Need advice on OS X Server & DAS/NAS
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So, after spending the better part of today's local holiday researching, this is the plan:
- I want to get fully operational again asap. Don't want to run off the backup drives for too long, and the significant other is already asking when he can can access all his stuff. That rules out the Linux box for now. I need to study that a bit more. Will be a medium-term project.
- So a Mac mini it will be. Has good resale value later on, or can be used as a desktop.
- As for storage, it won't be a desktop NAS. I like to think of them as file servers with too much make-up (NAS OS) hiding the "real" OS and walking with a limp (often underpowered CPU).
- Instead, I shall connect a Thunderbolt/USB3 desktop DAS to the mini–basically what we have now but updated. And the current DAS will serve as backup drive.
Which DAS?
- Low-cost consumer units, no.
- Mid-level consumer: LaCie Big5 has only Raid 0 and 1, Promise Pegasus has only Raid 5/6. Didn't find too many promising units.
- Areca 5026/5028 don't look too bad on paper, but seem to offer less and be more expensive than what I have set my eyes on:
- Drobo 5D / 5Dt. Seems to be almost entry-level business with thin provisioning and SSD cache option. Their proprietary Raid has me going "hmm…", though.
Any alternatives to the Drobo 5D? The B810i would be the next step up
, but I'm afraid that iSCSI over a simple home network would add more complexity than benefits.Does that sound reasonable?
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@Thomas_R said in Need advice on OS X Server & DAS/NAS:
- Drobo 5D / 5Dt. Seems to be almost entry-level business with thin provisioning and SSD cache option. Their proprietary Raid has me going "hmm…", though.
What makes their RAID proprietary? its just RAID 6.
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@scottalanmiller
Is it? All that blurb about "proprietary, patented yada-yada" made me wonder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drobo#BeyondRAID wasn't too helpful, and apart from http://www.ufsexplorer.com/und_beyond.php and http://arstechnica.com/business/2011/03/drobo-review-1/2/ I didn't find too much info. -
They figured out how to do parity RAID with dis-similar drives. Something ZFS has been doing for how many years before Drobo?
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@Thomas_R said in Need advice on OS X Server & DAS/NAS:
@scottalanmiller
Is it? All that blurb about "proprietary, patented yada-yada" made me wonder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drobo#BeyondRAID wasn't too helpful, and apart from http://www.ufsexplorer.com/und_beyond.php and http://arstechnica.com/business/2011/03/drobo-review-1/2/ I didn't find too much info.So a few things about it...
- All RAID is proprietary, more or less. Linux has MD which while open and public is still "proprietary" to Linux and no one else uses it. Every system uses their own RAID, open or closed, it is unique to some degree to that system.
- Even the most proprietary RAID systems still use the same RAID basics. there are a few variations but everyone works from the same basics.
- All of the patents and stuff are not the RAID but RAID management and the logical volume manager under the RAID. Exactly the same that ReadyNAS does, for example.
- Drobo is RAID 1, 5 and 6 under the hood for all functions. That's all that it uses no matter what it looks like.
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@travisdh1 said in Need advice on OS X Server & DAS/NAS:
They figured out how to do parity RAID with dis-similar drives. Something ZFS has been doing for how many years before Drobo?
it's not even something to figure out, Microsoft had how to do that as required learning for the NT4 certification exams in 1996. By that point it was already base RAID knowledge, not even speciality for storage people, was required for anyone certified on MS products. Pretty much every RAID system ever made supports that but doesn't give you an interface to it because it is such a bad idea.
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@scottalanmiller
Understood. -
@travisdh1 said in Need advice on OS X Server & DAS/NAS:
They figured out how to do parity RAID with dis-similar drives. Something ZFS has been doing for how many years before Drobo?
It's not parity with dissimilar exactly, that always works. Always has. It's parity with dissimilar drives while getting maximum usable capacity out of the drives using a horrific mix of RAID levels. It's a terrible thing to do.
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@scottalanmiller said in Need advice on OS X Server & DAS/NAS:
@travisdh1 said in Need advice on OS X Server & DAS/NAS:
They figured out how to do parity RAID with dis-similar drives. Something ZFS has been doing for how many years before Drobo?
It's not parity with dissimilar exactly, that always works. Always has. It's parity with dissimilar drives while getting maximum usable capacity out of the drives using a horrific mix of RAID levels. It's a terrible thing to do.
Goosebumps, everytime I'm seeing this. The idea is good, but how they made it...
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@thwr said in Need advice on OS X Server & DAS/NAS:
@scottalanmiller said in Need advice on OS X Server & DAS/NAS:
@travisdh1 said in Need advice on OS X Server & DAS/NAS:
They figured out how to do parity RAID with dis-similar drives. Something ZFS has been doing for how many years before Drobo?
It's not parity with dissimilar exactly, that always works. Always has. It's parity with dissimilar drives while getting maximum usable capacity out of the drives using a horrific mix of RAID levels. It's a terrible thing to do.
Goosebumps, everytime I'm seeing this. The idea is good, but how they made it...
Even the idea isn't good. It's "Oh, people refuse to listen and buy many dissimilar drives... instead of punishing them for this, we'll pretend that this is just fine and screw their reliability and performance because they aren't paying attention anyway and who cares, it isn't our data."
