Servers and NAS

[re:FORM]

My renderfarm is gaining size, and I'm aware that my current network configuration is not the best!

I have one workstation and three nodes (soon to expand further). At the moment, one of the nodes doubles as a file-server (backburner manager too). Everything seems to work OK. No sign of the fileserver getting overloaded even when its having to deal with rendering.

What's the best/cheapest way to add a dedicated file server to my network? I was looking at standalone NAS solutions but I have concerns that they might not perform as well as a proper server computer. Is that the case?

Alternatively I was looking at a 1u rackmounted server with hotwappable drives. What kind of spec would be suitable for serving a renderfarm of 10 nodes. I use alot of large textures, maxfiles, and DR.

My requirements are :

• Expandable
• RAID 5 or 10 (speed and stability)
• A method of offsite backup, ie a hotswappable slot for taking weekly backups offsite.

Any recommendations?

[Joost Ink]

my recommendation would be: Linux!

i was in the same situation a while back and I installed ubuntu server on one of my old machines, and I am very satisfied.
At first it seems complicated to set it up, but actually it is fairly simple, the only thing you have to do manually is put a few text lines in the samba configuration, but there is so much info on the web to find out how to do it (it was too much info for a noob like me, it can be difficult to find the info you really need) but even I got it working!

and it is free as well, not unimportant these days. You can use your old hardware and a good big harddrive.

oh, and for backup I just use an external harddrive with usb that backs up everything every night with the free syncBack software.

[re:FORM]

Yea, I think a selfbuild will work out cheapest.

This is the kind of thing I'm looking for, but at £480 without any drives its pretty steep !
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...40&subcat=1239

[Joost Ink]

not only cheaper, I might be wrong though, but I think a dedicated fileserver like linux would be faster, more robust and reliable than any NAS.
Especially for the filebombing that I do all the time with huge and lots of files.
Also I think that it can handle several nodes writing at once better then any NAS.
In my understanding a NAS is great for a small bussiness that serves a few users that write and read a few documents a day.
But like I said, I might be wrong there.

maybe some network expert here can tell you more.

[re:FORM]

Yep, that's my thinking too.... would be interested to see the benchmark results to back it up though!

[suurland]

A NAS is really slow, only aound 15-20mb/s with the new drobo you get more like 30-50 when you use firewire 800.

And you say you want something hotswappable so you can bring home disks with backups, a drobo might be hotswappable but bringing home a disk won't get you far as it's raid and the data on a single disk is only partial.

If you want something that is fast and that can be accessed from multiple machines then it gets very expensive if it's NAS solution, would be a lot cheaper to build one yourself.

but you still need a second backup solution that you can bring with you home.

[re:FORM]

Yep,
I'd imagine that I'd have 2-3 drives in raid, and then a hotswappable drive that backs up the contents of the raid array. The raid drives themselves don't need to be hotswappable.

[mdi]

A NAS is really slow, only aound 15-20mb/s with the new drobo you get more like 30-50 when you use firewire 800.

We get about 40mb/s (but Iv seen it go as high as 60mbs) over the network with ours, but ours was pretty expensive.

Qnap TS509 pro

[suurland]

I doubt you can chose to have some disks in raid and one that isn't.

i would go all raid and then maybe something like this: http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/hard-driv...ges-312747.php

/Thomas

[mdi]

I doubt you can chose to have some disks in raid and one that isn't.

i would go all raid and then maybe something like this: http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/hard-driv...ges-312747.php

/Thomas

with ours you can mix and match raid as you like. We have

raid 1 (2x1tb)
raid 1 (2x500mb)
and a single 250mb drive.

that fill up the 5 drives

[dellis]

We have a Linux box here. Very reliable. Just wish Autodesk would make a linux version of the backburner manager.

[sea2stars]

Build your own.

Freenas. Ubuntu Server.
External backup: Why not go with an eSata enclosure?

[re:FORM]

True enough! Forgot about the eSata option. Do I only need a eSata port back plate ? The old machine I have that I could convert to be my fileserver doesn't have any eSata ports as standard as far as I can remember.

Do you recon an MSI RS480M2-IL http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p...del=rs480m2-il with 1.8Ghz processor (Dual core) would be up to the challenge of a DR fileserver? It supports basic RAID "Supports dual channel native Serial ATA/RAID controller that will supply 150MB/s and support RAID 0 or RAID 1 "

Would a more up to date mobo with 300MB/s SATA interface offer any real benefit to the file server?

[tricky]

I would steer clear of anything RAID with SATA draives, even the RAID Edition versions. We have had 2 catastrophic array failures over the last 5 or 6 years where we haven't been able to recover data. Only thing that saved us were off-site backups. Always assume the worst will happen.

We have moved exclusively to SCSI - more expensive, but you get what you pay for.

[re:FORM]

hmmm.. Sage advice.
I'm keen to save money, but not with the loss of stability.
Can you recommend a SCSI card?