Re: [gentoo-user] NAS and replacing with larger drives

[Frank Steinmetzger]

Am Thu, Dec 08, 2022 at 06:37:52AM -0600 schrieb Dale:
> Howdy,
>
> I've pretty much reached a limit on my backups.  I'm up to a 16TB hard
> drive for one and even that won't last long.  Larger drives are much
> more costly.  A must have NAS is quickly approaching.

Hear hear, ye olde story. ;-)

> Path one, buy a NAS, possibly used, that has no drives.  If possible, I
> may even replace the OS that comes on it or upgrade if I can.

Difficult in consumer-grade stuff, but there are ways, like for Synology:
NetBSD on old Synology hardware:
https://wiki.netbsd.org/ports/sandpoint/instsynology/
And another alternative OS for Synology: https://xpenology.com/forum/

However, even though Synology’s current trend of development is a little
concerning with vendor lock-in and hardware restrictions in their newest
devices, why not use the built-in software? It still is very good and easy
to use and offers all you need like HTTP/HTTPS, FTP, CIFS, SSH, Dav etc. It
uses btrfs or ext4 internally.

Disclaimer: I have no first-hand experience with any of those devices, my
knowledge comes from news about new devices and stuff that I read in a PC
tech forum. Qnap’s software quality does not compete with Synology, and they
also have a worse security track record. So don’t hook it up to the Internet
directly.

> I'm not looking for fancy, or even RAID.  Just looking for a two bay NAS
> that will work.

Why just two? Sooner or later, it will become cramped again. Go for four
bays and leave them empty for the time being.

> First, what is a DAS?  Is that totally different than a NAS?  From what
> I've found, a DAS is not what I'm looking for since I want a ethernet
> connection and the ability to control things over the network.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct-attached_storage, you are
right: no ethernet, but direct connection to the host. A beefed-up external
drive enclosure, if you will (from the little understanding I got from the
article).

> It seems DAS lacks that feature but not real sure.  I'm not sure I can
> upgrade the software/OS on a DAS either. 

There is no software, it is just a drive bay and the host that you hook it
up to does all the logic work.

> Next thing.  Let's say a NAS comes with two 4TB drives for a total of
> 8TB of capacity from the factory, using LVM or similar software I
> assume.

AFAIK, consumer NASes don’t use LVM. Probably only standard Raid-1/5/6/10,
JBOD or single disk access.

> Is that limited to that capacity or can I for example replace one or both
> drives with for example 14TB drives for a total of 28TBs of capacity?

Sure, why not? But then I’d buy one without any drives from the start and
install the drives later myself. I wouldn’t know what to do with those small
drives if I replaced them with something larger right away.

> If one does that, let's say it uses LVM, can I somehow move data as well
> or is that beyond the abilities of a NAS?

What do you mean by move? AFAIK, Synology offers SSH access, but I have no
idea what you can do with it in terms of plumbing. And why would you? It is
supposed to do everything under the hood. But as I said, I don’t expect any
of those to use LVM in the first place.

> Could it be done inside my computer for example?

With a DAS, you could. ;-) But if push comes to shove, pull out the drives
and hook them up to your “puter”.


> Path two, I've researched building a NAS using a Raspberry Pi 4 8GB as
> another option.  They come as parts, cases too, but the newer and faster
> models of Raspberry Pi 4 with more ram seem to work pretty well.

Just today, in a forum thread about a new Synology with underwhelming
hardware features, people were posting alternatives. One of them was
https://kubesail.com/homepage. Currently it’s only a small case with
2×2.5″. But they also announced a soon-to-come 5×3.5″.

> The old slower models with small amounts of ram don't fair as well.  While
> I want a descent speed, I'm not looking for or expecting it to be
> blazingly fast.

Only the very old devices with puny ARM chips were so slow they couldn’t
saturate Gbit ethernet—with and without encryption. Synologies of recent
years with a Celeron J4000 will have no problem. Current models with AMD
Ryzen R1600 won’t either, but draw much more power in idle and have no
graphics unit. OTOH, they gain ECC memory support.

> I just wonder, if from a upgrade and expansion point of view, if building
> a NAS would be better.

Regardless of whether DIY or OOTB, a NAS is much more practical than a
collection of external single enclosures. Given the rate of your growth and
need of space, I do recommend some kind of RAID for resilience against hard
disk failure. Does LVM offer this at all? TrueNAS runs from a USB stick and
uses ZFS under the hood.

> I've also noticed, it seems all Raspberry things come with a display port.

My Pi 3B has HDMI – and HDMI only.

> That means I could hook up a monitor and mouse/keyboard when needed.  That
> could be a bonus.  Heck, I may can even put some sort of Gentoo on that
> thing.  :-D

You could, but this is either a sink-hole for time, or you need to get up to
speed with cross-compiling and binhosts. I went with the standard Debian and
evaluate Arch from time to time. But I do run Gentoo on my DIY NAS with an
i3-2000. Gentoo has ZFS in portage without overlays, which–for me–is one of
its biggest appeals.

> One reason I'm wanting to go this route, I'm trying to keep it small and
> able to fit inside my fire safe.

How small is small? Given your needs, two bays seem very constrained. And if
four bays don’t fit, consider a dedicated safe – if it is worth the expense.

> I plan to buy a media type safe that is larger but right now, it needs to
> fit inside my current safe.

OK. But then it is pointless IMHO to buy a two-bay device now and a four-bay
later. You spend more money, you need to migrate and it is not ecological.

> One thing I'd like to have no matter what path I go down, the ability to
> encrypt the data.  My current backup drives are encrypted and I'd like
> to keep it that way.  If that is possible to do.

Not sure about that with Synology (it’s probably a small Internet search
away). ZFS has encryption built-in these days. Btrfs does not, it is only
planned, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Btrfs. You could use an
encryption layer on your host, so the NAS only receives encrypted data, but
that sounds cumbersome.

> I suspect the Raspberry option would since I'd control the OS/software
> placed on it.  I could be wrong tho. 

Your OS, your features. ;-) I also encrypt my NAS. My main “threat” scenario
is having to send in a drive. That’s why I did not set up any barrier for
decryption: the keyfile just sits on the root partition on the system SSD. I
was thinking about having the keyfile on a remote device like my pi, though.

> One last thing.  Are there any NAS type boxes that I should absolutely
> avoid if I go that route?

As I mentioned, QNAP struggles a little with security. But as long as you
don’t hook it up to the Internet, that shouldn’t be a problem. On the plus
side, they are a little cheaper. But I don’t have any concrete advice to
that question.

> I think the DAS thing may be one for me to avoid but I'm not for sure what
> limits it has.

Well, it has no network, because it has no computer inside. Advantages: one
less system to maintain. Disadvantage: no distributed access, you basically
put the share features onto the host to which you attach the DAS. This also
includes any file system magic like your beloved LVM.

> Thoughts?  Info to share?  Ideas on a best path forward?  Buy already
> built or build?

Well, I gave you a piece of my mind. I like tinkering with storage. I am
also still deliberating how to increase my storage. I am at 80 % of my NAS,
which runs 4×6 TB in a RaidZ2 (meaning 2 of the 4 disks—50 % of gross
capacity—is for redundancy). I could:

- Reduce use of space by re-encoding my 3 TB of DVD copys. I wanted to do
  that anyways and it could recover more than 2 TB.
- Install bigger drives. Maybe start out with 2×14 TB and migrate
  everything. This will lower power consumption, but leaves me with four
  6-year-old, but still perfectly working NAS drives.
- go to RaidZ1, losing redundancy but gaining 50 % space.
- Buy a case with more slots and buy more disks, like the new Jonsbo N1
  (which I also found in the thread I mentioned above) with five slots:
  https://www.jonsbo.com/en/products/N1.html
  Or the Fractal Node 304 with six bays:
  https://www.fractal-design.com/products/cases/node/node-304/black/
  But both cases require me to buy a new PSU. My current case
  (https://www.inter-tech.de/productdetails/SC-4100_EN.html) uses a tiny TFX
  one, and that one was very expensive (Gold rated).

  My board has “only” six SATA ports. I want to avoid installing a PCIe
  card, because that will increase power draw. But since it is a server
  board, it has an on-board USB type A, which would allow me to go to
  TrueNAS and use all six SATAs for disks.

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