I’m in the process of selecting a NAS (Qnap or Synology), primarily for backups, but would like to also run a Storj node or two or more on the NAS if possible. I have been a SNO for several years but am new to the NAS world and have a few questions.
Which CPU? The choices are ALPINE AL324, ARM Cortex a15, Celeron N5105, or Ryzen R1600-V1500B. Will any of these not work for hosting a node?
I assume more cores is better as per TOS 1 core/node
Some NAS models have PCIE Gen 3x1 or Gen 3x2. Is that of any benefit to hosting a node?
How much memory per node to add to the base (no nodes) configuration?
Should each disk/node be on its own POOL/Volume so that per TOS 1 disk/node?
Should the volume RAID group be configured as JBOD so there is no redundancy?
Any preference for Qnap over Synology since there is a Storj Qnap binary available?
I did and it serves me perfectly on my rack at home.
But if you want to put a little box at your parent’s place, it’s hard to find anything with the lovely, compact form factor of a NAS from one of those manufacturers.
I, for one, would prefer to buy one of their boxes and just flash their O/S into oblivion and replace it with Debian or OMV or TrueNAS or something like that.
In some of these boxes there is a PCI slot and you can plonk a VGA card into them. Then often you can just mess with the BIOS and install whatever O/S you want.
I did that with my 3 readyNAS boxes and it gave them a new lease of life, which I am quite pleased about.
My QNAP box is one of the bigger x86 CPU models with BIOS and vga output. So it is easy to change boot order to whatever disk you want. The original DOM is still in place.
I guess if you can make them boot into something else it might work, albeit be very expensive — as you pay for a lot of software you won’t use, and will likely still need to replace fans. Synology appliances worth considering (from the ds1618+ lineup, not the plastic trash with external PSU) start at $1000+
There are plenty of small cases available from various vendors, like ablecom, including the one supermicro rebadged and iXSystems are using for their mini series, and then the whole horde of random ones on aliexpress.
Well, I have not really found a convincingly good quality and small case that looks as good as many of those NASes out there.
And then, once you’ve added MoBo, PSU, CPU and RAM it may not be that much cheaper anyway.
My only problem with buying a vendor-NAS is that you’ll never know for sure whether you can jailbreak it until you’ve got it and done things with it that almost certainly will invalidate its warranty so it’s a potentially expensive gamble…
Well, my ReadyNAS boxes are actually lovely bits of kit. The cases are sturdy and really well designed.
The specs are very low now (they’re over 10 years old) but I’ve found that Storj is rarely CPU-constrained, and is mostly IOPS-constrained.
One of them is only SATA-2 but I reckon that is better and more resilient than USB anyway.
My gut feeling is that a big-brand NAS box with a decent OS is the sweet combination
They are selling cheap, made-in-China goods. Whether it’s crap that won’t last a year, that depends on the seller, because AliExpress is just an aggregator/platform with not much of quality checks themselves. So it’s useless to browse AliExpress pages, but it makes sense to buy from sellers that were recommended by a more trustworthy source.
Actually, I got a bad product only once (got a refund keeping the “product” (fake Xiaomi Mi4s with a different CPU and RAM) and it lasts 1 year, as you said), so, it’s still can be used at least for me.
