[XCSSA] Recommendations for a SAMBA/NAS device?

[X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio]

> On Thursday 21 May 2009, X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio wrote:
>> Actually Tweeks, I disagree with you :)
>>
>> Drives consume what like 15W per drive (I'll have to look it up but I
>> don't have much time as I'm in a break from training). You do not need
>> a RAID card to spin the drives down, either. 'hdparm' should be able
>> to take care of that, even on SATA drives.
>
> Maybe if you're running SW-RAID.. (blech!)... but no workie on most
> hardware
> RAID systems man.  You typically can't send direct drive level commands to
> the individual drives (unless you have one of the few magic RAID cards out
> there that allows this AND/or the kernel module that allows for this).

Actually, you mentioned LSI previously, and I have an LSI card. I haven't
figured out how to spin the drives down by invoking a command. Can this
only be done automatically (by configuring the RAID BIOS) do you know?

>
>
>> As for the CPU, modern procs chew up 100W of power. Even the low power
>> modern chips hum away at 65W. So, it indeed makes sense to use a lower
>> power CPU that draws 5-10W assuming that CPU is powerful enough for
>> your application (which a NAS qualifies). Those chips also throw off
>> far less heat (some can be totally cooled passively) which,
>> indirectly, impacts your cooling bills.
>
> Well.. even non-server grade (12-15W) drives in a large array (9 drives)
> is
> 135Watts.  But "real drives" (e.g. 15k cheetah drives or Hitachi SATA)
> idle
> at  15W.. But when in full seek, this can pop up 20 22watts (x9
> ~200watts!).

Well sure, but again, do we need 15k drives in our NAS? :) Even with GigE
we're still topping out at 125MB/sec. So if you build the right RAID, you
could hit that.

>
> So yeah.. going to a low power proc is a good idea.. but spinning down
> drives
> not in use gets you more power savings.
>
I agree totally. And, in fact, that's a big goal that I'm trying to
accomplish myself. Having trouble now, but that's partly because the OS
runs on the RAID drives (so it never spins down because of background
writes to log-files, etc.)

That said, both Seagate and WD are offering power-friendly drives.  It's
not amazing savings, but it could add up as you piont out.

>
>
>> Similarly, software RAID is probably all you need.
>
> Blech!  Tim.. You are dead to me!  ;)

:) I've run it. It's actually pretty hot when used in the right context.
Then again, there are times I wouldn't want to use it. But for a NAS,
particularly when using it with LVM, it's pretty neat. It can even do
RAID10 :)

Tim