NAS-server based on Windows Home Server

A friend asked me to assemble a NAS-server and install WHS on it. Below is the hardware I used for this. At first I wanted to buy a Chenbro case with mini-ITX (ES34069) but I finally decided to buy the Antec NSK1380 case. I wanted to be more flexible and chose a micro-ATX system. Now this friend has the option to turn the system into a media center. So this is the list.

Case: Antec NSK1380
CPU: AMD Sempron LE-1200 2.1 GHz EE 45W AM2
Motherboard: GA-MA78GM-S2H
Memory: 1 x 1GB 667 MHz DDR2 Geil (1 module) (IAIE8F)
Harddisk: 2 x WD 1TB Sata II 7200 rpm 16MB Caviar GP (WD10EACS)
PSU: Antec 380W 80plus (custom)
CDROM: Samsung DVD writer sh-s202

The Antec NSK1380 case is a very comfortable case and comes with PSU. This is the case. The dimensions are 33.5x20x26.9 (DxWxH) (in cm).


There is room for three 3.5 inch drives and an external 5.25 inch drive on a removable cage.


So I put one 3.5 inch drive vertical on the left and one below. The picture has the cage upside down.


Next is putting everything together in the case.



The sidepanels are made of three layers: aluminum, plastic and aluminum. The sidepanels are detachable which is really nice. So I can do a little cable management. Also there is an extra expansion slot fan (on the left).

Next step is booting the system and installing WHS as can be seen below.


The hardware part was piece of cake. The server is running idle about 69 watt. Next stop is the software part ie configuring WHS.

FreeNAS as before

I put back my samsung hd103uj 1TB drive into the file server. I'm glad I did that. With one disk instead of three the box is not running hot anymore and the power consumption is better.

This is the disk setup in freeNAS:


And the disk status:



For now I will keep using freeNAS mainly for its ultra light setup. So this will be the system I will be using myself. Next I will describe building a NAS-server that will run Windows Home Server, but that one is not for myself.

FreeNAS with raid-5

The previous setup was working fine. But today I acquired a third 250GB drive. So I'm going to give a raid5 setup a try. Why? Because I'm curious and I'm wondering whether there is a cpu-penalty when running a software raid5 in freenas.

So I took out the 1TB samsung drive and built these three harddisk in:

hd0: maxtor diamondmax 10 6V260F0 sataII NCQ (jumper on sataI)
hd1: maxtor diamondmax 10 6V260F0 sataII NCQ (jumper on sataI)
hd2: maxtor diamondmax 10 6L250S0 sataI

In freeNAS I configured a raid5 with 3 drives formatted in softraid. I takes a while to rebuild the array. But the current status is complete see below.

Software RAID information and status
Geom name: CherRaid5
State: COMPLETE CALM
Status: Total=3, Online=3
Type: AUTOMATIC
Pending: (wqp 0 // 0)
Stripesize: 131072
MemUse: 378880 (msl 9)
Newest: -1
ID: 1726283426
Providers:
1. Name: raid5/CherRaid5
 Mediasize: 501998157824 (468G)
 Sectorsize: 512
 Mode: r1w1e2
Consumers:
1. Name: ad10
 Mediasize: 251000193024 (234G)
 Sectorsize: 512
 Mode: r2w2e3
 DiskNo: 0
 Error: No
2. Name: ad8
 Mediasize: 251000193024 (234G)
 Sectorsize: 512
 Mode: r2w2e3
 DiskNo: 2
 Error: No
3. Name: ad6
 Mediasize: 250999111168 (234G)
 Sectorsize: 512
 Mode: r2w2e3
 DiskNo: 1
 Error: No

So three drives with 234GB results in 468GB of free space. When writing files on the NAS the cpu load is the same as before around 20%.

But a new issue had come up --> temperatures are rising. The disk temperatures are rising above 40 degrees celsius. So I put an extra 12cm fan in the case but temperatures are still too high about 35 degrees celsius. Also the power consumption has risen to about 95 Watt.

Data safety is nice, but I'm probably going to put the samsung drive back.

Setup Stalker NAS-server

This is the final setup in terms of hardware components:

CPU: Intel C2D E8400@3.00GHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-G33M-S2H
Memory: 1GB Kingston (kit of 2x512MB) KHX6400D2LLK2_1G
Harddisk: 1TB Samsung HD103UJ
PSU: standard noname 350W
Lights: 2x15cm CCFL UV-green
CDROM: LITE-ON DVDRW SHM-165H6S/HQSA

This build will be running as a NAS-server. Although the cpu is too heavy for this purpose, I'm still using it that way. Maybe I'll change it in the future.

I have installed freeNAS and the system boots from a 128KB usb-stick. This is the welcome screen.

This configuration uses between 68 and 71 watts when running idle.

At first the power saving features were not enabled. For that I opened a ssh-shell with the following command:

Copyright (c) 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994
The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

Welcome to FreeNAS!

> sysctl -a | egrep -i 'dev.cpu.0.freq'
dev.cpu.0.freq: 2988
dev.cpu.0.freq_levels: 2988/-1 2614/-1 2241/-1 1867/-1 1494/-1 1120/-1 747/-1 373/-1
>

To enable power saving I added the option powerd_enable YES to the System|Advanced|rc.conf configuration. This is the result. The power consumption remains the same (?).

Copyright (c) 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994
The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.

Welcome to FreeNAS!

> sysctl -a | egrep -i 'dev.cpu.0.freq'
dev.cpu.0.freq: 373
dev.cpu.0.freq_levels: 2988/-1 2614/-1 2241/-1 1867/-1 1494/-1 1120/-1 747/-1 373/-1
>

Initially I transferred my harddisk from window xp to freeNAS. The disk was formatted with NTFS and contained some files. So I started using freeNAS without reformatting the drive as I assumed this wouldn't give me any problem. I was wrong after each reboot the NTFS partition forgets newly written files and produces errors. I put the harddisk back into my xp-machine and ran chkdsk and tried it again. But no luck. The only way to be sure your data stays intact with freeNAS is to use it with its own native filesystem UFS.

This is the final look.