[kind of] Simple Home[made] Inexpensive NAS

[TheLost]

I was helping a neighbor 'check off' one of their new years resolution of actually backing up their data and i thought i'd post here and see if anybody wants to do something similar...

I've been using this setup at home for over a decade and it has served me well. I not only use it for storing my photos but also my software development work, music collection and home theater (aka movies).

All that is required is an old computer, some hard drives, and a semi-functioning brain.

What it is:
A software RAID5 system running linux (debian or ubuntu).

What it does:
If you don't know what RAID stands for you can read about it here..
Standard RAID levels - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In a simplified nut shell.. RAID5 spreads your data over all the drives in the system leaving one drive for parity. To simplify it even more.. one drive can fail and you still have all your data.

In my setup(s) at home, i have a drop-in replacement drives standing by so that i would actually have to loose two drives before i lost any data.

By using a software RAID setup you can replace any hardware (motherboard, network card.. etc) and not worry about loosing your data. Systems like Drobo or other NAS boxes tie you in to their hardware (If your drobo breaks you are screwed until you buy a new drobo).

How it works:
Using free/opensource software. Technically Linux as the OS, Mdadm as the raid software and Samba to handle the file sharing.

As an added precaution i also run other software on my NAS that backs up my important stuff (software code, family images/video) to an online cloud backup system (i used to use CrashPlan but now i use Amazon's Glacier system).

How much does it cost?:
As much as you want... For example, my neighbor had an old dell computer laying around and he spent $200 on 3 1tb drives (giving him a total of 2tb of storage space).

or.. you could spend ~$600 and get something like i run (6 x 2TB drives + computer + case).

How hard is it?:
I'm not going to lie.. my neighbor isn't very smart (he still has a flip phone because he cant figure out those dang smart phones)... however he can build one so im sure you can too!


I won't post the 'how-to' unless anybody is interested... IMHO its a great low-cost way to have a 'safe/redundant' home storage solution that can be accessed by any computer in the house (you can even setup different 'shares' for different users.. for example my kids each have their own private storage for homework).

Its 2014... maybe you want to start it off by getting a bit 'nerdy' and learn something

 

[SnappingShark]

The only thing I don't like about using an old computer these days to house a backup solution is the fact that old boxes just aren't as energy efficient.

I recently got given (free) an old HP ML150 G6 server, thinking cool, I could run my website, backup my data, yada yada, but it turned out, I would spend $800 per year on electricity running it.

So I gave that away. It's now acting as a doorstop for my brother in law.

Moral of the story: check out your costs going forward before you buy into a solution you cannot afford to keep.

 

[robbins.photo]

The only thing I don't like about using an old computer these days to house a backup solution is the fact that old boxes just aren't as energy efficient.

I recently got given (free) an old HP ML150 G6 server, thinking cool, I could run my website, backup my data, yada yada, but it turned out, I would spend $800 per year on electricity running it.

So I gave that away. It's now acting as a doorstop for my brother in law.

Moral of the story: check out your costs going forward before you buy into a solution you cannot afford to keep.

Well, whatever you do, don't replace them with 3 IBM 455's with the SMP modules tied together. Ok, granted, 48 cores all hammering along at 2.8 ghz makes for a great video and 3d animation processing tool, but wow.. everytime I fire it up the whole neighborhood goes dim for a few minutes... lol