DIY data storage server. Where to store large files? We are building a home server. Selecting NAS and drives

This is another article about assembling the next NAS for home use. What prompted me to write it? Starting to assemble a NAS for myself, I re-read all the articles I googled in which people told how they chose and assembled storage for themselves. Thanks to these articles, I avoided some mistakes when choosing hardware and software. The first time I assembled a configuration that completely suits me to this day. Therefore, I am sure that my article may be useful to someone.

True, I must say that by profession I System Administrator and this imposed certain requirements on the configuration, and on the article - details in the descriptions with illustrations for ~2 MB. So yes, I assembled the NAS myself. But without fanaticism. In the article I did not limit myself to describing the hardware, but also told how I use the resulting machine. Anyone interested is welcome to the cat!

There comes a time in the life of every IT specialist when the case runs out of space for disks.

Before running to the store, I tried to decide what I wanted to get from the device. Now, and what I might want Then.

1. Storing large amounts of data. It is obvious.
   But there was a small nuance in that I had a certain number of hard drives. Let's just say, nasysadmin. These are exactly what I was going to use. All disks are of different sizes, manufacturers and operating time. In total they gave a volume of 2-3 terabytes that was quite sufficient for me.
2. Torrents.
   The device must have a sane client for these purposes.
3. Flexible settings and additional features.
   This is a vague criterion, just for the future, for the possibility of using additional services, for example, cloud storage or a media server.
4. Low power consumption.
5. Low or no noise level.
6. Minimum price.

Ready NAS

By that time, I had experience communicating at work with Synology DiskStation DS411 and D-Link DNS-320. I was in love with the Synology OS! Stable, convenient, understandable, its own repository with applications, useful updates - that's all about it. The hardware itself also pleased with its uptime and silence. The only thing I wasn’t happy with was the price (late 2014). I wasn’t ready to pay 20,000 rubles. for simply storing movies with music there. Naturally, there were cheaper models with two disks, but four disks are an honor for storage, and a desktop computer has two.

Using the DNS-320 as an example, I saw that if I choose the cheapest one, then I will get a more than modest device. Actually, distributing files locally is the only thing this box can do more or less normally.
At this stage, it became clear that the NAS would have to be assembled from computer components.

HDD issue

While researching prices for branded storage, I was simultaneously thinking about the configuration of disks in the system. RAID? JBOD? Separate volumes? On the one hand, storing films with music on a raid is wasteful. If lost, they can be downloaded again. On the other hand, there are a couple of folders that need to be kept safe, preferably without developing special backup scripts (backups need to be monitored and checked). In addition, the disks I already have are of different sizes. Accordingly, after building any RAID, I will lose hundreds of gigabytes by “trimming” disks for the smallest and the whole disk for checksums(For example).

I can’t objectively evaluate the performance. With NAS tasks on Windows Server she's doing great. I did not do synthetic tests.

A case with optimal price/quality ratio was quickly found. Cooler Master Elite 120.

I looked at more compact cases, but their prices were no longer so compact. The case turned out to be comfortable and of high quality. Three HDDs are inserted as standard.

The fourth is through a purchased adapter into the CD-ROM bay. (yes, yes, I had to buy an adapter from the collective farm; there was no other one in the stores)

The case comes with 2 fans. One 120 mm for the HDD and one 80 mm for the motherboard radiator (you already noticed it in the previous photos).

A nice touch included in the kit were two adapters from 3.5" to 2.5" HDD. A special bonus is that the adapters are suitable for any other case. The holes for the bolts are in a standard place, and the height of the structure is installed disk does not exceed the height of a regular HDD.

There were no problems during the assembly process. All wires are long enough, installation and subsequent access to components is convenient (except for the obvious things). In general, a building for people!

I had all the other hardware, namely disks, power supply and RAM (SO-DIMM). In total I met the 5,085 rubles.

I note that two gigabytes of RAM is noticeably not enough. I keep the minimum possible set of programs on the servers. I don’t have any updates from Google and Adobe, any applications from drivers, etc. Minimum set, only the most necessary. With all this, in a quiet state, 800 megabytes of memory are occupied. It is clear that with a certain user activity, active use of the paging file begins with all that it entails. In general, take more memory.

Noise

He is. You can't put it next to the bed. The noisiest of the fans blows on the radiator motherboard. The fan in the power supply and on the hard drive cage cannot be heard above the sound of the drives themselves. It's a shame that the included case fans don't support PWM. Then their speed would be controlled by the motherboard:

And I would probably always keep it at a minimum. I am also inclined to believe that the heatsink on the processor does not require additional cooling provided in the case. Be that as it may, the issue noisily faded into the background. I installed the system unit where its noise does not interfere at all and forgot about it for now. When the time comes, either the fans will be replaced with ones that support PWM, or a controller for them will be purchased. Well, for example:

Software

To work with torrents, I first installed the classic μTorrent. It has a wonderful feature in its settings: you can specify a folder that μTorrent will constantly monitor for the presence of a torrent file. As soon as a new file is detected, the program begins downloading. And there is another checkbox “Delete torrent file when downloading starts.” What happens. I'm at my computer, downloading a torrent file and putting it in a special folder on the NAS. After 5-10 seconds it disappears. This means μTorrent “took” it and started downloading. Another checkbox called something like “Add a random extension to the file until it is completely downloaded” allows you to see in the download folder which files are still downloading and which have already been downloaded. According to this scheme, I didn’t need the μTorrent interface at all to download torrents.

I went even further and installed YandexDisk on my server, telling μTorrent to look for torrent files in the YaDisk folder. Now, sitting at work and choosing a movie for the evening, I put the torrent file on YaDisk and after 20-30 seconds it disappeared...

The HWMonitor program was very useful, displaying a nice window on the desktop with the temperature of the sensors and the speed of the fans (by the way, about the temperature in the case):

When you log in via RDP, you can immediately appreciate that everything is spinning and spinning and is not on fire.

Unfortunately, the author in new versions of the program divided it into paid and free. The free version only has minimal basic functionality. And all the goodies like the screen shown in the screenshot have apparently been transferred to the paid one. I have version 0.6.0 beta.

wake-on-lan

This scheme did not work for me for long. I thought about the fact that most of the time the server just sits there and wastes electricity. Of course, he distributes torrents, but those unfortunate couple of dozen of my favorite films that I keep for myself are not even a drop in the bucket. In general, the torrent network will not be poorer at all if I stop distributing.

So, I want the NAS to only work when I need it. And the rest of the time he slept. And wake him up via the network, not with a button. There is Wake-on-LAN technology for this. This feature must be supported by the motherboard and the network controller (if it is external). Fortunately, many models have this function, like mine. The computer is woken up using a “magic packet” sent to the network indicating the MAC address network card. There are specialized ones for this free programs or, for example, my Asus router has such a function. But during operation it turned out that Windows itself sends this magic when accessing network resource. Both when accessing via RDP and when accessing network folder. This is both good and bad. The good thing is that you don't need it additional programs. What’s bad is this, if you connect the shared folder on the client like network drive, or add to favorites:

Then, when the client is turned on, a “magic package” will be automatically sent to the server and wake it up. I found this out when I was trying to understand why my NAS wakes up on its own. In the case of a network drive, the behavior is clear - the client tries to obtain information about the drive in order to display its status (size, availability). But I don’t understand why Windows checks links in favorites. Although this feature may, on the contrary, be useful to someone - they turned on their work machine, and the NAS automatically started with it.

The server can sleep restlessly not only because of Windows machines on the network. There were several days in a row when the NAS fell asleep and immediately woke up. I blame the router, but there is no evidence yet.

The server goes to sleep with its standard means, if there is no network activity within the specified time.

μTorrent has been replaced by Free Download Manager. It has a checkbox “Close the program when the download is complete.” I start the download, check the box, disconnect from the remote desktop. Free Download Manager closes when the download is complete, and the NAS goes to sleep using an inactivity timer.

Naturally, YandexDisk also had to be removed from the server.

wi-fi

When I was thinking about where to put the NAS in the apartment, I decided to try Wi-Fi. Fashionable, comfortable, modern. TP-LINK TL-WN881ND was purchased:

Everything was connected via Asus router RT-N12. Everything was great until I sat down to watch the movie. good quality. Regular.mkv 1080p size ~20 GB. Halfway through the movie, the picture and sound began to cut out. Media Player Classic showed that all its buffers were empty and barely pulled up the next piece of video. This was the case with all “heavy” films. When simply copying a large amount of information, I also noticed that after a while the speed dropped significantly. A superficial search for information on this problem did not yield any results, and it was easier for me to connect a twisted pair cable to the server than to further deal with Wi-Fi.

In no case do I want to slander wi-fi and make loud statements about its readiness for long and high loads. But if you are going to connect your NAS through it, then be aware that there may be problems.

For example, banal data backups. If locally, then use the same Cobian Backup on a schedule in a special folder. If on the Internet, then BitTorrent Sync. In the case of Cobian, do not connect the backup folder as a network drive. In the case of BitTorrent Sync, use shadow copies on the server (what is it and how to configure it). Encryption viruses will no longer be so scary.

I often find a home server useful at work when I need to check access to work resources from a different IP from the Internet. All sorts of VPNs, OpenVPNs, etc.

Media server. In tandem with Smart TV, all multimedia functions can be completely transferred to them. If the TV has a normal browser and support for a keyboard and mouse, then you can even download content through the TV.

Video surveillance server in the door peephole. Or a video recording of a cat’s activity...

As you guessed from the title, today we will build a home NAS server. For more than five years I have had a small old animal in the In Win BQ656 Black Mini-ITX 80W USB/Audio/Fan + External remote control case. It has the following processor inside: AMD Athlon(tm) Dual Core Processor 4050e, with a BogoMips reading of 4200. Although tiny, it eats little and can virtualize, which is important. Detailed Specifications you can watch it anywhere :). By the way, after assembly I wanted to change it to a slightly cooler Athlon 64 X2 6000+. You can buy one on Avito for 500–700 rubles. We raised this whole thing on the Minix780G-SP128M motherboard.

Not a fountain, of course, - only four SATA and no RAID support, but low power consumption. The price today could not be determined, but at one time it cost $220. Ideally, of course, it would be better to have a mother with the ability to connect six drives and RAID support. But such pleasure will cost quite a bit. Let's try to estimate from what is on the used market. They offered a kit for Intel 7600 + Asus mother can be purchased for 1500–2000 rubles (let me remind you that this is used).

Before replacing the case, the system consisted of an Ubuntu server, balls on it - and, in fact, that’s all. Inside there were two 500 GB disks. Now purchased new building, another pair installed hard drives. Total three HDDs of 500 GB and one of 1.5 GB.

Wishlist

Among the tasks that a media server must solve, we highlight the following:

• of course, Samba, distribution of media content over the network, more on that below;
• virtualization of different levels: pair virtual machines, inside there may be a 1C Linux server, Docker containers;
• so that you don’t have to configure each home node for services, a small DNS with the something.local zone.

Hardware requirements:

• noiselessness;
• convenient installation/replacement of HDD;
• compactness.

I repeat: I would really like to replace the motherboard with the processor, but this is not necessary. Perhaps in the future I will replace only the processor with the cooler. So, a new building, the search was long and difficult. After a week of Googling, the choice fell on Raijintek Metis. What suited me in terms of price/quality.

A couple of phrases about the building

Manufacturer and model: Raijintek Metis, with window
Material: aluminum, steel
Dimensions: 190 x 254 x 277 mm (W x H x D)
Form factor: Mini-ITX
Drive bays: 1 x 2.5/3.5" (internal), 2 x 2.5" (internal)
Fans: 1 x 120mm (rear, pre-installed)
Weight: about 2.8 kg

Cool design and color look great almost anywhere, and the price is very affordable. By the way, such a case cost me only 4,000 rubles. Purchased on Avito, delivery by mail. More details about the case can be found on the manufacturer’s website. I almost forgot about the memory! At the time of writing, 2 GB were installed (two 1 GB sticks). Now I’m already ordering two 2 GB dies.

Implementation of the software part

So, what is the most important thing you want from a server? So that it is easily scalable, keeps up with the times, pleasant and easy to use/administer. An attractive web face is desirable.

• Option 1: put Ubuntu Server with the Ajenty 2 control panel and deliver everything you need by hand.
• Option 2: install OpenMediaVault. The muzzle is available, there are many plugins/extensions to increase functionality, it is based on Debian, so there is always the opportunity to deliver or finish it by hand.
• Option 3: install FreeNAS. A little less goodies, but you can deliver everything by hand, though it’s a little more difficult. Based on FreeBSD.
• Option 4: install XPEnology. A huge number of goodies, repositories with additions. Support for virtual machines and Docker.

After much torment, the choice fell on the fourth option. We will use it to raise the home server further. Why is this so? The first option is good in itself, but at the same time you want a minimum of effort and a maximum of opportunities without additional force. In addition, Ajenty does not allow you to access the server flexibly, so you just want to jump into the console and do everything manually from there. And then go to the panel and just admire :). Among the remaining options, XPEnology won. Provides maximum services with minimum settings.

Let's take off

So, first of all, go to the xpenology.me website in the downloads section and download the deployment kit.

XPEnoboot is a boot disk image for installing and booting/rebooting the server.

DSM is the system itself. Synology Assistant - optional, the program detects XPEnology/Synology servers, installed or ready-to-install nodes. I installed it via the web interface - as they say, all markers have different tastes and colors.

The ISO image needs to be unpacked onto a USB flash drive and used every time the server is restarted, which is not entirely convenient. Or donate a flash drive to the server and make it a priority when loading. There is a second way. In previous issues of Hacker magazine, I wrote about organizing a PXE server with various boot options. If there is such a service, then you can easily give it to him. Two files are responsible for loading into XPEnology (as in any Linux distribution): zImage and rd.gz. We place them in the PXE server directory and add the following to the menu:

Insert into pxelinux.cfg/default LABEL xpenolog kernel xpenology/zImage root=/dev/md0 ihd_num=0 netif_num=2 syno_hw_version=RS3612xs ac1=0010562E3E36 mac1=0051562E3E37 sn=B5JDN10005 initrd xpenology/rd.gz

The menu makes clear the location of the files in the xpenology subdirectory, relative to the root of the TFTP server. Information was found on xpenology.com. I recommend checking it out.

The first option didn't work. I'll try it differently. I unpack the ISO, take the menu file isolinux.cfg from there, copy the menu into my PXE menu, with the path to the zImage kernel file adjusted. I copy the zImage to the PXE server. This option worked as it should; after the installation began, even the operating system pat file was not required. The server itself downloaded it from synology.com, which makes me smile :). During the installation process, the server will ask you to enter administrator credentials. After installation, we get a completely ready-to-use Synology server on regular hardware. For those who are not familiar with this OS, I highly recommend it! Huge community. As a result, there is a large number of repositories that greatly expand the standard functionality.

Continuation is available only to members

Option 1. Join the “site” community to read all materials on the site

Membership in the community within the specified period will give you access to ALL Hacker materials, increase your personal cumulative discount and allow you to accumulate a professional Xakep Score rating!

If I were an employee of a pasta factory, I would now be racking my brains over what to do with 500 packages of pasta, half a kilo each. Fortunately, when management decides to give a system administrator a bonus “in kind,” there is no threat of receiving a van of dry rations as a gift, although there is a good chance of becoming the owner of several tens of kilograms of outright scrap. However, this time I was lucky - as a corporate gift I received a pair of brand new WD Re 2004FBYZ with 2 terabytes each, and a Thermaltake Smart DPS G 750W power supply. But what to do with the disks? Installing it on a home computer is too wasteful even for me; after all, it’s Enterprise Class, and there’s no particular need. It is much more practical to build a NAS based on them. Of course, not some kind of file dump, but a highly reliable storage facility - a kind of “black box” for critical data. Plus, you can combine business with pleasure - since the decision has been made to transfer the entire infrastructure to “smart” power supplies (and this is how Thermaltake positions the Smart DPS line), it would be nice to see firsthand how it works.

But there is one catch - on this moment the proprietary application exists only on Windows. This operating system is good for a corporate data center, but for a home file storage terrible and extremely unprofitable. Therefore, I decided to make two posts. In this we will raise the NAS to Windows based Server 2008 r2 (making sure that “windows” and “home NAS” are incompatible concepts), and let’s see what DPS G App 2.0 is capable of. In the second, we will assemble a budget NAS based on NAS4Free, creating a truly reliable system.

Preface

In order not to be bombarded with tomatoes, I want to warn you right away - the article is intended primarily for non-professionals. Although read about Smart Power Management from Thermaltake will be of interest even to experienced administrators and enthusiasts; the main material is aimed at people who do not want to overpay for a big name when buying ready-made solutions, and at the same time far from system administration (programmers, designers, web developers, etc.). If your hand is steady enough to assemble a computer from components, but at the same time you don’t want to deal with server software for a long time and tediously, and you’ve only seen the console in nightmares - this material is for you. If you want to look at SPM Cloud to decide how useful this system can be for you, scroll down the post to the subtitle “How smart is the smart power supply?” By the way, I warn you – there are a lot of photos and screenshots under the cut.

Simple, but tasteful

I’ll make a reservation right away - I didn’t try to build a home NAS based solely on cost. When selecting components, I focused on how suitable the components were for the task at hand, while not forgetting about the quality characteristics. Is it possible to build a budget NAS at a lower cost? Can. But at the same time you can also lose in performance and convenience, which I would not want. As a result, the following happened.

Frame. The role of the data storage case was taken on by Thermaltake Core V1 - a nice, all-metal cube with a quiet 200 mm fan behind the front bezel.

At the back there are seats for another pair of 80 mm fans, thanks to which the network storage can be made truly cold.

As in other modern models, the lower compartment is reserved for the power supply. Dust protection is provided by a metal filter.

Another advantage of the Core V1 is the 4 removable walls (sides, roof and bottom), which greatly simplifies the assembly procedure. Each panel is secured with a pair of screws that can be easily removed by hand. I also really liked the implementation of the disk baskets - each of the four fixing screws received its own rubber damper, which dampens vibration quite well:

Motherboard. Here my choice fell on GIGABYTE GA-J1800N-D2H with built-in Intel Celeron. The power of a dual-core processor with a base 2.41 GHz for a network storage device is enough for the eyes (although Windows Server will load it 100%, but “windows” are not our target platform), it is quite economical and does not require active cooling (there is no need to buy a cooler) .

Despite the cheapness, Gigabyte introduced their own branded chips: High ESD technology that provides ESD protection for ICs and LAN, and Anti-Surge IC that prevents motherboard failure due to power surges - everything you need for a truly reliable system. The only controversial point is the location of the internal USB connector close to the radiator: it is simply inconvenient to work with.

RAM. Nothing special - ordinary Transcend 2Gb DDR-III 1333Mhz in the SO-DIMM form factor. If you have an old laptop lying around in a closet somewhere, you can remove the modules from it.

Power unit. A solid Thermaltake Smart DPS G 750W, designed for high-performance PCs and server platforms, certified to the 80 PLUS Gold standard. For a full-fledged server or workstation - just right, for assembling a NAS with your own hands - it is too powerful, but during the experiment you can pamper yourself by installing nitros on a small car.

Of course, a device of this class provides for modular cable connection. The only built-in connectors are the motherboard and processor connectors (shared 4+4 pin, which came in very handy during assembly).

Flat cables provide additional convenience, although even they fit into the compact Core V1 with difficulty - the case is not designed for this. Among them was a wire for connecting the Thermaltake Smart DPS G 750W to the internal USB connector. Obviously, it ensures interaction between the on-board 32-bit microcontroller and the motherboard sensors, and is necessary for the full functioning of Smart Power Management. However, we will talk a little later about how well the monitoring system justifies itself and what features it provides.

Cooling. Two silent unregulated TITAN DC FAN. Since we want to build a quiet NAS without extra costs, this option will be the best.

HDD. Although we don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, I still think it necessary to say a few words about the heroes of the occasion – the sweet couple WD Re 2004FBYZ. After all, whatever one may say, the safety of information depends on the quality of hard drives.

If you look at the manufacturer's specifications, everything looks very tasty. Thus, the hard drives are equipped with accelerometers and pressure sensors, based on which Rotary Acceleration Feed Forward (RAFF) technology is implemented, providing protection against linear and angular vibration in real time, which increases both reliability and performance. Being a server solution, WD Re 2004FBYZ also have TLER (Time Limited Error Recovery), which limits the correction time to avoid erroneous disk loss from the RAID array. Add to this the stated MTBF of 1.2 million hours, and we get almost ideal.

However, it is difficult to judge the veracity of beautiful words and sophisticated abbreviations until you try the product yourself. And here I can only say that I am typing this article on a computer, inside of which a couple of terabyte Caviar Blacks have been working for the past 6 years. And the 2.5-inch baby in the old Dell Inspirion 1501, now given to his parents, feels no worse. Actually, the transfer of infrastructure specifically to WD at my current place of work took place precisely at my instigation - I have a long-standing and very productive relationship with this brand. I have been using their discs for several years now, they have never let me down, and today I do not see any reason to change my preferences.

Flash drive. Any USB drive with a capacity of 8 GB. Of course, compact “plugs” are optimal, the body of which practically does not protrude above the connector.

Now you need to assemble a network storage from this stuff - everything is quite simple here. If you have ever assembled a computer yourself, you can handle it without any difficulties. I'll just mention a few key points:

• Additional coolers should be set to blow out - then we will achieve flowing air circulation from front to back and optimal cooling;
• When installing the motherboard, keep an eye on the metal jumper above the USB 3.0 hole on the rear panel - if you act carelessly, it can be bent and thus block the connector;
• The disc baskets are secured with a single screw, but they are installed quite rigidly and may not move right away. To remove the basket, you need to pull it away from the body and slightly downward;
• The motherboard does not provide a connection for external USB 3.0; you can safely hide this wire in the bottom compartment of the case.

Entertaining mathematics

Perhaps it’s worth taking a small groove and calculating how budget-friendly our assembly turned out to be. So let's get started:

• Case: Thermaltake Core V1 – RUB 3,764.
• Power supply: As good as the Thermaltake Smart DPS G 750W is, it's too luxurious for small file storage. In the future, I plan to install the Chieftec HPS-350NS there – 1,560 rubles.
• Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-J1800N-D2H – RUB 4,436.
• RAM: Transcend SO-DIMM 2Gb DDR-III 1333Mhz x 2 – 3040 rub.
• Cooling: TITAN DC FAN (80 mm, 2000 rpm) x 2 – 404 rub.
• USB drive: 300 rubles.

Total: 13,504 rubles.

I deliberately did not take into account HDDs in order to compare with Synology products. For example, the DiskStation DS216+ will cost you 28,173 rubles, while under the hood we will see a very modest filling: Intel Celeron N3050 1.6 GHz, RAM – 1 Gb, the same two 3.5 mm drive slots. If I hadn’t gotten the WD Re 2004FBYZ for free, I would have paid another 17,660 rubles, and the final costs were close to 31 thousand - the cost of a “bare” platform of a popular brand. Yes, our assembly is less compact, but more productive and reliable, and it’s almost half the price! And if there is a difference, then pay more? This concludes the short digression - it’s time to move on and put our car into operation!

Windows Server is the worst solution for a home NAS

Even if you haven’t even seen *nixes, even if you’ve seen command line It makes you shiver, even if the “windows” seem familiar and instill a sense of security, do not even think about setting up a Windows-based personal file storage. Why? I’ll tell you as I go along with this material. But first, let's look at the installation.

We will install Windows Server 2008 r2, of course, from a flash drive. To create a bootable drive, you can refer to the following instructions, or use the Windows USB/DVD Download Tool, which is also recommended on the official Microsoft blog. The same can be done using Rufus, which, moreover, can check the memory for bad blocks (one or two passes will be enough), or install in Windows mode To Go, which will allow you to run the OS directly from the device.

However, the last option is not best idea, taking into account the peculiarities of the operating system and the disk space required for it, so let's make a regular bootable USB flash drive.

Now we can begin installation, and here we see the first pitfall - size. Do you want to install the Standard edition with a visual interface? Please allocate 24 gigabytes. In the case of a pair of disks, this is too wasteful. Otherwise, there are no nuances: as in the version for home use, everything comes down to “Next-Next-Done”.

Once you log in, you will see the next con: the need for activation. I don’t plan to use Windows Server as the basis for a NAS - all this is, first of all, an experiment, so I’ll limit myself to the trial that Microsoft themselves kindly provides. Launch regedit, look for the registry key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\SoftwareProtectionPlatform\Activation\Manual

Change its value to one and reboot the machine. Now trial period increased from 3 to 30 days. In total, it can be extended up to six months using the slmgr.vbs script. The slmgr.vbs -dli command will help you find out how much time is left until the current license expires, and slmgr.vbs –rearm will reset the evaluation period (no more than three times). The process can be automated by creating a small XML file.

I would like to express one more “fairy” in the direction of the “Update Center”. More than 300 patches of various calibers were subsequently released for Windows Server 2008 r2 SP1. It will take several hours to install them all, and the patches conflict with adding server roles. That is, it is necessary to update either before or after; the process takes a lot of time and loads the system to the maximum:

There is also an unfortunate bug associated with the updates. After installing the updates, you may find that space on the system disk begins to disappear by itself. If you notice a leak, go to the C:\Windows\Temp folder. You will almost certainly see something like this:

The problem is that the archiving of update logs failed - the system produces damaged archives at an alarming rate, starting the procedure again after each error. This can be treated by deleting all files from the C:\Windows\Logs\CBS folder, after which you can safely clean the Temp directory.

However, let's move on. And the first thing you need to do is set up auto-login, since the NAS will still be located on your home network, and entering the password every time is too tedious. Go to “Start” -> “Run”, and enter the command control userpasswords2.

Having selected the “Administrators” group, uncheck the “Require username and password” checkbox and save the selection.

Now let's deal with remote connection. The easiest way is to use the built-in desktop manager. To activate it, go to “Start” -> “Control Panel” -> “System and Security” -> “Settings” remote access”, select the second or third option (if you plan to connect the NAS to the Internet). It is also worth setting a simpler and more concise computer name on the tab of the same name.

An alternative can be LiteManager - a multifunctional and free program for private users that has a bunch of useful functions: file transfer, direct access to the console, registry editor, task manager, and a number of others. When installing the server part on the NAS, set the access password that will be used when logging in:

If you plan to connect your home NAS to the Internet, you can additionally configure an IP filter:

Make sure the LM Server is in automatic mode launch:

Also, do not forget to set a static address for our machine in the adapter properties:

Where 192.168.1.1 is the router address. Finally, enable network discovery and file and folder sharing in “Control Panel” -> “Network and Internet” -> “Network and Sharing Center” shared access” –> “Change advanced sharing settings.”

After the operations described above, you can connect the NAS to your home network with a clear conscience. If further control will be carried out through LM Viewer, install the application on your computer and add a new connection by clicking on the plus on the toolbar and filling in the required fields:

Where 192.168.1.250 is the IP address of the NAS. Or use the built-in Windows utility remote desktop connections.

Now let's create a partition to store information. Go to “Server Manager” -> “Storage” -> “Disk Management”, click right click mouse over the unallocated space on the system disk, select “Create a simple volume” and, following the wizard’s prompts, create the main “Data” partition formatted in NTFS.

You can proceed directly to raising the file server. Open “Roles” -> “Add roles” in the manager.

After the wizard's welcome window, a list of available ones will appear. We are interested in “File Services”:

In the next window, check the box next to “File Server Services Manager”; if desired, you can enable “ Windows service Search".

In “Storage Monitoring” we mark our “Data” section:

Here, by clicking the “Options” button, we set up monitoring of the volume. For convenience, you can add reports on duplicates and large files.

In “Report Parameters” we set the path for storing records:

If you have enabled Windows Search, select indexing for the “Data” volume:

We confirm the choice and wait for the installation to complete. After this, the capabilities of the file management manager (located in “Start” -> “Administration”) will become available to us. Of the entire range of tools offered, quota management is useful for home use.

As you can see, the “Data” section has already received a “soft” quota by default. This means that if it is more than 85% full, we will receive an alert, but writing files to the NAS will still be available. Quotas can be set not only for partitions, but also for individual directories. Let's create a “Music” folder on drive “E” and set a size limit for it. Click “Create quota” and select the path:

In “Customizable Properties” we will specify a limit of 300 GB and select the “Hard” option so that music addiction does not lead to a situation where there is no space left on the disk for regular backups and important documents:

Let's add a threshold value of 85% and set the notification method:

As a result we get:

After clicking the “Create” button, the system will offer to save the settings to a template. Subsequently, this will allow us to apply similar rules to other folders in one click.

In order for the new quota to appear in the list, you must reconfigure the filter. Click on the link of the same name and select “All”:

Now the new quota is also visible on the main screen:

Another option that may be useful if your wife, children, and beloved cat also use file storage is managing file locking. It allows you to exclude loading files of certain extensions into certain directories.

Let's create a Backup directory and stop cluttering it with music and videos. To do this, just click on “Create a file blocking filter”, select the desired directory and, in our case, the preset “Block audio and video files” template.

The template contains almost all the most common formats, but you can always add new ones in the appropriate section:

By clicking on “Edit template properties”, we get to the settings menu.

Here, by clicking the “Change” button, you can call up the section for adding new extensions and removing existing ones, as well as familiarize yourself with the preinstalled ones:

All that remains is to make our folder accessible over the network. To do this, go to “Start” -> “Administration” -> “Computer Management” -> “Shared Folders” -> “Shared Resources” and create a new one. Then we simply follow the wizard’s instructions. First, specify the path to the folder:

On next step set its parameters (you can leave them as default):

Setting up access permissions. For local network you can open access for everyone, for the Internet - leave it only for administrators:

Now the “Music” folder will be accessible directly from any computer on your home network - just type the address \\NAS\Music in Explorer and log in. We will perform a similar procedure for the Backup directory, and at the same time we will check how file blocking works by trying to load a movie into it.

Access denied - everything works fine.

Remained finishing touch– creation of software RAID-1. There is nothing complicated about this: go to “Server Manager” -> “Storage” -> “Disk Management”, right-click on system disk(“Disk 1” in our example), and select “Convert to dynamic disk”.

Then click on each volume one by one, selecting “Add mirror” from the menu. All partitions will be “reflected” to the second disk and resynchronization will begin:

And here is another argument “against”. The fact is that the resynchronization process for a 2 terabyte HDD will last more than 5 hours. Disks will be checked completely, no matter how much information is recorded, and their loading will tend to 100%. Of course, WD Re can withstand even less of a test, but you won’t be able to use the NAS normally during this period: the write/read speed will drop significantly.

Speaking of speed: let's evaluate the performance of the array in real conditions. This is what I got when transferring the Rammstein discography to a network folder:

Not bad at all, but it can really be better, as NAS4Free will help us see. The free and low-resource operating system is optimal for a home NAS and can work with file system ZFS, where disk mirroring is implemented much more intelligently and reliably. In this case, the process of primary synchronization is absent in principle. That's why I recommend NAS4Free for home file storage. However, we will talk about it in the next post, and now let’s get to the fun part.

How smart is a smart power supply?

Do you like real quests? I remembered them because my acquaintance with the DPS App and Smart Power Managment began with just such a miniquest. Google helpfully suggested a page for downloading the application; by clicking on the coveted button, I saw this form:

Nothing unusual - many companies ask for your email for newsletters. However, when I entered my address, instead of the utility I received:

Even without a translator, it is clear that the requested page was not found. What could be the matter? It turns out that everything works a little differently. First, you need to create an account in the system, confirm your registration, and only then you can download the utility in the “Products” section.

Another important nuance– if you adhere to the golden rule of creating passwords, including using special characters, then you will have to abandon this practice here. There will be no problems with authorization on the site, but the DPS App simply will not accept the passphrase, displaying the error:

Therefore, you should limit yourself to a combination of Latin letters and numbers. However, let’s not judge strictly: while the system is at the beta testing stage, such bugs are quite natural.

Now let's finally download and install the application itself. Please note that for it to work correctly, Microsoft .NET 4.5 is required, Adobe Flash Player ActiveX and current version Java. After launch, the utility will prompt you to log in to synchronize with SPM, which we will do.

The equipment is detected automatically (in earlier versions serial number had to be specified manually). After successful authorization, the following window will appear:

Don’t be afraid - the program wants to determine your coordinates for display on an interactive map (more on that a little later), but positioning can be turned off.

Now let's see what the application actually offers us. The range includes a whole range of scanners that allow you to control the following parameters:

1. Total voltage and voltage for each of the connected lines;
2. Voltage at central processor and video card;
3. Current strength;
4. Total power.

Using the round arrows, you can enable graph mode that displays changes in real time:

There is also a power supply temperature sensor, where you can select units of measurement to suit your taste:

The Thermaltake Smart DPS G 750W fan control is also available in the DPS App. In the “Performance” mode, the unit will select the optimal speed, almost equalizing the temperature of the power supply components with the temperature environment. The “Zero fan” option allows you to turn off the fan completely - although the power supply itself is extremely quiet, if your household is not accustomed to the soothing sounds of a working server, this function will help make the NAS virtually silent. Given the cost-effectiveness of our system, active cooling may not be needed at all. If the temperature exceeds the critical 80°C, the power supply will automatically switch to intensive operation mode.

The “Expenses” item allows you to set electricity tariffs and thus find out how much it costs you to operate the equipment. Unfortunately, at the moment only one tariff zone is supported and only one currency is the US dollar. As a result, the tool is suitable only for informational purposes, which the utility kindly warns about.

A rather interesting feature is the ability to send data to social media. Facebook, Twitter and its Chinese equivalent Weibo are supported. When you click on the corresponding icon on your account, a screenshot of the currently open counter is published. Sending a picture by e-mail is also available, but only if an email client is previously configured on the computer.

The “Record” tab provides much more interesting opportunities. Here you can download reports on the operation of the power supply by date in CSV format.

Readings are taken at intervals of one minute. The table records all the parameters displayed on the indicators - very convenient for assessing the effectiveness of the system.

However, let's take a break from the application (we have discussed all the available functionality, with the exception of backlight control, which this model not equipped), and let's see what capabilities the SPM cloud platform offers. But first, let’s go to “My Account” -> “Settings”:

If you set the status to “Public”, statistics will be displayed on the “All uploads” tab, but only users added as friends will have access to the data. When you turn on the geolocation service, your computer's location will be displayed on an interactive map.

According to the developers, Smart Power Management should become more than just cloud service monitoring, but a full-fledged social platform. Using the positioning functions, you can make acquaintances with other users and exchange experiences through private messages. Considering that Thermaltake's target products are professionals and enthusiasts, in the future such a system can serve as an excellent alternative to thematic groups and forums, allowing you to find colleagues and like-minded people around the world in a couple of clicks.

Let's go to the “My uploads” tab. Reports generated by the application are loaded here.

By clicking on the link “Download data...” we get to the visual interface. All information stored in text reports is presented here, but in the form of graphs. You can view statistics on the power supply itself, CPU and video card:

The most interesting is the “Analysis” tab. Having selected a power supply (and the platform allows you to add an unlimited number of devices), we get to this page:

The first three tabs allow you to find out the total time of use of the power supply, the cost of electricity and the amount of kW/h consumed, respectively. By clicking on the tree icon, we can evaluate the environmental friendliness of the system:

Unfortunately, the NAS only worked a bit, so I haven't planted a single tree yet. Next, you can get summary statistics on electricity consumption and cost, as well as find out the average power for the selected period:

The “Analysis of power consumption” tab will tell you how suitable the power supply is for file storage:

As you would expect, we were able to assemble a home NAS whose power consumption is comparable to that of a regular household light bulb.

The last tab allows you to create an energy saving plan based on the selected parameters. Here you can also set up alerts for mobile version applications:

In addition, Smart Power Management allows you to remotely manage the power of your computer or server. All necessary tools presented in the Remote section.

It is possible to completely turn off the power or reboot the system (don’t be alarmed, the corresponding signal will be sent to the motherboard), as well as schedule a shutdown:

The listed functionality is also available in the DPS G Mobile App, released for iOS and Android ( Windows Phone naturally ignored). And if viewing statistics on a smartphone screen is not very convenient, then the implementation remote control home NAS will come in handy. All previously made settings are fully synchronized:

Most useful function is a notification that the fan has stopped or the unit has overheated above 60°C, after which you can immediately turn off the system, preventing the power supply of your home NAS from failing.

Instead of a conclusion

Summarize. We found out that using Windows in a home NAS it is long, expensive and extremely inconvenient. Excessive gluttony, time-consuming setup, updating and resynchronization, finally, bugs and the need to purchase a license - all this makes “windows” perhaps the worst solution for file storage. Therefore, in the next post I will talk about what NAS4Free is and what it is used with.

As for the Smart Power Management platform, I can say that the solution is already working great, offering a completely sufficient set of tools for monitoring and managing power. It can be a good help in situations where the use of professional industry solutions is unprofitable (for example, when building an IT infrastructure for small offices). A smart power supply can also come in handy for a private user: when your computer works 24/7, the ability to monitor changes remotely will come in very handy, as well as alarm button to shut down the system in emergency situations. But personally, I would like to see a more advanced tariff system with support for multiple zones and currencies - this would allow us to accurately record energy costs and plan a budget without additional software. If Thermaltake releases a version of the utility for Linux and FreeBSD, it will not have a price at all. I hope that company representatives read Habr - maybe they will like my ideas and transfer the utility to *nixes.

Canon PowerShot A200

Digital photography burst into my life in 2002 with the birth of my daughter. You can’t remember everything, and over time something is forgotten, and therefore I wanted to capture as many moments as possible from the beginning of her life. So it was assumed that I would take a lot of photos and often, which was not allowed then film photography(film cost + printing cost = expensive). And so on August 21, 2002, I purchased a digital device from Creative PC-CAM, which combines a battery-powered webcam and the ability to make digital photos 1MP no more than 8 pieces (it didn’t fit in the internal memory of the device anymore and it couldn’t work with memory cards). Very quickly realizing the beauty of such photography and the inferiority of the small built-in memory, after a couple of months the young dad strained himself financially and bought a real Canon PowerShot A200 digital camera which could also record video!

Canon PowerShot A400

From that moment on, in addition to the film camera, the Samsung Hi8 video camera immediately died morally. The quality of photographs of the new camera was so amazing, and this Canon line was so universal (multiple optical zoom, stabilization against “shaky” hands, a large number of photos per charge) that in subsequent years only the model changed: A400, A430, SX100 IS (optical stabilization!) and SX200 IS. The latter was also purchased on August 21 (coincidence), but already in 2009 and is still in use today. In addition, in March 2012, a Sony NEX-C3K Kit camera with two interchangeable lenses included, 18-55mm/F3.5-5.6, was purchased and the volume of photos and videos (already in FullHD quality) increased noticeably. Another good thing about the Sony NEX camera is that, through a cheap Chinese adapter, I connected a Helios 44-M lens to it from my father’s professional Zenit camera in the USSR (wow, how many weddings were photographed with it!).

CANON PowerShot SX100 IS

What do I mean? Over the course of about 17 years, we have accumulated more than 20 thousand photographs and many, many hours of video. For me, this is a real treasure, which I didn’t want to lose at all. All this stuff was unloaded from the camera’s memory and carefully stored first on the PC’s hard drive, then, due to a problem with viruses in Windows, it was moved to one external drive, and then to a more capacious HDD Western Digital(WD) 1TB My Book. Plus, digitized films (!) from my father and from my Samsung Hi8 video camera began to take up some decent volume.

Photos in old photo albums could only disappear if there was a fire, but you will notice this unpleasant event right away, or if you are lucky, call the firefighters in advance and have time to save everything. The peculiarity of the number is that your entire accumulated photo and video archive disappears instantly, without the preliminary smell of smoke, as they say “with the snap of your fingers.” This has happened to two of my friends with external USB-HDDs in recent years.

As an option for storing external HDDs, the market offers us NAS devices - network information storage. But this is not their only function, these devices have quite a wide functionality: they can work as stand-alone torrent downloaders, and then the downloaded video can be broadcast, for example, to a TV, they can work as media players directly on the TV by connecting via HDMI, as servers for your web website, etc. Everything is limited only by your desires and the program repository for a specific NAS. NAS drives can be combined into arrays from RAID0 to RAID10, depending on the number of slots in the NAS model. RAID allows you to freely manipulate shared disk space (for example, combine two different HDDs into one shared drive using RAID0), and making file storage more secure (for example, using RAID5). You can read more about options for using different RAID levels on the Internet. Another difference from regular PCs and a big plus of NAS is energy efficiency and silence. Because NAS are not intended to be used for games; they usually have a cold processor and a large low-speed fan to cool the HDD. The big minus of NAS is the cost, sometimes reaching 40 thousand rubles or more for some models, and this does not take into account the cost of drives, which can cost another fifteen thousand (for example, 4 HDDs of 1 TB each in April 2019 prices) . Agree, not every family budget can handle this whole undertaking.

Fortunately, there is another alternative and very budget option. That's what I used. This is of course not an ideal option; nothing is ideal. On the plus side, the cost starts from 0 rubles; you can assemble a NAS for your home from an old PC and unnecessary HDDs. And of the minuses - you have to be “hands-on” or at least not afraid to tinker a little with the hardware and software. I followed this path and this is my story.

case example

To begin with, a decommissioned 10-year-old “office” PC was found with a 300W power supply, 2GB of DDR3 RAM, and a processor Intel Pentium Dual-Core E5400 and all this “happiness” on the Gigabyte GA-G41MT-ES2L motherboard (2009), which has “on board” for connecting hard drives not only 4 SATA connectors, but also a pair of old IDE connectors. I was very happy about the last one, because... I had a couple of old IDE drives that had just been lying around for many years unneeded, on which I was going to start my experiments with NAS. Another thing that pleased me, on the motherboard besides of course PCI slots there was one modern PCI Express x1, which was very useful to me later. One of the disadvantages of this motherboard is that it is not possible to load the operating system from the built-in card reader, even after BIOS updates before latest version. It’s a pity, I have a couple of unnecessary 4GB SD cards lying around that would be suitable for this project, but alas. But it is possible to boot the OS from a USB flash drive. Okay, let's see how this can be used in the future. There is also a 1Gbit network port on board the motherboard, which is just great, because... The copying speed over the network will be very fast. The center of my home local network is the Zyxel Giga II Internet center whose ports also operate at a speed of 1 Gbit.

Let's continue. So, the second question after the system unit was: what OS should I use for the NAS? The Internet offers many options, both paid and absolutely free: FreeNAS, EasyNAS, Rockstor, OpenMediaVault and the like, I advise you to read the article (opens in a new window) “The best NAS distributions”. After I watched Youtube for a few more days, and then independently checked and tested all these OS on my virtual computer in VirtualBox, I decided to go with OpenMediaVault (OMV for short). Why? Yes, because OMV fully supports the Russian language, is free and is based on the Linux OS (Debian), which means stability and reliability that Windows OS never dreamed of. What’s great about Linux OS solutions is that they are free, there is no threat of infection by OS viruses, which means there is no need to buy an antivirus, system requirements for Linux in times lower than Windows, which means that the OS will feel great even on those PCs on which Windows simply refuses to start. In addition, devices under Linux control do not require much attention to maintenance (for example, all SmartTVs, routers and Cell Phones work on one or another build of Linux. In general, whatever one may say, Linux in this case is my option. In general, I have decided on the OS.

I probably won’t describe the installation of OpenMediaVault here. Everything is quite simple, there are no problems, and there are plenty of similar descriptions on the Internet. For example, I’ll give you a link to the article (opens in a new window) “Openmediavault, or How to make a NAS yourself? ". Read for yourself. I’ll just write what works for me now:

Torrent downloader with a web interface. Very comfortably.

MThe miniDLNA media server allows you to watch movies on your TV. I indicated several folders where my films are located, as well as the folder where the torrent is downloadedachalka.

Notifications enabled email. Now at work (and anywhere!) I immediately find out about all incidents if they happen.

S.M.A.R.T hard drive monitor enabled. If a disk suddenly becomes “bad,” I will receive a notification about this by email, for example, on my smartphone, and I will be able to save information from it to another disk in time, before the disk completely breaks down.

Rsync is enabled, which is used to do backup copy hard drive family photos and videos are archived on a remote server at work.

II made a shared folder for all users on my home network. Now there are no problems with documents, when you finish editing the text on a desktop PC, you can open it on a laptop that is on the balcony or on a tablet.

Clave antivirus enabled for scheduled scans shared folder. The fact is that there is one PC with Windows on the home network, and even though there is an antivirus on it, it is Windows and you and I understand that the antivirus in this case is notalways saves. So, in fact, an antivirus in Linux is needed in case the files in the shared folder become infected from a Wiondows computer. In Linux itself, there are no viruses simply as a class.

example IDE HDD

OMV has a plugin that needs to be installed if the OS is running on a USB flash drive. To be honest, my hands were so itchy that I was in a hurry and did not bother to deal with this plugin, and therefore did not install the OS on a USB flash drive, and in order not to occupy the valuable SATA port on the mother with the boot disk, I decided to install OMV on an IDE disk. And what? Speed ​​is not so important here; the peculiarity of Linux is that it works in the PC’s memory and does not terrorize the computer’s hard drive with writing and reading, like Windows. In general, the OS takes up about 2.5 GB of space and is located on an 80 GB hard drive, and on the second IDE drive, after finishing all the OMV settings, I made a backup in case the first IDE drive fails. This is how it turned out on a budget and I think it’s reliable.

Temporarily, for experiments, friends threw in a pair of 3.5“ HDDs of 500GB each. I included them in RAID0 and the output was one disk with a capacity of 1TB. Until they take it back, it will work like this. Used for torrent operation and shared user folder. We also bought a pair of 2.5“ Seagate Barracuda 1TB. That's how all 4 SATA ports on the motherboard became busy. In the photo on the right you can see, from top to bottom: 2 IDEs with the OMV system, then there are a pair of SATA 500Gb that are “connected” in RAID0, and at the very bottom there are two - these are 1TB screws in a 2’5” laptop format. By the way, the pictures below are all clickable, click on them to enlarge.

Aerocool Motion 12

Because The disks turned out to be what is called “capped” and summer is ahead, I decided to make additional cooling for them. I bought an “Aerocool Motion 12” fan at the CSN for 270 rubles. and installed it inside opposite the rack with the HDD in its normal place. It works quietly, 1200 revolutions in total, but it blows wonderfully due to the increased number of blades, there are 9 of them.

I wonder what to do when I need to add at least one more hard drive? Now there is no free SATA port on the motherboard, and there is also no room in the PC case in the standard HDD mounting points.

Oimaster He-2006

While wandering around the Internet, I once found it in a Chinese store interesting solution. A rack for six 2`5 HDDs on retractable chassis is inserted into the PC case in place of the DVD drive, with a lock against accidental disconnection of disks, with an indication HDD operation and forced cooling of the internals. Of course, I didn’t need 6 HDDs directly, and inside a limited space they would be too dense, and this is a problem of heat dissipation, the disks get hot, especially in round-the-clock mode. But overall I liked the idea. I started looking for a solution for 4 HDDs and I had to somehow solve the problem of the lack of free SATA ports. And to paraphrase the proverb about Rome in a modern way: in China, everything is there. I found the SSU SA3014 PCI-E board that adds 4 SATA 3.0 ports for about 1350 rubles on Alishka.

But to be honest, I was lucky at that moment and I bought it elsewhere: a new online store Bringly.ru had just opened, a joint project of Yandex and Sberbank. There were discounts, and they also gave out points for the first purchase, which you can use to pay for the product as money. In general, together with everything, including delivery, this board cost me 565 rubles. It turned out very budget-friendly, in the style of my project. Then, after reviewing a bunch of options for racks for HDDs in 5'25 bays, I came to the conclusion that the most normal company is Oimaster. There are a lot of positive reviews, and judging by the photo of the device, everything is quite high quality and reliable, although a little expensive.
But he, too, must take good care of my disks so that the data stored on them does not disappear, for example due to poor soldering of some circuit inside the rack or simple overheating. The minimum price for it is around 1898 rubles. For a couple of months I was looking for cheaper options, waiting, maybe there would be discounts somewhere? There were no discounts on it at the last sale, even on AliExpress, so I had to buy it, as they say, at full price. It’s good that I use the Letyshops cashback service (click on the banner at the top of this page), and part of the money paid is always returned to me, so we can assume that the goods are always cheaper. When everything arrived, I installed everything in the case. Everything works perfectly!

OMV has a built-in statistics system. It keeps track of how heavy the load is on the processor, how much RAM is used and how much is left free, you can see the dynamics of hard drives being filled, etc. Let me remind you that on my system it is Intel processor Pentium Dual-Core E5400 whose power turned out to be more than enough, the average load does not exceed 8-10%. Random access memory 2GB is also more than 0.6GB is occupied by the system, the rest is allocated for data buffering.

In conclusion. I can say that the NAS turned out to be cheap, in fact, from the obligatory expenses - it’s 270 rubles. for additional fan for mandatory cooling HDD array. So don’t rush to throw away your old PCs - they can still serve you for a long time, but in a different role. If you have old HDDs, then there are no costs either. All my other expenses on an additional board and a rack for 4 disks were, in general, unnecessary. OMV's capabilities are sufficient not only for home use, but also for the office and large corporate network- since all this is based on Linux OS (Debian) with regular system updates. And my NAS pleases me with seven new movies, instant availability of the entire mass of home videos and photos, and finally, confident peace of mind for the safety of all the data accumulated over the years.

Categories:// from 09/04/2019

Never before has the problem of file storage been as acute as it is today.

The emergence of hard drives with a capacity of 3 and even 4 TB, Blu-Ray drives with a capacity of 25 to 50 GB, cloud storage- does not solve the problem. There are more and more devices around us that generate heavy content around us: photo and video cameras, smartphones, HD television and video, game consoles and so on. We generate and consume (mostly from the Internet) hundreds and thousands of gigabytes.

This leads to the fact that the average user’s computer stores a huge number of files, hundreds of gigabytes in size: a photo archive, a collection of favorite films, games, programs, work documents, etc.

All this needs to not only be stored, but also protected from failures and other threats.

Pseudo-solutions to the problem

You can equip your computer with a capacious hard drive. But in this case, the question arises: how and where to archive, say, data from a 3-terabyte disk?!

You can install two disks and use them in RAID “mirror” mode or just regularly perform backup from one to another. This is also not the best option. Let's say your computer is attacked by viruses: most likely, they will infect the data on both disks.

You can store important data on optical disks, organizing a home Blu-Ray archive. But it will be extremely inconvenient to use.

Network storage is the solution to the problem! Partly...

Network attached storage (NAS) - network file storage. But it can be explained even simpler:

Let's say you have two or three computers at home. Most likely, they are connected to a local network (wired or wireless) and to the Internet. Network storage is a specialized computer that is built into your home network and connects to the Internet.

As a result of this, the NAS can store any of your data, and you can access it from any home PC or laptop. Looking ahead, it is worth saying that the local network must be modern enough so that you can quickly and easily “pump” tens and hundreds of gigabytes through it between the server and computers. But more on that later.

Where can I get a NAS?

Method one: purchase. More or less decent NAS for 2 or 4 hard drives can be bought for 500-800 dollars. Such a server will be packaged in a small case and ready to work, as they say, “out of the box.”

However, PLUS the cost of hard drives is added to these 500-800 dollars! Since NAS are usually sold without them.

Pros: you get a ready-made device and spend a minimum of time.

Disadvantages of this solution: NAS costs as much as desktop computer, but at the same time has incomparably less capabilities. In fact, this is just a network external drive for a lot of money. For quite a lot of money you get a limited, unprofitable set of features.

My solution: DIY!

This is much cheaper than buying a separate NAS, although it takes a little longer because you assemble the machine yourself). However, you get a full-fledged home server, which, if desired, can be used in the full range of its capabilities.

ATTENTION! I strongly do not recommend building a home server using old computer or old, worn-out components. Do not forget that file server- this is your data storage. Don’t skimp on making it as reliable as possible, so that one fine day all your files don’t “burn out” along with the hard drives, for example, due to a failure in the motherboard power circuit...

So, we decided to build a home file server. Computer, hard disks which are available on your home local network for use. Accordingly, we need such a computer to be energy efficient, quiet, compact, not emit a lot of heat, and have sufficient performance.

Based on this, the ideal solution is a motherboard with a processor built into it and passive cooling, compact sizes.

I selected the motherboard ASUS C-60M1-I . It was purchased from the online store dostavka.ru:

The package includes a high-quality user manual, a driver disk, a sticker on the case, 2 SATA cables and back panel for the body:

ASUS, as always, equipped the board very generously. You can find the full board specifications here: http://www.asus.com/Motherboard/C60M1I/#specifications. I will only talk about some important points.

With a cost of just 3300 rubles- it provides 80% of everything we need for the server.

There is a dual-core processor on board the board AMD C-60 with built-in graphics chip. The processor has a frequency 1 GHz(automatically can increase to 1.3 GHz). Today it is installed in some netbooks and even laptops. Intel Atom D2700 class processor. But everyone knows that Atom has problems with parallel computing, which often reduces its performance to zero. But the C-60 does not have this drawback, and in addition is equipped with quite powerful graphics for this class.

There are two memory slots DDR3-1066, with the ability to install up to 8 GB of memory.

The board contains 6 ports on board SATA 6 Gbit. This allows you to connect as many as 6 disks (!) to the system, and not just 4, as in a regular NAS for home.

What's MOST important?- the board is built on the basis UEFI, and not the usual BIOS. This means that the system will be able to work normally with hard drives larger than 2.2 TB. She will “see” their entire volume. BIOS-based motherboards cannot work with hard drives larger than 2.2 GB without special “crutch utilities”. Of course, the use of this kind of utilities is unacceptable if we are talking about the reliability of data storage and servers.

The C-60 is a fairly cold processor, so it is cooled using only an aluminum heatsink. This is enough so that even at the moment of full load the processor temperature does not rise above 50-55 degrees. Which is the norm.

The set of ports is quite standard, the only disappointment is the absence of the new USB 3.0. And I especially want to answer the presence of a full-fledged gigabit network port:

On this board I installed 2 modules of 2 GB DDR3-1333 from Patriot:

Windows 7 Ultimate was installed on a WD 500GB Green hard drive, and for data I purchased a 3 TB Hitachi-Toshiba HDD:

All this equipment is powered by a 400-watt FSP power supply, which, of course, is with a reserve.

The final step was to assemble all this equipment into a mini-ATX case.

Immediately after assembly I installed it on Windows computer 7 Ultimate (installation took about 2 hours, which is normal given the low processor speed).

After all this, I disconnected the keyboard, mouse and monitor from the computer. In fact, there was only one left system unit connected to the local network via cable.

It is enough to remember the local IP of this PC on the network in order to connect to it from any machine through the standard Windows “Remote Desktop Connection” utility:

I deliberately did not install specialized OS for organizing file storage, such as FreeNAS. Indeed, in this case, there would be little point in assembling a separate PC for these needs. You could just buy a NAS.

But a separate home server that can be loaded with work overnight and left is more interesting. Moreover, familiar Windows interface 7 is convenient to operate.

In total, the total cost of a home server WITHOUT hard drives was 6,000 rubles.

Important addition

When using any network storage it is very important throughput networks. Moreover, even a regular 100 Megabit cable network does not delight you when, say, you are archiving from your computer to a home server. Transferring 100 GB over a 100 Megabit network takes several hours.

What can we say about Wi-Fi. It’s good if you use Wi-Fi 802.11n - in this case, the network speed is around 100 Megabits. What if the standard is 802.11g, where the speed is rarely more than 30 Megabits? This is very, very little.

Ideal option when interaction with the server occurs via a cable network Gigabit Ethernet. In this case, it's really fast.

But I will tell you how to create such a network quickly and at minimal cost in a separate article.