[XCSSA] Tips for DIY NAS?

[X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio]

Just to give everyone an update, the direction I'm thinking of going  
is as such:

* 1Ghz VIA C7 Motherboard/CPU Mini-ITX with on-board Gigabit LAN and 2  
SATA ports (JetWay J7F4K1G2E)
* 1GB DDR2 RAM
* SANS DIGITAL ST-SAN-CS1T Compact Flash CF to 2.5” SATA Enclosure
* 8GB SanDisk Ultra-II CF Card

All that runs about $216 ($230 with shipping) from NewEgg. I wanted to  
get a hot-swap enclosure but I don't really need that to get things  
working. I already have 3 160GB SATA drives (in a RAID5) and, while  
that's a bit small, I figure I can start there since I already have  
them and they work.

The VIA C7 is a fairly nice chip. It's not amazingly fast compared to  
the newer VIA Nano, but I can't find any boards that ship with the  
ultra-low power version (the standard version draws 17W). No fan  
required, and the thing runs at like 5W. Actually, I think it's even  
faster than my current file-server (An Athlon something or other).

The only thing I need to figure out is how to power down the drives.  
I'm using a CF card for the OS, so no problem there (I looked at full- 
blown SATA SDD drives, but they are easily 2x the cost). I'll be using  
my existing LSI MegaRAID controller and I'm not sure how power down  
states are handled (if at all). Going to figure this out before I  
order any of this stuff since if I can't spin the drives down, there  
isn't much point. If I'm stuck I may just sell the LSI and opt for a  
RAID1 using the on-board SATA ports. That means I'd have to buy 2 new  
drives though, making the cost go up (and I don't think I'd make a lot  
back from selling the LSI RAID).

OS of choice is going to be Ubuntu. Actually, switching from Gentoo  
(*shivers*) to Ubuntu was partly what sparked this - I've just had the  
idea on the back burner for a while. I thought about using FreeNAS but  
I'd rather have the configurability of a regular Linux distro.

Thoughts welcome if anyone else has done this before. Unlike my  
MidiBox stuff, I should be able to throw something together somewhat  
quickly once I pull the trigger on the parts.

Werd,

Tim S.



On Mar 5, 2009, at 8:31 PM, X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio  
wrote:

> I was checking out CPU magazine on the plane ride home today and was
> reading up on commercial NAS solutions. They all look pretty cool but
> seem to be very expensive or not configurable enough. I already have a
> nice LSI SATA-RAID (4-drive) and, in fact, already have a file-server.
> The problem is that it's loud and consumes too much juice. That's one
> thing the commercial solutions have up on me - power usage.
>
> I've been trying to piece together a VIA C7-based machine, but all the
> boards I have found seem to be too small. I actually would love a  
> MIPS-
> based solution (just because I jones for RISC :) but I have found even
> less info about that.
>
> Granted, all I need is a PCI/PCI-X slot for the controller, but I'd
> like to have a 1x PCI-E slot for future expansion. I was also thinking
> of having it boot up off CompactFlash or something else that would
> otherwise allow me to keep the RAID separate from the OS drive.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Tim S.
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