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Cheap, low power Linux fileserver


cooper

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The fileserver part is completely done and performing admirably.

The router board (the other PcDuino3 Nano in the images, which I'll be replacing with a MinnowBoard Max) is being delayed by me getting sidetracked from basically putting too much on my plate. I have the board but...

- I bought myself a Samsung XE303C12 Chromebook for my birthday. Basically an ARM-based laptop that you can run Linux off of. I've currently got it running Arch Linux just to see what works. It'll run Gentoo before this day is over, hopefully.

- I've got a big stack of Orange Pi's for my cluster project and I need to make the tray/caddy 3D design for them so I can print 15 identical ones and know the actual external dimensions of the case to fabricate.

- Since I know close to nothing about 3D printing, I'm designing a replacement garage door key fob package using OpenSCAD, which is coming along nicely and I hope to complete it this wednesday but I've changed the design so many times already in response to figuring out something doesn't work....

I'm actually not completely certain I have the barrel plug needed to power the MinnowBoard Max... Guess I better check my spare parts box when I get home. They're coming over to install fiber in my home on the 8th (!!!) and I'd really like to have this done by then at the very, VERY latest.

Edited by cooper
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Well, it's just Linux that's running on there. Sure, it's ARM-based, but unless you're going to go out and buy software bits that have an x86-based layout you should be just fine.

I dropped some shit from the kernel that's meant for enabling the Arduino stuff (the GPIO pins have no value for me in this project) but other than that no corners were cut and it's as capable as any other machine. Less powerful, probably, but if all you're doing is pushing data I've found you don't need that big of a workhorse.

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  • 3 months later...

after loosing my labtop hard drive. years of ruby scripts and family/work photos... I'm moving forward with a hard drive raid file server.

I currently run a desktop movie/file server but no current protection for hard drive failure.

So. What do you predict your setup will cost (exclude hard drives)? And are you going to configure a raid setup?

My labtop, I'm going dual ssd raid zero for fun... ill configure a network backup solution to my raid file server.

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In my writeup on the instructables website I itemized the things you need acquire with links the where you can get them. We're talking about $125 for everything except for the housing and the harddisks. You should factor in the running costs when comparing this option against something else, and on that front too this setup kicks ass.

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My current desktop is a work horse, full gaming machine...

Its current daily use.

serves movie stream to xbmc clients.

remote torrent downloads threw http.

Squid proxy cache for xbmc clients.

Its also a xbmc client, used daily in my bedroom. Its location is behind our tv... all the movie streaming bandwidth is separated on a dedicated wifi router-xbmc-stream, so all other internet traffic does not get congested...

I plan to purchase the hard drives and implant a more secure raid setup with my desktop then later on ill give your build a shot ;-)

I am currently shopping for hard drives for the raid setup. I'm thinking single terabyte hard drives. My goal is 4 total, so for raid I would need double(8tb)? Would you suggest raid 10?

And ordered 2 120gig ssd for my labtop raid 0...( my file server will provide network backup solutions)

Edited by i8igmac
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RAID10 is good for low CPU overhead and write performance. If you have an x64 and don't rely on faster writes, RAID5 gives nearly as good protection at the cost of just 1 drive's storage capacity, and can be had from just 3 drives.

Note that in a RAID setup all disks need to be running so you likely won't see the power consumption numbers I got with my build, plus your data transfer volume to the disks increases (due to the redundancy) so that port multiplier might become a bottleneck.

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I have just looked at my desktop motherboard https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M4N98TD_EVO/

it looks like there are 5 internal sata ports that support 3gbps... so now searching for hard drives, i should avoid 6gb speeds as it wont matter...

so, searching for hard drives to purchase, i already have a ssd for the OS install, witch leaves 4 sata ports. speed may not be the most important..

if my goal is 4 tb of hard drive space then i should aim for 8tb total? so i should get identical 2TB drives that support 3gbps? (to consume the 4 avalible ports)

then later on i would try to implament your build !

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With that system you can use any RAID setup and I would recommend RAID5 to reduce capacity 'loss'. 4x1.5 TB is 4.5 in RAID5. Over here HD price/size sweet spot is at 2TB which in RAID5 yields 6TB, but you could go for RAID6 which is RAID5 with what can be seen as a hot spare. It's safer than 10 and gives you the same capacity as a RAID10 when using 4 drives.

It's safer because with RAID10, when 2 drives go down and they make up one of the 2 RAID1's, all is gone. RAID6 can lose any 2 disks and keep on purring.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Great writeup cooper! Thanks for being so verbose with your goals, thought process, hardware and software troubleshooting - everything! Was a good read :D

Keep up the great work!

telot

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