Question NAS via DAC ?

[peter_cass]

Hi everyone!

I currently use my PC for photo and video editing and internal drives for storage. Now, I was thinking of building a small NAS by myself, which will be connected via a DAC directly to the main PC, but there some things I would like to get your opinion about:

1. Since the NAS primarily only serves one client, I would use an SFP+ DAC cable and an Intel NIC to get at least 10Gbit on the line (more bandwith is probably not necessary given the fact that I will primarily use SATAIII drives).
2. At first, I was thinking about using the Fractal Design Node with a mITX board (ASRock etc.). However, they only support 4 SATA drives and if I use a dedicated NIC, I will be out of slots for an SATA controller. So, I would probably go for a standard ATX board and case.
   1. Can you recommend a case with at least 8 drive slots but still as small as possible?
   2. Which CPU would you recommend? The NAS is solely used for data storage and the whole system should use as little power as possible. However, I might run a small docker container (e.g. for Zabbix etc.). Would you use e.g., the Intel 13100T or "T" CPUs in general?
   3. Since the NAS will be idle for most of the time - is there a big difference in idle power consumption of typical CPUs with more or less cores?
3. Ideally, the NAS would only start if the main computer started and shut down, when the main computer does. Is it possible to achieve this by Wake-on-LAN?

Thanks for any ideas, suggestions and help!

Best,

Peter

 

[peter_cass]

Sorry, that was not explained clearly. DAC = Direct Attach Cable --> direct connection via fiber (10Gbit/s or 25Gbit/s).

 

[Misgar]

Will the eight SATA3 drives be 3.5in or 2.5in hard disks? Housing eight hard drives with adequate cooling requires a fairly large case. If you're using 2.5in SATA SSDs, cooling is less important. The smallest form factor 8-bay cases I can think of include Synology and QNAP NAS, but you're building your own system. There's usually at least one free slot in a commercial 8-bay NAS for a 10GbE NIC.

I constructed a TrueNAS Core system with ten 3.5in hard disks in a large Lian-Li tower case. The eight hard disks in the RAID-Z2 array are run off an 8-port LSI SAS-1 HBA controller card. The old motherboard only had four SATA ports, plus the hard disks are SAS, not SATA.

I also have a an old Fractal Design case with room inside for eight 3.5in drives in white metal carriers mounted behind two front panel fans, but it too is a big case. You may have to settle for a large case.

I assume you'll choose the optical DACs at each end of the fibre link to support the two 10GbE NICs. Some NICs can be fussy regarding optical DACs. I use a combination of optical (long run 30m) and copper (short run 2m) cables in my 10GbE networks.

Most modern low power CPUs should suffice for your application, especially if they contain a graphics adapter. No point wasting another 10 to 30W on a separate PCIe GPU.