Proposed XPEnology DIY system build

Proposed XPEnology DIY system build

 

 

Hey guys,

 

XPEnology 5.0-4458 seems to be available through gnoBoot which "works with original... 4.x/5.x pat files... " ( viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2152 ) and can be updated to the official DiskStation Manager (DSM) Update 2 (without an increase in build number) ( http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showth ... 18&page=12 ). However outside of virtual machines, support for native hardware is limited because he has "only compiled limited drivers in the kernel." ( http://www.gnoboot.me/p/blog-page_6.html ). Trantor has released a beta of 5.0 and will be distributing his more fully-featured release version soon.

 

What do people think of my proposed build 24/7 NAS build below? I'm in the UK. I'm using this to get the ball rolling, but will actually make my purchase at the end of this year (2014) and instead base it on a server Haswell-EP a.k.a. E5-xxxx v3 CPU on the new Socket ? / LGA 2011-3 and with the new C610 ‘Wellsburg’ chipset supporting DDR4-2133. (Indeed, Hynix have just announced a 128GB module!)

 

(This will presumably also be the time that Synology releases the successor to the DS3612xs, using a desktop Broadwell-D CPU on the existing Socket R / LGA 1150 but with the new Z97 chipset. Hopefully this will feature a couple of Thunderbolt 2 ports as well: Thunderbolt Networking for emulating a 10GbE Ethernet connection has just been announced at NAB ( http://blogs.intel.com/technology/2014/ ... verywhere/ ) by connecting directly with a $300 10m/33ft, $500 20m/66ft or $600 30m/100ft optical Thunderbolt 2 cable by Corning or OWC. At present there is only native support for Mac and support for Windows with a driver ( http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/07/thun ... etworking/ ) but presumably Synology would be able to work with Intel to make it compatible with DiskStation Manager).

 

The Synology Download Station browser extension sounds very useful:

 

"The Download Station extension for Google Chrome allows you to manage download tasks on your Synology Diskstation from within Google Chrome. With this extension you do no longer need to login to the web interface to add a download task. Simply right-click the file you want to download and choose the Download Station context-menu item. After you've added your task, you can follow the progress or pause/resume/remove the task in the status popup by clicking the toolbar button. You will receive a notification when your task has finished downloading.

 

Features:

- Send download tasks to your diskstation from the context menu

- Manage your download tasks without logging in to the web interface

- Notification when a download has finished, even if all Chrome windows are closed!

- Download button below YouTube video's

 

Coming soon:

- Destination folder selection (DSM 5.0)... "

 

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/deta ... hpoidcnida

 

"This extension supports all types of downloads that are supported by Download Station, including:

 

BitTorrent (.torrent files and magnet links)

NZB files

HTTP(S) and (S)FTP(S) downloads

eMule

YouTube video's

Filehosting websites (if supported by Download Station)"

 

http://www.download-station-extension.com/

 

"If it's a file hosting site and requires authentication, simply check the Authentication required box and enter your username and password."

 

http://www.synology.com/en-us/support/tutorials/510

 

"It offers the auto unzip service to help you extract compressed files to your Synology DiskStation whenever files are downloaded."

 

http://www.synology.com/en-global/dsm/a ... on_landing

 

"Get your TV shows downloaded automatically.

 

Install Download Station.

Create your own custom feed of TV shows at http://ShowRSS.info . Put that URL into Download Station.

Get this great browser extension to manage downloads...

 

The Download Station browser extension will allow you to send any torrent or magnet link and begin downloading it on the Synology. It'll drop it to the directory of your choice. This goes for any URL on the web: for any adhoc file you need downloaded, you can task DS to download and drop it into your directory. Bonus: it allows you to download YouTube videos with a single click.

 

ShowRSS is a service that allows you to compile all the TV shows that you'd like monitored. They get their SD and HD feeds from EZTV. You basically create yourself a custom RSS feed that has the shows you want in the quality you want.

 

DS also supports RSS feeds. DS monitors that RSS feed. When a new episode shows up in the RSS feed, DS will download it."

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/synology/commen ... installdo/

 

http://blog.wapnet.nl/2013/11/automatic ... -synology/

 

This would seem to be a good alternative to JDownloader, and then there is nzbToMedia, SABnzbd, Sick Beard and Coach Potato ( http://www.totalhtpc.com/the-complete-g ... eadphones/ ) which can take care of more specialised downloading needs which require PAR2 parity checks and RAR processing etc. as I've read that Download Station's auto-extraction ability is rather limited. For more general torrents, Transmission could be used as an alternative to Download Station if I wish.

 

The only downside I can see for DiskStation Manager is that there is no app available for a decent unlimited backup service such as LiveDrive or Carbonite. CrashPlan - which is available through an unofficial repository - seems to run at glacial upload speeds after the first 200GB. On a namesake note, Amazon Glacier seems to be too dear for multiple terabytes of data.

 

 

CASE:

 

Lian Li PC-343B Cube (2013 version)

(18 x 5.25" external drive bays)

 

This case is suitable for ATX motherboards but incompatible with E-ATX motherboards.

 

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showprodu ... =CA-645-LL

 

*** £285 ***

 

 

MOTHERBOARD:

 

Supermicro X9SRH-7TF

http://www.supermicro.co.uk/products/mo ... RH-7TF.cfm

ftp://ftp.supermicro.com/CDR-X9-UP_1.22 ... /X9SRH.pdf

ATX format

Single Socket R / LGA 2011 motherboard on the C602J chipset

 

This Supermicro motherboard natively features 2 RJ45 10GBASE-T LAN ports (provided by the Intel Ethernet Controller X540-AT2 which is available as a LAN-On-Motherboard chip: http://ark.intel.com/products/60020/Int ... r-X540-AT2 ).

 

http://www.servercase.co.uk/shop/compon ... srh-7tf-o/

 

*** £435 ***

 

(8x 240-pin DDR3 DIMM sockets

Up to 512GB DDR3 ECC LRDIMM

Up to 256GB DDR3 ECC RDIMM

Up to 64GB DDR3 ECC/non-ECC UDIMM

 

1866/1600/1333/1066MHz ECC DDR3 SDRAM 72-bit, 240-pin gold-plated DIMMs

 

32GB, 16GB, 8GB, 4GB, 2GB, 1GB,

64GB LRDIMM

 

Memory Voltage: 1.5 V, 1.35 V)

 

 

(8 GB (2 GB X 4) of DDR3 ECC is the maximum supported by the DS3612xs

 

"Opposite the processor are not two but four DDR3 DIMM slots which come with a pair of Apacer 75.073C8.G020C DDR3-1333 1GB memory modules for 2GB of RAM. "

http://www.techspot.com/review/528-nas- ... page3.html

 

"... DDR3-1333 Apacer memory modules."

http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/2704/3/ ... re-i3-2100 )

 

 

RAM:

 

Recommended DDR3-1866 memory for X9SRH-7TF

http://www.supermicro.com/support/resou ... eg=1&fbd=0

 

"However, for best memory performance, install DIMM modules in pairs."

 

4 GB:

MEM-DR340L-HL02-ER18

Hynix HMT351R7EFR8C-RD / H5TQ2G83EFR

 

8 GB:

MEM-DR380L-HL02-ER18

Hynix HMT41GR7AFR8C-RD / H5TQ4G83AFR

 

MEM-DR380L-SL05-ER18

Samsung M393B1G70QH0-CMA / K4B4G0446Q-HCMA

 

16 GB:

MEM-DR316L-HL01-ER18

Hynix HMT42GR7AFR4C-RD / HSTQ4G43AFR

 

MEM-DR316L-SL02-ER18

Samsung M393B2G70QH0-CMA / K4B4G0446Q-HCMA

 

2 x Samsung M393B1G70QH0-CMA (2 x 8GB = 16GB total)

2 x £80

 

http://www.morecomputers.com/extra.aspx ... G70QH0-CMA

 

*** £160 ***

 

 

(2x SATA3 (6Gb/s) ports...

8x SAS2 (6Gb/s) ports via LSI 2308

 

Expansion slots:

1x PCI-E 3.0 x16 slot,

1x PCI-E 3.0 x8 (in x16 slot),

1x PCI-E 2.0 x4 (in x8 slot)... )

 

 

HARD DRIVE CAGES:

 

6 x ServerCaseUK ISG-AN-D35 trayless, tool-less, cage converters

(converts the 18 x external 5.25" bays into 30 x 3.5" hard drive bays)

(appears to be manufactured by iSG Industrial / An-Hsin Technology, and is also rebranded by iStarUSA as the BPN-DE350SS: http://an-hsin.com.tw/webe/html/product ... 40&kind=38 )

 

However, each cages requires two power connectors - so that will be 12 in total - which can be 15-Pin SATA power or another design (in blue) that I can't tell from the picture (it doesn't appear to be Molex) ( http://an-hsin.com.tw/css/displayCut.as ... =704&h=469 ).

 

https://www.servercase.co.uk/shop/compo ... d35silver/

 

6 x £90

*** £540 ***

 

(the GeneSys TL535 is not widely available and the the Icy Dock / FlexCage MB975SP-B is dearer and more power hungry. The X-CASE 5 IN 3 HOTSWAP CADDY V2, which seems to be a rebranded Norco SS-500 is cheaper but is not trayless)

 

 

PSU:

 

I need a PSU with at least 12 x 15-Pin SATA power connectors (see above). Every two 15-Pin SATA power connectors will then split between the five SATA drives in each of the six cages.

 

The width of each cage is 125mm, which will in practice be the height given that they will be mounted in the case horizontally. Given that there will be three cages on each half of the case, and the case is very large and would dwarf the motherboard, I would need the longest SATA power cables available and this seems to be the only model from any brand that fulfils all the criteria.

 

The Platinum-1200 is advertised as having 14 power connectors (and therefore the only suitable Seasonic model), attached to five 6-Pin connectors on the PSU ( http://www.seasonicusa.com/images/Plati ... XP3_02.jpg ). It comes bundled with the SS-SATA-55-03 cables I need ( http://www.seasonicusa.com/accessories.htm - although replacements can't be bought directly from there: http://www.overclock.net/t/1256457/wher ... num-cables ) with a length of 550mm - 150mm - 150mm ( http://www.seasonicusa.com/images/Acces ... SATA-2.jpg ).

 

Seasonic Platinum-1200 (SS-1200XP3 Active PFC F3)

http://seasonicusa.com/Platinum_Series_XP3.htm

 

http://www.alternate.de/Seasonic/P-1200 ... ct/1136573

 

*** equivalent of £220 ***

(not available in UK so will also need a 3-pin kettle lead for a couple of pounds: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2m-uk-po ... -lead-type)-moulded-with-uk-plug-(suitable-for-psus)-bs-approved-c13-ie )

 

 

SATA CONTROLLER:

 

HighPoint Rocket 750 (Marvell 88SE9485 chipset)

http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/s ... erview.htm

40x SATA3 port PCI-E 2.0 x8 card

 

I would run all 30 hard drives off here (with 10 slots free), and leave the remaining one compatible and one incompatible PCI-E slots, as well as the motherboard's native SATA3 and SAS2 ports, free. Whilst that would be a single point of failure,

 

It is used in Backblaze's new Storage Pod 4.0 ( http://blog.backblaze.com/2014/03/19/ba ... age-pod-4/ ): "We’ve upgrade the CPU to an i3-3240 (Ivy Bridge) from an i3-2100 (Sandy Bridge) CPU. This makes processing faster and when combined with the Rocket 750 cards provided the boost in throughput of 4 to 5 times we’ve experienced... Each of the Rocket 750 Cards has 10 ports with Mini-SAS connectors. The new SATA cables start with a Mini-SAS connector and fan out to 4 individual cables each of which terminates in the direct wire connector... "

 

Eight of those ten Int-MS-1M4S Mini-SAS (SFF-8087) cables referred to, with four SATA connectors each, would distribute data across the six ISG-AN-D35 cages (each with five SATA connectors) and are easily long enough at 1m in length.

 

http://www.amazon.com/HighPoint-Rocket- ... B00C7JNPSQ

 

*** equivalent of £410 ***

(It is £800 in the UK but was under $700 from Amazon in the US when it was in stock. However, CamelCamelCamel US reveals that it went as low as $450 last August: http://camelcamelcamel.com/HighPoint-Ro ... B00C7JNPSQ )

 

(I did consider an alternative: Using 2 x Supermicro 8-Port SATA Card AOC-SAS2LP-MV8 in conjunction with the motherboard's native ports. I would only be able to use two Supermicro cards as they are PCI-E 2.0 x8 and therefore the PCI-E 2.0 x4 slot would be incompatible. That would give me a total of 26 SATA3 ports: 16 across the two Supermicro 8-port cards, 2 on the motherboard's native SATA3 ports and 8 on the motherboard's native SAS2 ports. I would then need a 4-Port SATA card that is compatible with the remaining PCI-E 2.0 x4 slot, such as the HighPoint Rocket 640L, StarTech PEXSAT34RH (which, as it happens, only requires a PCI-E 2.0 x2 slot) or predecessor StarTech PEXSAT34. Whilst this would work out slightly cheaper than the HighPoint Rocket 750, running three rather than one PCI-E slots would increase the power draw and, when all 30 drives were fitted, could push me up against the upper ceiling of the PSU. This PSU calculator made me nervous: http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp . I also wanted to allow for performance degradation even with Seasonic's stellar reputation. Whilst it is true that it'll be a while before I fill all 30 hard drive slots, I want to run this NAS 24/7 and for it to be stable for years - nay, decades - to come.

 

This, of course, could all be reconsidered depending on the specification for Supermicro's Haswell-EP / LGA 2011-3 / C610 successor to the X9SRH-7TF.

 

 

CPU:

 

Intel Xeon E5-1620 v2 CPU (3.70GHz, 130W, Ivy Bridge-EP - is this a better choice than the E5-2609 v2 2.50GHz 80W which is designed for dual socket systems?)

http://ark.intel.com/products/75779/

http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/405/In ... 09_v2.html

 

http://www.saverstore.com/product/20581 ... 2011--TRAY

 

*** £225 ***

 

 

CPU COOLER:

 

Noctua NH-U9DX i4

http://www.noctua.at/main.php?show=prod ... ucts_id=67

http://www.noctua.at/pdf/infosheets/noc ... eet_en.pdf

 

http://www.quietpc.com/nh-udxi4

 

*** £50 ***

 

 

HARD DRIVES:

 

I want to use SHR-2 ( http://www.synology.com/en-us/support/tutorials/492 ):

 

"The SHR allows for... 2-disk worth of redundancy - meaning that the SHR Volume can suffer up to two disks lost, and the data volume will still be available for use."

 

"To use a 2-disk redundant SHR, the Volume will have to be created with a minimum of four drives."

 

My plan is to start with 4 x 4TB hard drives (see below) and then populate the remaining 26 slots over time.

 

"When expanding a 2-disk redundant SHR Volume, whether by larger or additional disk, the new storage will be available as soon as 4-disks have been expanded or added into the SHR Volume."

 

"How to expand the RAID Volume with additional disks...

 

This article will guide the administrator into expanding the RAID volume by adding additional disks to an existing RAID Array - this allows administrators of the Synology Disk Station to start out with one disk, and allow the storage capacity to grow as needed. This method of expansion is also known as Horizontal Expansion...

 

Will data still be available during Horizontal Expansion?

 

Yes, all data will remain available during the expansion process; there is no need to suspend all activities to the Disk Station while conducting expansion via additional disks."

 

http://forum.synology.com/wiki/index.ph ... onal_disks

 

"How to expand the RAID Volume with larger disks...

 

This article will guide the administrator into how to conduct expansion of the RAID Volume on the Synology Disk Station (also known as Vertical Expansion) with larger sized disks. Vertical Expansion is performed where disks of older sizes, such as 500GB can be incrementally changed into 2TB Disks, without loss of data...

 

Will data still be available during Vertical Expansion?

 

Yes, all data will remain available during the expansion process; there is no need to suspend all activities to the Disk Station while conducting Vertical Expansion."

 

http://forum.synology.com/wiki/index.ph ... rger_disks

 

"- Can the SHR Volume be expanded with larger disks, such as 1TB to 3TB?

- Yes, the SHR Volume can be expanded by incrementally changing out the disks one at a time, and allowing the DiskStation Manager to repair the volume. As soon as there is enough redundant storage available, the SHR will expand the usable storage capacity.

 

- Can the SHR Volume be expanded with additional disks, such as 5x 1TB to 15x 1TB drives?

- Yes, the SHR Volume can be expanded by adding additional disk to the existing array... Note that expanding a volume via this method can require a lot of time for the DiskStation to expand to use all of the newly added drives. If possible, it's best to plan ahead of time and maximize the storage out during the deployment of the DiskStation, as it's quicker to build a volume, versus expanding a volume via the addition of more disks.

 

- When adding additional disks to the SHR Volume, the size of the new disks must be equal or greater in size then then the previously added disk."

 

http://forum.synology.com/wiki/index.ph ... id_RAID%3F

 

Presumably the statement that it, "require a lot of time for the DiskStation to expand... " is based on the relatively slow Core i3-2100 (Sandy Bridge) processor in the DS3612xs. The faster Xeon E5-1620 v2 Ivy Bridge-EP in my proposed build, let alone the Haswell-EP that I intend to actually build, would accelerate that process considerably, right? It would be too expensive to fit 30 hard drives at once at 4TB!

 

Western Digital Red 4TB

WD40EFRX

SATA 6Gb/s, 5900rpm spindle speed, 64MB cache, 3-year warranty

http://www.wdc.com/global/products/specs/?driveID=1324

 

http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/Oth ... ctId=57264

 

4 x £130

*** £520 ***

 

I should point out that, according to the Synology certification ( http://www.synology.com/en-global/suppo ... l/DS3612xs ), there are these caveats:

 

"1. After installing a new drive, it is recommended to power off and then power on your NAS to enable power management settings.

2. This drive has no vibration sensors and may not be suitable for 24/7 operation in a rack environment."

 

Presumably I won't need to worry about the power management settings due to the high-quality PSU I have specified, and I can therefore disregard this? The brand new (as of April 2014) Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD v4 6TB is certainly attractive as its 5TB predecessor is listed as fully certified with no exceptions, but at over £450 a pop they are just too dear!

 

 

TOTAL:

 

*****

£2845

*****

 

 

Alternatively, buying the real DS3612xs would cost:

 

DS3612xs: £1730

Intel X540-T2: £370

2 GB X 4 (EAN: 4711174721061 x 4): £60 x 4 = £240

4 x WD40EFRX: 4 x £130 = £520

 

£2860

 

Whilst this would work out to be a near-identical price as pursuing the official route, be guaranteed to work and with full warranty and support including the direct troubleshooting access from Synology's engineers via SSH (but losing the convenience of the tool-less, trayless hard drive cages), it would only give me support for 12 hard drives before I would either have to expand vertically within the unit by replacing the drives with higher capacities, or to expand horizontally with Synology's 12-drive add-on units.

 

2 x DX1211: 2 x £830 = £1660

 

£4520

 

 

This, of course, would offer me an additional six drives over the unofficial solution - 36 vs. 30 - as well as all the official Synology advantages I described above, but as well as the lack of the convenient cages it would also offer the downside of the unwieldiness of three interconnected units.

 

 

Extras for the future:

 

 

UPS

 

APC Power-Saving Back-UPS 700VA, 230V, BS1363

BE700G-UK

http://www.apc.com/products/resource/in ... =BE700G-UK

 

"With this model APC has also introduced power saving (be careful you don't buy the older 700 model). Three of the surge-protected sockets are slaves, controlled by a master battery-backed socket. When the device plugged into the master socket, such as your PC, draws power greater than the threshold, the slave sockets are turned on; when the master socket drops below the power threshold, such as when your PC is turned off, the slave sockets are turned off. The threshold is manually set, so you can tune the ES 700G to use any device as a master."

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/gadgets/ ... ups-es-700

 

The 700G has a white, centred APC logo, whereas the older model has a red, left-aligned logo.

 

http://www.dabs.com/products/apc-power- ... -6P5M.html

 

*** £80 ***

 

 

Ethernet Switch

 

Netgear XS708E (10 Gigabit Unmanaged Plus Switch - ProSAFE Plus - 8 ports of 10GBASE-T Ethernet with RJ45 connectors)

http://www.netgear.com/business/product ... witch.aspx

http://www.netgear.com/images/pdf/DS_XS ... -71681.pdf

 

http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/Sh ... ctID=15953

 

*** £525 ***

 

 

Ethernet cables

 

Cat6a S-FTP RJ45 Patch Leads by Cable Monkey

 

http://www.cablemonkey.co.uk/cat6a-rj45 ... leads.html

 

10m Grey (spare)

10m Black

10m White

10m Red

10m Green

10m Blue

10m Yellow

10m Purple

10m Orange

 

£16.44 each

9 x £16.44

 

*** £150 ***

 

(Canford have a very high reputation for all cabling - they supply the BBC amongst others, I believe - but their Cat6a cabling is not available in colours aside from grey and blue, and this is a feature that would be important to me for identification. "These use a flexible S/FTP cable (individually foil-screened pairs plus overall screen) with a low smoke, zero halogen jacket. The connectors have a gold plated, metal body screen, with 'snagless' cover and flush strain-reliefs, for high density patching": http://www.canford.co.uk/RJ45-CAT6A-PATCHCORDS . I would prefer flat cables but it seems they are hard to shield.)

 

 

THUNDERBOLT 2 TO 2 x 10GBASE-T ADAPTER

 

ATTO ThunderLink NT 2102 Thunderbolt 2 to 10GBASE-T (RJ45 copper) Desklink Device

TLNT-2102-D00

http://www.attotech.com/products/produc ... T-2102-D00

 

http://www.span.com/product/ATTO-Deskli ... J45-~42515

 

*** £670 ***

 

(There doesn't yet appear to be a US price but the Thunderbolt 1 predecessor is selling at $725 - down from an RRP of $1000.

 

Hopefully Sonnet will release a premium version of their $550 / £430 UK price Echo 15 Pro+ Thunderbolt Dock ECHO-DK-PRO-0TB - which is actually a Thunderbolt 2 dock - with a single 10GBASE-T port rather than a gigabit port. As it was originally designed as a Thunderbolt 1 part, there should still be some bandwidth to spare: "Some workflows require Thunderbolt 2's 20Gbps bandwidth. With the Echo 15 docks' multiple options for connecting (internal SATA SSDs, eSATA, USB 3.0, FireWire 800, Gigabit Ethernet), transferring or editing files at full speed across multiple connections can potentially be throttled by the bandwidth of 10Gbps Thunderbolt. Upgrading the Echo docks to Thunderbolt 2 will make them more capable."

 

Sonnet have a list of compatible PCIe 2.0 x8 cards on their website for their $399 / £300 UK price bare Echo Express SEL Thunderbolt 2 dock ECHO-EXP-SEL ( http://www.sonnettech.com/support/chart ... s10gigabit ). Whilst the dual-port PETG2-CAT6A recommended in the press release is $900 ("For example, in a test using Small Tree Communications' dual-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet CAT6 Network Adapter with the Echo Express SEL, performance increased by 40 percent compared to the same card tested in a standard 10 Gb/sec Thunderbolt-to-PCIe chassis." - http://www.sonnettech.com/news/pr2014/p ... sssel.html ) and even the single-port PETG1-CAT6A is $750, there are cheaper compatible alternatives. I can't find a price for the dual-port 10G-PCIE2-8C2-2T or the single-port 10G-PCIE2-8C-T, but the dual-port FFRM-NT12-000 is $800 and the single-port FFRM-NT11-000 is $700 / £420 UK price. Therefore, a premium version of the Echo 15 Pro+ Thunderbolt Dock ECHO-DK-PRO-0TB with a single 10GBASE-T port rather than a gigabit port should cost no more than $1250 / £850 UK price.

 

However, what's interesting is that two years ago at NAB 2012, Small Tree announced that they had created an OS X software driver for Intel's dual-port X540-T2 and (presumably also) single-port X540-T1 ( http://www.small-tree.com/Articles.asp?Id=408 ), which are far more competitively priced at $500 and $350 / £250 UK price respectively. Whilst this is predictably the basis for Small Tree's own ThunderNET2 TN2-10-2P and ThunderNET2 TN2-10-1P docks ("All ThunderNET2 products incorporate the latest Intel chip Technology... ": http://www.small-tree.com/Thunderbolt_P ... _s/192.htm , and "What’s interesting about the chip Small Tree uses (Intel x540)... ": http://blog.small-tree.com/the-latest/t ... t-updates/ ), given that this is also the basis for another company's Thunderbolt chassis ( https://www.small-tree.com/Articles.asp?Id=410 ), hopefully Sonnet will be able to build on their existing good relationship with Small Tree incorporate support for the Intel adapters in the Echo Express SEL Thunderbolt 2 dock and then in my proposed premium version of the Echo 15 Pro+ Thunderbolt Dock. This should then reduce the price from $1250 to $900 / £680 UK price.

 

 

TOTAL FOR EXTRAS:

 

£1425 (or £1855 including standard Echo 15 Pro+ Thunderbolt Dock ECHO-DK-PRO-0TB)

 

 

What are everyone's thoughts?

 

Thanks,

 

Nick

just buy a synology if you are going to spend $6000 us dollars. Thats a fuck load of money, and if you have that much buy a synology and half a bag of cocaine and youre good.

Man, lately i just watch this rather small community grow since last year like hell but after seeing your post i said to myself that i need to give some feedback and not an advice (in my country we always say that giving an advice is a national sport).

 

[list=]1. I consider that this is one of the most well documented posts in the history of this forum. Good job mate! Nevertheless, most of us created some kind of configurations and scenarios and cost calculations but never wrote their final result to an internet blackboard or a forum. Sad that we miss the part where we inspire others.

 

2. Who the hell are you to create a system like this? What will this system used for? Last year i created a home NAS for home with 4HDDs and an E350 CPU with SHR-1 and from a total of 8.3TB, i still have free about 5TB

 

3. If i had that money prepared for a NAS, i would have definitively went to a Synology partner and requested a quote from them for a SMB Syno NAS. And after getting the quote i would just go to them and ask for another quote with a discount included. They don't sell this stuff so often, so why not bargain (a lot!)?

This community was created by users to help other users achieve their goal of creating a DIY NAS. If you think that the binaries that are created by this community will be matched 100% with the ones from Synology, you're wrong. You don't get real support here and no warranty. I'm not saying that the output from this project is not qualitative but for sure it has some bugs. There is no support from Syno for the things that really get messed up. For that pile of storage you enumerated, i would go with vendor support. Period.

 

 

By the way, THANKS!

Are you looking to mirror the internet ?

 

Great post and would be one hell of a project to DIY. For me though if I were looking for that high-spec a system then I'd buy a dedicated, supported, guaranteed NAS from Synology.

 

Let us know how you get on !

yea the original poster posted so much it was TLDR. like cmon if you want to copy and paste and index 20 pages good luck. if you have a general question summarize it and para phrase it. it makes things EASIER for others to critique and chime in. also since theres more foreigner than yankee doodles id really stop after the first paragraph or so. Like I said if you got 6 grand to blow go buy a real synology and a bag of cocaine!!!!!!!!. im not being a joker now im dead serious.. a real synology 8 bay or whatever is about 2 grand with the other 4 you can get high like a rockstar. LOLL just saying the honest truth. Like the other guy had mentioned youre not going to get real support and thats pretty stupid to put that much money into a system with no Warranty. its like buying a car thats about to die after you drive it around the block.

That is loads of money...

I would suggest you go straight for some more professional solutions provided by DELL, HP, VMWARE or Oracle, you can obviously afford one of them, maybe even still get some money to spare.

With one of these enterprise grade server, man you can run almost dozens of DSM virtual machines or several linux server providing you jaw falling performance. DSM won't even be able to compare with it. On the other hand if you run DSM on it only, it's like bombing a fly with a nuclear.

Edited April 14, 2014 by Guest

Are you looking to mirror the internet?

 

TROLOLOL