BUILD Proposed low-energy NAS

[Glorious1]

For me, offsite backup is really only worthwhile for a small amount of data, my music and family photos. I can back those up in a free cloud service and small drive I keep at work. For the rest, I can live with the low probability of fire, flood, and theft, even the power supply frying all the drives.

My main need for backup, other than drive failure, is guarding against user error, which is much more likely. I could easily do something that would erase or screw up the data. What I do normally is check the data and see if it looks ok, then do a manual backup. Onsite backup is fine for that. And it's just more convenient and cheaper if it's in the same box.

Also, I have read enough on this forum about the multitude of ways that a pool can be easily lost, that I anticipate that as a real possibility. So backing up to another vdev in the same pool seems like a bad idea. That's why I was wondering if the subset of drives could be outside the pool, or maybe a second pool?

However, both rsync and replicating snapshots seem to be designed for going to other machines. Guess I will have to wait and see if I can trick it into writing to the same machine.

 

[Jailer]

So backing up to another vdev in the same pool seems like a bad idea. That's why I was wondering if the subset of drives could be outside the pool, or maybe a second pool?

However, both rsync and replicating snapshots seem to be designed for going to other machines. Guess I will have to wait and see if I can trick it into writing to the same machine.

You need to re read cyberjocks guide. You're not quite understanding the construct of a vdev and a pool.

What you are suggesting is mirroring your pool and yes that is possible. It' wouldn't be my first choice as a backup plan but it is possible.

 

[Glorious1]

OK, trying to be a good little noob, I re-read the relevant portions of the powerpoint, which I think is what you're referring to Jailer. Everything I read is consistent with what I said, so I don't see what I'm misunderstanding. Not to say I am not misunderstanding.

 

[Jailer]

Yes that is the guide. When you suggested backing up to a vdev in the same pool is what I was referring to. If you fully understand how a vdev and a pool are constructed you would know why that's not possible.

Not trying to nit pick at you, I just think it's important for you to understand the difference between the two and what exactly they are. I'd just hate to see you set up your pool thinking it's going to do what you want only to find out afterwards that it's not and that there is no to reverse what you've done other than to destroy the pool (and your data)and start over.

 

[Glorious1]

No, I appreciate the input. Now I kind of see, the vdev is not an independent unit you can do something with, the pool is really the unit that you write to and read from? Or maybe not. Guess I'll figure it out once I start playing with it.

 

[Ericloewe]

No, I appreciate the input. Now I kind of see, the vdev is not an independent unit you can do something with, the pool is really the unit that you write to and read from? Or maybe not. Guess I'll figure it out once I start playing with it.

Yes, you write to a pool. ZFS then decides what to do, from there.

You can't say "write A to Pool X vdev 1 and B to Pool X vdev 2".

 

[Glorious1]

OK, starting to hook up the SuperMicro A1SRi-2758F motherboard and a couple of questions have cropped up.

Front panel connections - I'm not sure how + and - on the wires should match up with the pin definitions:
Pins 15 and 16 are "3.3V" and "PWR LED". The wires are labeled "Power LED +" and "Power LED -"
Pins 13 and 14 are "3.3V Standby" and "HDD LED". Wires are labeled "HDD LED -" and "HDD LED +".
Just not sure if + or - goes on the pin labeled with voltage.

Another question on fans. This case, Lian Li PC-Q26, is really nice, but the four 120 mm fans it comes with are 3-pin, while the motherboard supports a 4th pin for pulse-width modulation to control fan speed according to temperature. I would appreciate a suggestion for good, quiet replacement fans that are reasonably priced.

 

[Ericloewe]

OK, starting to hook up the SuperMicro A1SRi-2758F motherboard and a couple of questions have cropped up.

Front panel connections - I'm not sure how + and - on the wires should match up with the pin definitions:
Pins 15 and 16 are "3.3V" and "PWR LED". The wires are labeled "Power LED +" and "Power LED -"
Pins 13 and 14 are "3.3V Standby" and "HDD LED". Wires are labeled "HDD LED -" and "HDD LED +".
Just not sure if + or - goes on the pin labeled with voltage.

Another question on fans. This case, Lian Li PC-Q26, is really nice, but the four 120 mm fans it comes with are 3-pin, while the motherboard supports a 4th pin for pulse-width modulation to control fan speed according to temperature. I would appreciate a suggestion for good, quiet replacement fans that are reasonably priced.

+ goes at 3,3V, Vcc or +
- goes at Gnd

 

[Glorious1]

Thanks! Now I see that 24-pin power connector is not latched on and pulled out while I was messing around. I put as much force on it as I dare. Is there a trick for getting it secured without breaking the board in half?

 

[Ericloewe]

Some PSU/motherboard combinations are easier to plug in than others. It should never require much insertion force, though. It's more about getting both parts to line up properly.

 

[DKarnov]

The SuperMicro Avoton/Rangeley MiniITX boards are quirky, because they're aimed at embedded applications. Be sure to read the manual carefully; I think the biggest gotcha is that you do NOT plug in the 24-pin ATX connect and the 4-pin 12V connector at the same time:

The 24-pin ATX power connector header (JPW1) is used to provide power to the motherboard. The 4-pin DC Power con- nector, located at J1, provides alternative 12V power source for space-restrained enclosures such as SC101i when JPW1 is not in use. The 4-pin HDD Power connector J3 provides power to onboard HDD devices.

Note 1: Do not use the 4-pin DC power at J1 when the 24-pin ATX Power at JPW1 is connected to the power supply.

If you're cost-sensitive, a little voltage-reducing fan controller might make more sense than replacing the fans with PWMs.

 

[Glorious1]

Thanks. Right, I read that and only hooked the 24-pin connector. Being a noob I read the 105-page manual almost word for word.

I think the problem with the connector fit may be that the house is pretty cool and the plastic hard, I'll try again after it has run and warmed things up for a while.

Re the fan controller, can such a device use the 4th pin on the motherboard or in some way respond to temperature? Or is it just a manual control?

 

[DaveFL]

Any thoughts on:

U-NAS NSC-800
A1SAi-2750F - Supermicro
ServeRaid M1015 - For more Disks

 

[Glorious1]

Just as I expected, building the hardware is relatively easy, getting it to work another thing altogether. I don't have a keyboard or monitor for the FreeNAS machine, I've more or less gathered from reading that it isn't needed with IPMI. But I'm in a bit of a gap between help documents and manuals.

I DID get IPMI connected from my laptop, using the dedicated IPMI ethernet port and giving it a permanent IP on my router. I used both IPMIview from SuperMicro and the web approach, which seems nicer and more complete. But I could never get into BIOS. So I went ahead and wrote the FreeNAS image to a USB flash drive and plugged it into the board. It seemed to start in FreeNAS (please see image of the KVM console and text console from IPMIview; I have no idea what the difference between those is).

Supposedly you get into BIOS by hitting Delete during the memory check. I've never seen a memory check, and typing delete repeatedly during bootup just seems to screw it up.

Another problem is the regular LAN ports don't seem to be working. I've got LAN1 and LAN2 plugged into the router but neither of them are showing up in the router management page - only the one dedicated to IPMI.

As always, I'd be grateful for some help.

 

[Ericloewe]

That's odd, never had a problem on my X10...

Maybe there's a reboot to BIOS option in the Java application or the web interface, as an alternative.

 

[DKarnov]

If you go into the IPMI web interface, you should be able to start the iKVM console redirector -before- powering up the actual server. The machine does not need to be 'on' for IPMI or that Java viewer to work, you just have to have it plugged in and the power supply switch on. You'll see a flashing green light on the motherboard once the IPMI is ready for use.

You can power it up from there and you should see the bootup sequence. Supermicro's BIOS tends to flash the prompt as it starts up the onboard controllers, but you should be able to get in. It may help to pull the FreeNAS USB stick out, so if you miss it you don't have to wait for the startup/shutdown sequence; I think it took me a few tries.

I don't see a 'Force boot to BIOS' type option in the IPMI or the iKVM on my A1SRi-2558F.

 

[Glorious1]

Thanks. Well I'm totally new to all this, so could be missing something that "goes without saying" for anyone else.

I have had that console on during bootup (but are there two different consoles, one text and one KVM?) I see you can get to it in two places in the web interface, but they seem to be the same? I've gone through all the IPMI controls I can find, I also don't find a BIOS boot option. I will try again without the FreeNAS stick, at least that's simpler.

Can you tell from the image in the left what system I'm in, that has the "mountroot" prompt? Is that FreeNAS, FreeBSD, UEFI, or what?
If it's FreeNAS, which it seems, why would it be asking for a boot device, or is it?

Do you have to install drivers before the LAN ports or anything will work? I also see in the manual there is a jumper to enable/disable the LAN ports - I'll have to check that to see if they put it on the wrong pins in the factory.

 

[rogerh]

I've got the A1SAM version (and 255F version) and IPMI works much better using a browser to contact the relevant IP and avoiding Ipmiview. Using whatever version of IE is in Windows 8 and installing the latest Java and permitting it to do things in the Java console. Both the console view and the KVM view work. But in fact the bios works very well in the KVM view, as does the ability to use a local .iso (on the Mac that has Windows 8) and offer it to the Supermicro system as a DVD drive. 'Delete' does work via this, but there is also a menu to send key strokes that might otherwise be trapped by the Mac. I don't think the non-IPMI NICs will show up until you install an operating system that uses DHCP by default.

 

[DKarnov]

The screenshot you have on the left should be the iKVM to use - from the IPMI it's Remote Control -> Console Redirection -> Launch Console. OS X will hufflepuff about security, I generally have to OK the download and then find the launch (x).jnlp in Downloads and run it from there; obviously you got past this part. You should be able to watch the boot sequence and interact with it from there. I don't recognize that particular screen/boot prompt, but I imagine it's one of the escapes from hitting Del after already being past the BIOS.

Also, in the chance that it's F2 and not Del to get into the BIOS, you'll need to use the iKVM's onscreen 'virtual' keyboard (Virtual Media -> Virtual Keyboard) as the Java software for whatever reason uses F2 as its close command.

 

[Glorious1]

The virtual keyboard did it! Thanks DKarnov. I don't know whether it was delete or an f-key (I was mashing virtual keys right and left), but apparently it never got sent over from the real keyboard. Now a lot more to explore . . .