time obviously.
The main backup are VMs, but they will be backed every 2 days or so.
If I implement a snapshot solution for the entire M2 I use, actually it's gonna be much less writing on the NAS, that improvement will come later, just the time to automate it.

This enterprise class setup could be cost me a lot of troubles, and troubles means money, if something breaks, it's not easy to find those components, or because they are too old, or because they are not available.
Also, if something breaks, I don't have other components to test what works and what doesn't, even a simple RAM stick broken could cause me a lot of troubles. I won't have the option to bring this enterprise hardware to a technician that is more equipped than me with hardware and troubleshooting tools.
I could end up just replacing everything just for one component broken, apart HDDs and SSD...

 

[Torrone]

If your use case allows it, you might consider abandoning TrueNAS and ZFS for a simpler (but robust) system based on OpenMediaVault for example.

 

[TDi39]

If your use case allows it, you might consider abandoning TrueNAS and ZFS for a simpler (but robust) system based on OpenMediaVault for example.

Thanks for the answer, I'm not sure about the difference between them, but I see that OpenMediaVault is a much simpler system and it doesn't use ZFS.

I need to use my NAS for:
1. Personal files, they are also backed up on cloud
2. No videocamera footage for now and not anytime soon
3. VMs backups + OS backups
4. Time machine backups (once per hour, but I can heavily reduce it to 3 times a day for example, or only during working hours.
5. Total amount of data : not more than 8TB
The initial load up is gonna cause heavy load and I'll try to split, but the daily usage is pretty much in idle from every point of view.

 

[joeschmuck]

Please understand the ZFS is all about data integrity. That is the goal, 100% accurate data storage. Unfortunately when that is your goal, the hardware required hurts your wallet. If you do not require this kind of storage then there are other options as mentioned above. But if you had a business to run then I'd recommend ZFS. For home stuff, probably not need to but you need to make that decision.

 

[TDi39]

It seems there is only the console, I'm quite familiar with Linux and Debian, but that could slow down all my setup...
Also the troubleshooting may become a great time lost...

 

[TDi39]

Please understand the ZFS is all about data integrity. That is the goal, 100% accurate data storage. Unfortunately when that is your goal, the hardware required hurts your wallet. If you do not require this kind of storage then there are other options as mentioned above. But if you had a business to run then I'd recommend ZFS. For home stuff, probably not need to but you need to make that decision.

Thanks, I ended up with TrueNAS because I don't see another cool project around.

QNAP is a joke, Synology less but still too much for sport, I saw only TrueNAS as the option for a reliable storage.
Yes, I can afford to lose my data because they will be always on an USB3 HDD (powered by UPS with the NAS) + cloud, but it doesn't mean I want to lose them from the NAS, + the NAS entire setup for example which takes a while to recreate.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Buy cheap - buy twice.

My personal recommendation for a "minimum viable TrueNAS":

• Mainboard Supermicro A2SDi-4C-HLN4F - 415€
• Optional: Supermicro SC721 TQ-350 case - 340€. Any 100€ case will also do, of course. This one provides great expandability for the future and a great form factor. And it's quiet. Power supply, hot plug back plane included in this case/price.
• Memory: 16 GB in 2 modules Samsung 8 GB DDR4 registered ECC - 100€. If you can afford it get 32 GB in 2x 16.
• Boot drive: Transcend MTS400, 32 GB, M.2 2242 - 35€
• As many 3.5" SATA disk drives in whatever size you like - minimum 2, maximum 4.

So that's with the "official Supermicro enclosure" 890€. Plus disks, of course. Current prices in Germany including VAT.

That fits all the "recommended Enterprise blah" checkboxes and will serve you for years.

Yes, that's quite a mouthful for private use but for a small business, a freelancer who values their data, ... come on. It's an investment. It will easily outlive your first set of disks so you can replace them 5 years later with a set three times the size. Or start with 2, then add 2 more later ... whatever.

HTH,
Patrick

 

[Torrone]

You don't need high availability or large access capacity from what I understand. Moreover, 8TB is quite easy to manage nowadays.

Considering your usage, if it will not change in the future, there are two questions to consider:
- How long does it take with your internet connection to retrieve your cloud backups?
- Can you afford to wait that long if you lose your local backups?

If the answer to the second question is yes, I don't think you need such a sophisticated (and expensive) system. You can just grab an old machine, install Debian stable and set up an automatic cloud sync.
OpenMediaVault exists as a Debian metapackage, but it's not even necessary for backup.

You can always mirror your disks for convenience.
However, make sure your cloud service is really good.

 

[TDi39]

Initially I wanted to stay away from a NAS due to the cost, but recently it became necessary due to the volume of machines, VMs and disks that I need to manage... Too much manual work, plus, even automations are way too many.

A NAS would solve all this no sense manual work.

I rely on cloud, but I use encryption, which means that cloud sync is not for me anyway, unless I encrypt the data before.
My internet connection is decent, but restoring everything could take me hours, plus days with setups included, it depends what I'm able to backup and what I left behind :D . With VMs is easy, other files much less.
I can afford this downtime, it's just a pain, that's it.
What should never happen is if I lose all the 3 locations I mentioned :D . I will survive, but I'll cry for a long time.

How is TrueNAS with encryption?
I encrypt some VMs and other files too, not all the files are encrypted and I have a requirement to encrypt all the data anyway on the NAS.
I will create something like 5-6 mount points and all of them have to be encrypted.

 

[Etorix]

ECC is not an absolute requirement, but if you're buying to build the NAS it's best to "do it right".
The trick to contain costs is to buy second-hand/refurbished server hardware: motherboard, CPU, RAM (second-hand RDIMM comes out distinctly cheaper than consumer UDIMM). Basically anything but the data drives.

SATA ports from chipsets are fine, and so is the 1 GbE NIC on the motherboard… as long as it is Intel (i210 is the lower grade of "server-class" NIC) and not Realtek.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

@TDi39 If you go with a decent system encryption can be enabled per dataset and will not be a noticeable burden on your NAS system. Any modern CPU supports the major symmetric algorithms in hardware. TrueNAS will use that.
Likewise for compression. Enabling the default (LZ4) compression is a no-brainer, because CPUs outperform your disk bandwidth so reading compressed and delivering uncompresses is actually faster.

 

[TDi39]

ECC is not an absolute requirement, but if you're buying to build the NAS it's best to "do it right".
The trick to contain costs is to buy second-hand/refurbished server hardware: motherboard, CPU, RAM (second-hand RDIMM comes out distinctly cheaper than consumer UDIMM). Basically anything but the data drives.

SATA ports from chipsets are fine, and so is the 1 GbE NIC on the motherboard… as long as it is Intel (i210 is the lower grade of "server-class" NIC) and not Realtek.

Thanks, I'll check what network card I have.
I already have a system, it's AMD Ryzen 5 1600 plus MSI motherboard, 2 combinations to stay away from as far as I read from the documentation...
I'm afraid I'll need to buy an used enterprise system, brand new would cost me 1600-1800 pounds, used probably 1100.
I just wonder how long an used system would survive on the long run, especially the PSU, maybe it's worth to take this one brand new.

@TDi39 If you go with a decent system encryption can be enabled per dataset and will not be a noticeable burden on your NAS system. Any modern CPU supports the major symmetric algorithms in hardware. TrueNAS will use that.
Likewise for compression. Enabling the default (LZ4) compression is a no-brainer, because CPUs outperform your disk bandwidth so reading compressed and delivering uncompresses is actually faster.

Compression? Interesting, do you mean on each file? Or on a particular mount point for specific needs?

 

[TDi39]

Wait, I've seen people running VMs, containers and other things on top of the NAS solution provided by TrueNAS... I didn't even know it was possible...
Anyway, I don't want to do that due to security, my data can't stay in the same machine where I also develop and sometimes I may accidentally download some malware...
Also, things like NAT or bridging are gonna give me an hard time I guess, unless I have multiple network cards, but will TrueNAS manage the network properly or I do need to configure it manually like I would do in Linux?

I'm not sure about the objectives of other people, but I wouldn't mix up these things for security reasons... Am I wrong?
If this was really safe, I wouldn't mind to buy a proper enterprise machine right now.

 

[danb35]

Something I haven't seen suggested so far is used hardware. I know availability outside of .us can vary, but there's used hardware on the market at pretty much every capacity level, and at a considerable savings compared to new. At the low end, the HPE MicroServer Gen8 is a pretty attractive option--fairly compact, quiet, decent server-grade features like ECC support and remote administration. Only four drive bays, and they aren't hot-swap, but on a smaller system that isn't that big of an issue. I used one of these to build a NAS for my parents, and it's been going strong for a couple of years now.

 

[jct]

My personal recommendation for a "minimum viable TrueNAS":

Utterly sensible and hard-earned wisdom.

For the sake of exploration and discovery, however, I'd still like to name-check the ODROID H3, maybe the Seeeduino Odyssey or reServer, dare I even say ZimaBoard in this context. All of which might potentially work with TrueNAS SCALE, or would comparatively thrive with some other solution.

 

[DigitalMinimalist]

Try to get a used Asrock Rack X470D4U, use your 1600X, buy 2x16/32GB unbuffered DDR4 ECC RAM and you have a nice efficient setup

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Compression? Interesting, do you mean on each file? Or on a particular mount point for specific needs?

Per dataset, i.e. on the block level. It's on by default and you won't even notice, probably.

 

[HoneyBadger]

Something I haven't seen suggested so far is used hardware. I know availability outside of .us can vary, but there's used hardware on the market at pretty much every capacity level, and at a considerable savings compared to new. At the low end, the HPE MicroServer Gen8 is a pretty attractive option--fairly compact, quiet, decent server-grade features like ECC support and remote administration. Only four drive bays, and they aren't hot-swap, but on a smaller system that isn't that big of an issue. I used one of these to build a NAS for my parents, and it's been going strong for a couple of years now.

From a quick poke around the .co.uk TLD of everyone's favorite auction site, I found a couple options (and sent a particularly good one to @TDi39 privately) - but any single-socket tower style server from even the Sandy Bridge era should fit the bill quite nicely here. A good once-over for potential dust and fan issues, maybe a repaste of the CPU if you're feeling so inclined, and they're often a fantastic option for the home user who's just after a way to store some personal files at gigabit speeds.

 

[Etorix]

I'm not sure about the objectives of other people, but I wouldn't mix up these things for security reasons... Am I wrong?

Having extra services on the NAS to serve the local LAN should be safe. Security issues come with exposing the NAS to the wider world. Use a VPN to access the NAS and its services remotely.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

You can run publicly accessable services in jails and VMs. The security implications are no different than with any other virtualisation platform. Many users seem to run Nextcloud in a jail.