Re: [gentoo-user] Rearranging hard drives and data.

[Frank Steinmetzger]

Am Sat, Dec 19, 2020 at 07:02:23AM -0600 schrieb Dale:
> Howdy,
>
> A friend donated a older PC to me the other day.  It's a fairly nice rig
> despite its age.

It may be adequate enough for demanding desktop tasks, but you want it to
sit around 24/7 and serve files. To me, that looks like overkill.

> 9750 quad core CPU running at 2.4GHz.  It currently has 4GBs but
> planning to upgrade to 8GBs, its max.  It has a ATI Radeon HD3200 video
> card.

If you just want to use it as a file server, think of removing the video
card. This will save considerable power.

> The power supply was replaced a few years ago.  I may buy a new one that
> is a little bit larger. It has a 300 watt now, a 400 watt would give
> some breathing room for start up power for the extra drives.

Even if a drive draws up to 30 W, this leaves room for about six drives plus
100 W for CPU and the board. This is just peak power at boot, so even if it
reaches 300 W, the PSU should be fine (as long as it is not a cheap Chinese
firecracker). The certified PSU efficiencies apply within 20..80 %, so a PSU
rated for 400 W will be considerable less efficient (which also means
produces more heat) below 80 W of power draw. My PC idles at 30 W with one
HDD and an i5-4590 (65 W CPU, but at idle, they're basically all the same
these days). And even that value disappointed me when I build the PC 6 years
ago. The board needs to be properly designed, too.

> I'm thinking of making a storage system out of it.  I think it is
> referred to as a NFS.  It should be plenty fast enough to move data
> around.

Gigabit Ethernet maxes out at 117 MB/s. So even without RAID, every
not-too-old HDD can max that out.

> Only downside, not many spaces for hard drives.  I see only two
> spaces for hard drives with one already taken.  There is a open area
> that I could add a drive cage, I think.  May can fit two or three hard
> drives in that.  There's also a 5 1/4 space too.  Another downside tho,
> I'm thinking of going to SAS drives.  If I can afford that, it will be a
> more dependable setup.

You often mention your sometimes tight budget. From that perspective, I
can't quite follow that thought. The cheapest SAS cards I can find in a
local price search engine start at 70 €, whereas the cheapest 4×SATA card
can be had for 21 €. Looking at 4 TB WD drives as an example, the cheapest
SAS drive started at 145 €, but a WD RED NAS drive (intended for
uninterrupted operation) at 93 €. So just the SAS premium will set you back
as much as an entire entry-level PC.

> Another option, find another case.  If I recall correctly tho, some
> puter makers don't use standard layouts for the mobo screw holes. 

Well, if you buy from a well-known brand, I don't think you will have any
problem there (even if it is their cheapest model).

> I could also have a open system with everything just mounted on the wall
> in open air.

I don't think that's a good idea. I remember you talking of lousy power
utility reliability, and from what I heard over the years of the general
standards of US rural power cabling (of course I'm no expert or even just
savvy), I'd be worried of interference. I'd also be concerned about damage
through physical contact (i.e. you bump into it, or something falls against
it).

> Of course, another option is to make this a media system and use those
> little raspberry type thingys for the NFS.

I am running raspi as a low-level server (pi-hole, Nextcloud, contacts and
calendar server). It's a model 3B with a quadcore SoC and 1 Gig of ram,
currently running raspbian (I am currently examining arch). For what you
want, it is not powerful enough. Even the gen 4 does not suffice. It has
gigabit ethernet (the 3 only has 100 Mb), but has no SATA connectors. So you
either need a SATA bridge or are limited to USB enclosures. It has two
USB-3-Sockets. Either way, you need a separate power supply for 3,5″ drives.
On [0], the Pi 4 is benchmarked and reaches 363 Mb/s over USB. That is a
third of Gigabit speed. Not counting overhead for filesystems.

> Or, buy a used NFS off ebay, kinda pricey last I looked.

I built a NAS in a for-purpose cubic case [1] a few years ago. The system
was costly, maybe even unnecessarily high, because I went with a niche
Mini-ITX form factor, ZFS (for redundancy), thus ECC RAM, thus a server
board that supports ECC. On the other hand, that board supports staggerd
spin-up. At idle that system slurps around 50 Watts with a 300 W gold PSU.
It has four WD RED 6 TB drives and a small SSD for the system.

It is actually the last Gentoo system that I run and maintain. :'-( System
upgrades puts some heat stress on the drives because they sit right atop the
CPU due to the crammed dimensions, but since it's a server, the package
count is hugely reduced compared to a desktop. And since I don't keep it
running 24/7, I usually do upgrades right after bootup.

My case is quite cheaply-made, with sharp edges here and there and some
design flaws. An adequate, high-quality alternative might be [2].

A tailored-to-the-use-case device might be your best option. You may not be
able to use that hand-me-down machine at all, but I think it is unsuitable
for 24/7 storage anyway. When I built my NAS, I was considering an HP
Microserver, which has the same general specs as my system, but comes in a
one-stop package including an optimised mainboard (think of HDD cabling).

> Either of those would likely pull less power.  I'm sure the little
> raspberry thingy would pull very little power.

That indeed. But 3.5″ disks would need their own power supply anyway.

> Heck, even fans can add up. 

For the raspi itself you would need no fans. But there are dedicated
external enclosures that have no mainboard and OS themselves, they are just
multibay enclosures that are connected to a host, usually through eSATA or
USB. For an example see [3]. However, I don't have any knowledge about their
suitability for a storage server.

Yet another alternative is an actual off-the-shelf NAS such as synology or
qnap. They don't run our preferred Linux and some even are mentioned in the
news due to security vulnerabilities in their admin interfaces. But they are
very efficient in their use of space and power. You can install applications
into them, some even do containers, but I'm not sure about youtube-dl and
friends.

> Would a small raspberry thingy be better in the long run from a light
> bill point of view?

Definitely, but it cannot handle what you intend to do (hook up multiple
3,5″ drives).

> Keep in mind, I plan it to run 24/7.  My TV is almost always on, if I'm
> home which is a LOT since I'm disabled. 

AFAIK, electricity is dirt cheap in the US. Here in bureaucratic Germany, we
pay between 25 and 30 €ct per kWh. But what also comes to my mind: Power
consumption is not just about what you pay. If you consume less, then
somewhere in the world there will also be less pollution. This is the hidden
cost that is not written on the price tag. If the majority of people thought
that way, it would really make a difference.


[0] https://magpi.raspberrypi.org/articles/raspberry-pi-4-specs-benchmarks
[1] https://www.inter-tech.de/en/products/ipc/storage-cases/sc-4100
[2] https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/chassis/tower/721/SC721TQ-250B2
[3] https://skinflint.co.uk/silverstone-towerstor-ts431u-v2-sst-ts431u-v2-71128-a1706726.html?hloc=uk

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