[XCSSA] U-Too, Tim S.?

[X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio]

OMG that was the baddest @$$ description of Gentoo I've ever heard... 

now add... 

Your super-model gf convinces you to be Mr. Mailman Wonderful's next victim... and you don't like men in that way... AT ALL!

THAT'S Gentoo!

--- On Thu, 5/21/09, xcssa-request at xcssa.org <xcssa-request at xcssa.org> wrote:

> From: xcssa-request at xcssa.org <xcssa-request at xcssa.org>
> Subject: XCSSA Digest, Vol 18, Issue 9
> To: xcssa at xcssa.org
> Date: Thursday, May 21, 2009, 12:00 PM
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> Today's Topics:
> 
>    1. Recommendations for a SAMBA/NAS
> device?
>       (X-otic Computer Systems of San
> Antonio)
>    2. Re: Recommendations for a SAMBA/NAS
> device?
>       (X-otic Computer Systems of San
> Antonio)
>    3. Re: Recommendations for a SAMBA/NAS
> device?
>       (X-otic Computer Systems of San
> Antonio)
>    4. Re: Recommendations for a SAMBA/NAS
> device?
>       (X-otic Computer Systems of San
> Antonio)
> 
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 20 May 2009 22:32:58 -0500
> From: X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio <xcssa at xcssa.org>
> Subject: [XCSSA] Recommendations for a SAMBA/NAS device?
> To: "The San Antonio Linux User's Group Mailing List"
>     <satlug at satlug.org>,   
> xcssa at xcssa.org
> Message-ID:
>     <869de8470905202032s5a9a53edu1df3fd1df7bc06db at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> 
> Hello everyone.
> 
> I'm trying to solve a major power issue at the house and am
> hoping
> that someone can shed some of their energy managment
> insight.
> 
> I've been using Zeus (my main gaming rig) as my fileserver
> now for a
> while but am wantnig to see what I can do about cutting
> down on my
> power usage.  Zeus is an Athlon64 running at about
> 3GHz with a total
> of 7 drives in it and a handful of other peripherals. The
> problem is
> that four of those drives are SATA 750GB drives and are
> hanging off of
> a Promise FastTrack TX130 RAID controller and the array is
> about 2TB
> and has pretty much everything on it concerning projects,
> documents,
> code, apps, etc. and is very important to have always
> available.
> 
> The problem I'm wanting to solve is how can I minimize
> power usage but
> still keep the array available?  I've pondered being
> able to seperate
> the drive array from the machine, but I'd have to have a
> machine to
> put it into and then I'd be back to the same problem
> again.
> 
> My thinking is that a low-powered machine, like an embedded
> system
> would do it nicely, but I want to make every effort I can
> to insure
> that the machine is as low-power as possible, and that the
> data on the
> array is preserved. I am thinking something like the
> Linksys NSLU2,
> but with one PCI slot instead of two USB ports, running off
> of flash
> or a laptop HDD in a Linux environment.
> 
> I've done some research into an embedded systems and was
> impressed
> with the Shuttle and VIA boards.  Something like that
> might prove
> ideal but I have never used one.  I have an Artigo
> pico-ITX board but
> it is very underpowered, I don't want to run into a similar
> situation
> with this project.
> 
> With that in mind, I'm looking for suggestions both from a
> hardware
> level and from a software level.
> 
> On the hardware side, I want a case that has three forward
> facing 5.25
> drives (the SATA drive cage I have occupies three bays) and
> some place
> to mount a laptop HDD (or if a flash drive is used, this
> requirement
> is mitigated).
> 
> The hardware must haves:
> - 10/100 Ethernet wired.  (GigE is a Nice-to-have, but
> not required)
> - One PCI slot (PCI-64bit is not needed)
> - One IDE port or Flash disk capable of a 4GB microdrive or
> similar
> sized CF card.
> - Power Supply that won't crap out on me in a year that can
> be easily
> field-replaced and can drive all components. (No fifty
> thousand power
> bricks and don't want another "e-machines" power supply)
> - Processor that is not massively overpowered, but not
> horribly
> underpowered either. Want to be able to run LAMP and SAMBA
> and support
> multiple concurrent users without issue. (Believe it or
> not, Windows
> works without issue in it's current configuration.)
> - Must have adequate cooling but not sound like a jet
> engine.  (Don't
> want it louder than a Compaq DL380 :P )
> 
> On the software side, must haves
> - Linux platform, with modular installation/removal. (Like
> apt-get,
> but recently got stung by Ubuntu so not too sure on
> software updates.)
> - SSH, Samba, Apache, NTP
> - Hardware support for the FastTrack TX430 is a
> _MUST_  I can't afford
> another RAID card and besides, where am I going to stash a
> TB of data
> for the conversion?
> 
> Nice-to-haves (both hardware and software)
> - Really don't want another desktop or server case around
> the house,
> something smaller is nice
> - A Web-based administration console like the NSLU2 or
> similar.
> 
> What do you guys recommend? What are your experiences with
> home-NAS
> solutions?  What issues did you encounter and what did
> you do to fix
> them?
> 
> 
> Thanks in advance.
> 
> FIRESTORM_v1
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 08:14:54 -0500
> From: X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio <xcssa at xcssa.org>
> Subject: Re: [XCSSA] Recommendations for a SAMBA/NAS
> device?
> To: xcssa at xcssa.org
> Message-ID:
>     <E8B3743B-99E7-4A1B-B0A1-E75B17451852 at moocowproductions.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed;
> delsp=yes
> 
> If you're lazy and can afford it (as these are a bit
> pricey):
> 
> http://drobo.com/ (need the NAS add-on)
> http://qnap.com/
> http://www.buffalotech.com/home/
> 
> That first one blew my mind, though I think it's just RAID
> + LVM +  
> cleverness + magic. I dunno though. Sure is convenient
> (watch the  
> video if you want to have your mind blown). It's really
> pricey though  
> with the NAS option.
> That last one has an open source hack you can drop in (and
> I think has  
> a generic version as well). Check Wikipedia for that. The
> top 2 both  
> run a type of Linux. I think the stuff from QNap is even
> Debian Linux.
> 
> Now if you want to throw down on your own, check out
> logicsupply.com.  
> They have tons low-power motherboards (mostly ITX), some
> with their  
> own CF slot on-board. They also offer specialized cases,
> including for  
> NAS use. I like these guys because of their VIA selection -
> they have  
> plenty of passively cooled motherboards with plenty of SATA
> ports for  
> RAID (in this case, software RAID is probably all you need,
> but don't  
> forget to add on LVM - see below) also with CF Cards and
> Gigabit  
> Ethernet. They aren't the cheapest but their select beats
> the crap out  
> of NewEgg's for these type of boards.
> 
> Otherwise, I just have been making a list on NewEgg. NewEgg
> also has  
> some off-the-shelf NAS units (such as the ones I mentioned
> above).
> 
> Now, to elaborate a bit on power, most of the off-the-shelf
> NAS units  
> that run Linux are running ARM, which is very low power and
> reasonably  
> performing. If you want to replicate all the features of a
> NAS (which  
> could include basis web-browsing / web-development) then a
> VIA C3, C7,  
> or Nano would be plenty. You can get an Intel Atom too but
> I think  
> Intel is late to the party on these things (and I'm tired
> of their  
> copy-cat like mentality and their general dominance). All
> of these  
> chips run at around 1Ghz or so, which is plenty for a NAS
> even with  
> web-services and/or a firewall. And we're talking 5-10W at
> full blast.  
> In fact, Nano (and I think Atom) are 64-bit capable, though
> that seems  
> a bit of overkill for a NAS - you won't need more than 1GB
> of RAM  
> unless you plan on doing something else with it.
> 
> Now all these are x86 boards. I haven't found any ITX (or
> ATX, for  
> that matter) motherboard with an ARM or MIPS chip that
> wouldn't cost  
> me like $1000. *shrug* Kinda sucks but oh well.
> 
> As for RAID. I currently have an LSI MegaRAID and it's
> pretty hot, but  
> I realized that for a home NAS, it's not really necessary.
> In fact,  
> Linux software RAID is really awesome. Sure, you might
> loose some  
> performance in certain cases, but if you don't have a
> battery on your  
> RAID controller, you should be using write-through cache,
> and your  
> write performance isn't boosted anyway. Plus, if we're
> talking about a  
> RAID5, you shouldn't be expecting amazing speed anyway. And
> Linux  
> Software RAID can be tied to, say, e-mail alerting, so you
> can get e- 
> mails instead of annoying beeps when a drive dies.
> 
> In fact, I'm putting my money where my mouth is - when I
> build my NAS,  
> I don't think I'm going to use the RAID card. In fact, if
> you are  
> stuck on hardware RAID, I'd be happy to sell it to you for
> a  
> reasonable price. That said, I haven't yet migrated my
> stuff off it  
> yet and that is still probably a few months away.
> 
> You could use RAID5 and stop there because software RAID
> lets you  
> extend that space. That's dangerous, yes, but it can be
> done online  
> and I am much more comfortable with a command-line utility
> than a  
> crazy RAID BIOS. Point is, you could pop in a drive,
> partition it, add  
> it to the RAID5, and then grow your file-system (resize2fs
> if you are  
> using ext3 - XFS has tools to do it as well - note in later
> versions  
> of Linux this can also be done online).
> 
> But I wouldn't stop there. Instead, also consider LVM. When
> you aren't  
> using it for snapshotting, the performance penalty of LVM
> is like 1%  
> (that is a number with a real benchmark behind it, although
> it was  
> MySQL-centric). The benefits are HUGE though. If you want
> to migrate  
> to a bigger RAID5, but do not want to add drives to the
> existing  
> RAID5, all you do is build the new one, plop LVM on it, and
> then tell  
> LVM to stop using your current RAID5 and move everything to
> your new  
> RAID5. Then resize your file-system. That's it. All while
> being  
> totally online. No rsync's needed! Similarly, if you just
> want to add  
> more space instead of replacing it, you can do that too.
> 
> 
> Now is all this is super-new, my suggestion would be to
> find a Linux  
> distro that has this baked in. I hate to say it, but I've
> been taking  
> the RHCE and I have to admit that Red-Hat has this stuff
> fairly  
> squared away. So consider CentOS. When I build mine,
> however, I'm  
> going Ubuntu with a distant possibility of using FreeBSD.
> For now,  
> though, my current box runs Gentoo.
> 
> I $&%^ing hate that distro. It's like being married to
> a super-model,  
> thinking she loves you and being naive that she will never
> cheat on  
> you. But then, BAM! There's her and your mailman knocking
> boots after  
> you came home from work. Not even home early. Just home at
> your  
> regular time. And like you're angry and sad and all torn
> up  
> emotionality, but then you keep coming back because you're
> lame and  
> she's a super-model.
> 
> That's Gentoo in a nutshell. Moving on ...
> 
> You could also look at NAS-centric stuff, like FreeNAS
> (Runs FreeBSD)  
> or OpenFilter (runs Linux, dunno which flavor). They have,
> I believe,  
> tools to help you manage things like RAID and LVM (though I
> have no  
> idea how they do that on FreeBSD - I assume using ZFS).
> 
> If I can ever make it to a meeting again, I'd be happy to
> show off my  
> new found RHCE (training, I don't have the cert yet :P)
> skills and  
> bust a demo of this stuff in action. I should be able to
> use our  
> current MySQL test box from work for this purpose - I don't
> think  
> anyone would mind. I think I could even do it in a VM.
> 
> Wow. Well that make me so excited I'm not late for work :)
> Ooops :)
> 
> Tim S.
> 
> On May 20, 2009, at 10:32 PM, X-otic Computer Systems of
> San Antonio  
> wrote:
> 
> > Hello everyone.
> >
> > I'm trying to solve a major power issue at the house
> and am hoping
> > that someone can shed some of their energy managment
> insight.
> >
> > I've been using Zeus (my main gaming rig) as my
> fileserver now for a
> > while but am wantnig to see what I can do about
> cutting down on my
> > power usage.  Zeus is an Athlon64 running at
> about 3GHz with a total
> > of 7 drives in it and a handful of other peripherals.
> The problem is
> > that four of those drives are SATA 750GB drives and
> are hanging off of
> > a Promise FastTrack TX130 RAID controller and the
> array is about 2TB
> > and has pretty much everything on it concerning
> projects, documents,
> > code, apps, etc. and is very important to have always
> available.
> >
> > The problem I'm wanting to solve is how can I minimize
> power usage but
> > still keep the array available?  I've pondered
> being able to seperate
> > the drive array from the machine, but I'd have to have
> a machine to
> > put it into and then I'd be back to the same problem
> again.
> >
> > My thinking is that a low-powered machine, like an
> embedded system
> > would do it nicely, but I want to make every effort I
> can to insure
> > that the machine is as low-power as possible, and that
> the data on the
> > array is preserved. I am thinking something like the
> Linksys NSLU2,
> > but with one PCI slot instead of two USB ports,
> running off of flash
> > or a laptop HDD in a Linux environment.
> >
> > I've done some research into an embedded systems and
> was impressed
> > with the Shuttle and VIA boards.  Something like
> that might prove
> > ideal but I have never used one.  I have an
> Artigo pico-ITX board but
> > it is very underpowered, I don't want to run into a
> similar situation
> > with this project.
> >
> > With that in mind, I'm looking for suggestions both
> from a hardware
> > level and from a software level.
> >
> > On the hardware side, I want a case that has three
> forward facing 5.25
> > drives (the SATA drive cage I have occupies three
> bays) and some place
> > to mount a laptop HDD (or if a flash drive is used,
> this requirement
> > is mitigated).
> >
> > The hardware must haves:
> > - 10/100 Ethernet wired.  (GigE is a
> Nice-to-have, but not required)
> > - One PCI slot (PCI-64bit is not needed)
> > - One IDE port or Flash disk capable of a 4GB
> microdrive or similar
> > sized CF card.
> > - Power Supply that won't crap out on me in a year
> that can be easily
> > field-replaced and can drive all components. (No fifty
> thousand power
> > bricks and don't want another "e-machines" power
> supply)
> > - Processor that is not massively overpowered, but not
> horribly
> > underpowered either. Want to be able to run LAMP and
> SAMBA and support
> > multiple concurrent users without issue. (Believe it
> or not, Windows
> > works without issue in it's current configuration.)
> > - Must have adequate cooling but not sound like a jet
> engine.  (Don't
> > want it louder than a Compaq DL380 :P )
> >
> > On the software side, must haves
> > - Linux platform, with modular installation/removal.
> (Like apt-get,
> > but recently got stung by Ubuntu so not too sure on
> software updates.)
> > - SSH, Samba, Apache, NTP
> > - Hardware support for the FastTrack TX430 is a
> _MUST_  I can't afford
> > another RAID card and besides, where am I going to
> stash a TB of data
> > for the conversion?
> >
> > Nice-to-haves (both hardware and software)
> > - Really don't want another desktop or server case
> around the house,
> > something smaller is nice
> > - A Web-based administration console like the NSLU2 or
> similar.
> >
> > What do you guys recommend? What are your experiences
> with home-NAS
> > solutions?  What issues did you encounter and
> what did you do to fix
> > them?
> >
> >
> > Thanks in advance.
> >
> > FIRESTORM_v1
> > _______________________________________________
> > XCSSA mailing list
> > XCSSA at xcssa.org
> > http://xcssa.org/mailman/listinfo/xcssa
> >
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 3
> Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 10:55:41 -0500
> From: X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio <xcssa at xcssa.org>
> Subject: Re: [XCSSA] Recommendations for a SAMBA/NAS
> device?
> To: xcssa at xcssa.org
> Cc: The San Antonio Linux User's Group Mailing List
>     <satlug at satlug.org>
> Message-ID: <200905211055.42145.tweeks at rackspace.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain;  charset="iso-8859-1"
> 
> On Wednesday 20 May 2009, X-otic Computer Systems of San
> Antonio wrote:
> > Hello everyone.
> >
> > I'm trying to solve a major power issue at the house
> and am hoping
> > that someone can shed some of their energy managment
> insight.
> >[...]
> >The problem is 
> > that four of those drives are SATA 750GB drives and
> are hanging off of
> [...]
> > My thinking is that a low-powered machine, like an
> embedded system
> > would do it nicely,
> [...]
> > What do you guys recommend? What are your experiences
> with home-NAS
> > solutions?  What issues did you encounter and
> what did you do to fix
> > them?
> 
> I think that your thinking is off.. Using a low power
> embedded motherboard is 
> barely going to touch your power consumption when 85% of
> your NAS power is 
> being consumed by the spinning drives (not the
> motherboard).
> 
> I don't mean to sound harsh.. but what you need to do is to
> look in to using  
> a "real RAID card" with battery backed up cache, write back
> cache, and power 
> control so that when he array is not being written to.. the
> drives can be 
> spun down.  Then when a write happens.. it writes to
> the cache and goes on 
> while the RAID card wakes up the drives and spins them
> up.  Some reads can 
> even stay cached.
> 
> Some OTS home-NAS systems do this now.  But nicer RAID
> cards that can handle 
> this type of stuff are the nicer LSI, Adaptec and 3Ware
> IIRC SATA and SAS 
> cards.
> 
> There are a couple of folks on list who have built such
> systems...
> 
> Tweeks
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> Message: 4
> Date: Thu, 21 May 2009 11:11:37 -0500
> From: X-otic Computer Systems of San Antonio <xcssa at xcssa.org>
> Subject: Re: [XCSSA] Recommendations for a SAMBA/NAS
> device?
> To: xcssa at xcssa.org
> Message-ID:
>     <79ec289f0905210911u28a53c93ocd446d10542c391d at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> 
> On Thu, May 21, 2009 at 10:55 AM, X-otic Computer Systems
> of San
> Antonio <xcssa at xcssa.org>
> wrote:
> 
> > I don't mean to sound harsh.. but what you need to do
> is to look in to using
> > a "real RAID card" with battery backed up cache, write
> back cache, and power
> > control so that when he array is not being written
> to.. the drives can be
> > spun down. ?Then when a write happens.. it writes to
> the cache and goes on
> > while the RAID card wakes up the drives and spins them
> up. ?Some reads can
> > even stay cached.
> >
> > Some OTS home-NAS systems do this now. ?But nicer RAID
> cards that can handle
> > this type of stuff are the nicer LSI, Adaptec and
> 3Ware IIRC SATA and SAS
> > cards.
> 
> I think the real question is, is it worth the cost of the
> new wiz bang
> hardware versus his existing electrical bill? To me it
> doesn't make
> sense to spend $1000 on new hardware to save $5 a month on
> your
> electric bill.
> 
> Jeremy
> 
> -- 
> Jeremy Mann
> jeremy at biochem.uthscsa.edu
> 
> University of Texas Health Science Center
> Bioinformatics Core Facility
> http://www.bioinformatics.uthscsa.edu
> Phone: (210) 567-2672
> 
> 
> 
> ------------------------------
> 
> _______________________________________________
> XCSSA mailing list
> XCSSA at xcssa.org
> http://xcssa.org/mailman/listinfo/xcssa
> 
> 
> End of XCSSA Digest, Vol 18, Issue 9
> ************************************
>