First post here, hope this is the correct forum category. If it weren’t, would an admin please move it to where it belongs?

I’m looking for recommendations for my home server setup going forward, and expanding my rather superficial knowledge.

Currently an all-Apple household, I have a Mac mini that runs OS X Server (file sharing, Time Machine Server, Caching Server, DNS, OD, Profile Manager) and a VM for Plex and Logitech Media Server. A 4-bay RAID enclosure with four 2TB drives in RAID 5 config is attached via FW800 and shared. The enclosure only supports JBOD, 0, 1, 3, 5, and 0+1, and back then I didn’t know better and went for maximum available disk space.

Clients are up to four Macs, several iThingies, a Squeezebox and a Raspberry (OK, so not all-Apple…). This will not change much in the foreseeable future. The Mac mini is a late-2009, to be replaced by a current model this summer due to a lack of performance and generally being outdated. A VM or two might then be added for playing around with SQL and maybe OwnCloud. The DAS is from 2011, and I was going to keep using it with the new Mac.

Alas… one drive died two days ago, and I do not wish to simply replace it, hope for a URE-free rebuild and call it a day. After all, the other three drives are five years old as well. I successfully updated my backups after the failure (or so I hope—rsync and SuperDuper didn’t complain), so I’m good to start over. What with? Three ideas come to mind:

• A new Mac mini with a new DAS supporting RAID 10 and/or 6. OS X Server config as above. Currently the preferred solution.

• A new Mac mini and a similar NAS. The NAS would take over file sharing and Time Machine Server. Why have another server appliance when the mini can easily handle this?

• A Linux box. Not ruled out but not the preferred solution: Time Machine Server and Caching Server are important to me. No experience with Linux apart from setting up a CentOS VM but willing to learn, and never built a PC from components. Would take me quite a while to get it up and running.

Would love to learn about:

1. Which of the above directions (or some other) to go.

2. Manufacturers: Have heard good things about Netgear, Synology and Buffalo, and less good things about the rest. Particularly Drobo for being very proprietary, but also QNAP, Promise, LaCie or OWC. However, that was advice for small businesses, not for home environments.

3. Netgear and Synology apparently only make NASes. Can those be run as a DAS? They have eSATA and USB 3 ports, but are those for expansion units only or for connecting to a server?

4. For, say, 8 TB of available space, would an 8x2TB RAID 10 or a 6x2 RAID 6 be a better choice than a 4x4 RAID 10 in terms of reliability and cost? Performance is not the highest priority. No HD video editing over the network and the like. HD video streaming, yes.

5. For this use case, are enterprise grade drives worth the extra money over consumer grade? I currently have WD Caviars, and they have served me fine for five years.

6. Form factor. As cool as it looks, would rack mount make any sense at all? Don’t want an airplane idling right behind my desk at home. I do need to clean up my current rat’s nest a bit, so an enclosed DIY rack might be a fun project, but still… :slight_smile:

7. Linux boxes, please point me someplace to educate myself and form an opinion.

Thanks a lot.

Thomas

@scottalanmiller
Is that you running that blog? Read http://www.smbitjournal.com/2015/06/make-your-business-jealous/ before coming here, and like that approach. I won't tear up the walls of my current apartment and put CAT cable in because I'll move in a year or two, but in the mid term I'd like to move in that direction.

"These days there is very, very little to assembling a computer.": Putting the components together, yes. The hurdle for me would be component selecting & sourcing, I'd be starting from zero there.

"If you're worried about noise at all, rule out rack based anything." Server cabinet is planned for the future home, for now all IT sits in the home office

"Only consumer units and desktop units use USB, IEEE 1394, eSATA, etc." together with the previous item leads me to believe I'd best go for top-of-line consumer grade.

"That said xByte and Stalled Tech…" Based in Spain, similar offers can certainly be found here.

"RAID 10 is always…" and "…no benefit to enterprise drives…" perfectly address my doubts.

"I only use rackmount at home…" As I said, I'm no IT pro. It's a hobby, and I do take it more seriously than the average user.

"One starting spot…" I'll go there next.

@All
Went to bed after posting (Spain is 6-9 h ahead of the U.S.) and woke up to a wealth of information. Where's the "overwhelmed" emoji? Thanks.

@MattSpeller
Not an IT professional. I'd call myself more of a "ProSumer".

@coliver
That's the website that led me here. I do like that approach very much.

@travisdh1
OD = Open Directory, yes. I have it on since it is necessary for Profile Manager which in turn is nice for pushing out configuration profiles to Macs and iThingies. Definitely not needed for managing a handful of users. Profiles for iOS, there's an app for that of course.

Caching Server is for software updates (OS and apps). The first client request triggers the download from the internet. The software is then cached on the server, and other clients download it from there. Huge bandwidth benefits when you have >2 clients. There also is the older manually managed Mac-only Software Update service.

CS is basically the reason for me favouring OS X Server, I'm not sure if this could be replicated under Linux.

@DustinB3403

Thanks for the component list. I'll have to research that.

I'm not against virtualisation by any means. I am doing it now, actually. Just a Plex Media Server on a CentOS 7 minimal VM inside VirtualBox. Turned PMS into an appliance and allowed me to do one thing that the OS X version of PMS did not: Run it without a user logged on. There are more VMs to come, but my current server is limited to 4GB of RAM and would choke.

@scottalanmiller said in Need advice on OS X Server & DAS/NAS:

that could change the equation a bit. Is there value to learning the Linux, PC build and similar skills? Or would those only be useful for the fun of learning and not going to provide any career advantage?

I'm a mechanical engineer at heart who happens to like IT stuff, so it's for the fun of learning, not for career.

@scottalanmiller said in Need advice on OS X Server & DAS/NAS:

Where are you in Spain. I lived in Granada last year. I normally live in Europe but happen to be in the US dealing with some stuff, including passport renewals. We have lots of people on here in your timezone.

My avatar is telling… Catalonian central coast, just south of Barcelona.

You mentioned peer review somewhere on the SMB IT Blog if I recall it correctly.

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?

@scottalanmiller
Understood.

@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, 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?

@scottalanmiller said in Need advice on OS X Server & DAS/NAS:

Where are you in Spain. I lived in Granada last year. I normally live in Europe but happen to be in the US dealing with some stuff, including passport renewals. We have lots of people on here in your timezone.

My avatar is telling… Catalonian central coast, just south of Barcelona.

You mentioned peer review somewhere on the SMB IT Blog if I recall it correctly.

@scottalanmiller said in Need advice on OS X Server & DAS/NAS:

that could change the equation a bit. Is there value to learning the Linux, PC build and similar skills? Or would those only be useful for the fun of learning and not going to provide any career advantage?

I'm a mechanical engineer at heart who happens to like IT stuff, so it's for the fun of learning, not for career.

@travisdh1 said in Need advice on OS X Server & DAS/NAS:

Right, that same functionality is available with any proxy. I use them with the slow internet we have at work.

Good. I'll look into that.

@scottalanmiller
Is that you running that blog? Read http://www.smbitjournal.com/2015/06/make-your-business-jealous/ before coming here, and like that approach. I won't tear up the walls of my current apartment and put CAT cable in because I'll move in a year or two, but in the mid term I'd like to move in that direction.

"These days there is very, very little to assembling a computer.": Putting the components together, yes. The hurdle for me would be component selecting & sourcing, I'd be starting from zero there.

"If you're worried about noise at all, rule out rack based anything." Server cabinet is planned for the future home, for now all IT sits in the home office

"Only consumer units and desktop units use USB, IEEE 1394, eSATA, etc." together with the previous item leads me to believe I'd best go for top-of-line consumer grade.

"That said xByte and Stalled Tech…" Based in Spain, similar offers can certainly be found here.

"RAID 10 is always…" and "…no benefit to enterprise drives…" perfectly address my doubts.

"I only use rackmount at home…" As I said, I'm no IT pro. It's a hobby, and I do take it more seriously than the average user.

"One starting spot…" I'll go there next.

@All
Went to bed after posting (Spain is 6-9 h ahead of the U.S.) and woke up to a wealth of information. Where's the "overwhelmed" emoji? Thanks.

@DustinB3403

Thanks for the component list. I'll have to research that.

I'm not against virtualisation by any means. I am doing it now, actually. Just a Plex Media Server on a CentOS 7 minimal VM inside VirtualBox. Turned PMS into an appliance and allowed me to do one thing that the OS X version of PMS did not: Run it without a user logged on. There are more VMs to come, but my current server is limited to 4GB of RAM and would choke.

@travisdh1
OD = Open Directory, yes. I have it on since it is necessary for Profile Manager which in turn is nice for pushing out configuration profiles to Macs and iThingies. Definitely not needed for managing a handful of users. Profiles for iOS, there's an app for that of course.

Caching Server is for software updates (OS and apps). The first client request triggers the download from the internet. The software is then cached on the server, and other clients download it from there. Huge bandwidth benefits when you have >2 clients. There also is the older manually managed Mac-only Software Update service.

CS is basically the reason for me favouring OS X Server, I'm not sure if this could be replicated under Linux.

@coliver
That's the website that led me here. I do like that approach very much.