Building a headless NAS device

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RichardParry

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Mar 20, 2002
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Okies, I am purchasing a gutted NAS chassis (which fits a standard Micro ATX motherboard), it has room for 3x 3 1/2" Hard Drives (its a 1U chassis), has a cool blower over the motherboard and standard 1U PSU (150W, so just enough for a lower end P3 or Celeron MicroATX board)

I want to try and find a Micro ATX board with onboard RAID, otherwise I will just use standard ATX (there are no PCI external slots, but a hole for an RJ45 connector, which I will probably use with a right angled (with PCI riser) PCI NIC), however the chassis does not have holes for anything but power and RJ45, so it would need to be a remote controlled (through a web interface if possible) NAS server, I would be happy to install for example 2k Server on it, or perhaps even NT 4 Server, but I would first want to explore any Linux alternatives....

I would like it to integrate with my 2k Active Directory server, but just file sharing with Samba for exampe would be fine (I am unsure if you can integrate Samba with Active Directory or not?). I just want to

I will post pics of the chassis as soon as I have taken receipt, and of the drives and motherboard etc, should quite a cool project ! I just want a bit of remote storage for mp3's and perhaps direct backup's.....
 
i run a "headless" nas device..

Mandrake 9.1 with Samba.. i can putty in.. or just cheat and use Webmin *its quite handy for setting up samba shares*

the reason for mandrake 9.1 is that its fairly user friendly and it comes with all that stuff installed and preconfigured..
 
RichP, what about using a metal punch of some sort or a dremel to make the additonal holes needed?

Or is that not an option given the layout of the case?
 
Originally posted by valve1138
RichP, what about using a metal punch of some sort or a dremel to make the additonal holes needed?

Or is that not an option given the layout of the case?
Click to expand...

im not a modding person tbh, I am not very good with a normal drill, so using s dremel and cutting away at metal will probably end up a disaster !

I dont really want to use it as a PC, the only time it should need to be connected to a keyboard/monitor is when I am configuring the OS, everything afterwards should be done through SSH or Web config.....

btw, I have pics of the unit (lots) as supplied from the guy I bought it off, which I post shortly :)
 
I would like it to integrate with my 2k Active Directory server, but just file sharing with Samba for exampe would be fine (I am unsure if you can integrate Samba with Active Directory or not?). I just want to
Click to expand...

The newest samba 3.0.3 can be intergrated into AD it is a major brainfart but it can be done.

from the relase notes

Major new features:
-------------------

1) Active Directory support. Samba 3.0 is now able to
join a ADS realm as a member server and authenticate
users using LDAP/Kerberos.


http://us1.samba.org/samba/whatsnew/samba-3.0.0.html
 
oooh, that's cool, what linux distro do you recommend ? I was thinking RedHat 9 as that is the distro I am the most familiar with, I would just install the required stuff....
 
okies, got the pics of the NAS chassis below !

IMAGE0001.JPG


IMAGE0002.JPG


IMAGE0003.JPG


IMAGE0006.JPG


IMAGE0007.JPG


IMAGE0008.JPG


IMAGE0011.JPG


IMAGE0012.JPG
 
mounting_holes.jpg


power_on.jpg


as you can see from the above pics, this is an IOMEGA U300 NAS chassis, which used to house I think it was about 3x 40GB HD's, a MicroATX mobo w/ Celeron 900....

the pics are not the best quality as they were taken on the guys camera I bought the chassis off..... I did resize them too, to save on bandwidth :)
 
Originally posted by Veeb0rg
thats a pretty sweet chassis..
Click to expand...

yeah, got it off eBay for £30 (ex P&P), which is $54.34 USD, not bad for a nice looking 1U chassis, with a working PSU and in excellent condition :)

I will take receipt of the chassis on Monday, I have already got the motherboard and CPU, including Akasa 1U HSF (all brand new I have had lying around for a while), all I need to buy for it is a hard drive (probably start off with one 120GB) and some DDR RAM, fortunately DDR is cheaper than PC133 now, so that wont be a problem, I would imagine 256MB would be fine for running a stripped down Linux distro....
 
Originally posted by RichardParry
yeah, got it off eBay for £30 (ex P&P), which is $54.34 USD, not bad for a nice looking 1U chassis, with a working PSU and in excellent condition :)

I will take receipt of the chassis on Monday, I have already got the motherboard and CPU, including Akasa 1U HSF (all brand new I have had lying around for a while), all I need to buy for it is a hard drive (probably start off with one 120GB) and some DDR RAM, fortunately DDR is cheaper than PC133 now, so that wont be a problem, I would imagine 256MB would be fine for running a stripped down Linux distro....
Click to expand...

I run a linux NAS personally

p2-400
generic mobo
Adaptec 1200a Raid
2x 160gb Maxtors 8meg cache
6.5gb os hdd
256 megs pc133
10/100 3c905tx

it runs beautifully

If u need any help with the software config, feel free to contact me.
 
Originally posted by Veeb0rg
I run a linux NAS personally

p2-400
generic mobo
Adaptec 1200a Raid
2x 160gb Maxtors 8meg cache
6.5gb os hdd
256 megs pc133
10/100 3c905tx

it runs beautifully

If u need any help with the software config, feel free to contact me.
Click to expand...

What distro?
 
Your NAS. Its no different then a fileserver right? NAS, SAN.. Always confuse me...

Fancy way of saying fileserver?
 
Originally posted by SKiTLz
Your NAS. Its no different then a fileserver right? NAS, SAN.. Always confuse me...

Fancy way of saying fileserver?
Click to expand...

there is a difference, a fileserver would be a box for serving files, standard PC components, industry standard operating system etc

whereas an NAS is usually a headless dedicated box, with a non-standard/proprietary/customised operating system, usually with non-standard pc components..... all resources are used to providing optimum file storage and speed, whereas a fileserver will for example have to tackle other operations, as they typically do not run customised OS's

a SAN btw is a cluster of storage systems (Storage Area Network), this is usually made with for example Fibre Channel disk arrays, as you can have 4+ disk arrays off the one controller (you can probably have more for all I know), getting popular now is also iSCSI, using the internet as a virtual filesystem transport medium, very cool stuff
 
btw, the chassis for the NAS came this morning, unfortunately the Gigabyte board I wanted to use was slightly too wide (by about an inch), as the board I was going to use had 3x PCI slots (and one AGP), I needed a board with 2x PCI and one AGP (for example), I found a board on eBay which would be perfect, but has an older CPU and not sure if it has onboard video or LAN yet...

although a blow is that I would not be able to cut away the back to install a IO shield plate, which although I was hoping to avoid, it does mean that I wont be able to gain access to the system ports without taking the board out....

also, the hole for the ethernet does line up with the ethernet port on the motherboard (above the USB ports), but its not level, so I have to assume the original board fitted has some kind of RJ45 extender, I wish I had a pic of the insides of what one of these actually looked like !
 
Originally posted by RichardParry
there is a difference, a fileserver would be a box for serving files, standard PC components, industry standard operating system etc

whereas an NAS is usually a headless dedicated box, with a non-standard/proprietary/customised operating system, usually with non-standard pc components..... all resources are used to providing optimum file storage and speed, whereas a fileserver will for example have to tackle other operations, as they typically do not run customised OS's

a SAN btw is a cluster of storage systems (Storage Area Network), this is usually made with for example Fibre Channel disk arrays, as you can have 4+ disk arrays off the one controller (you can probably have more for all I know), getting popular now is also iSCSI, using the internet as a virtual filesystem transport medium, very cool stuff
Click to expand...

ahh. explains alot. thanks.

So considering your box will be 2k its not really a NAS device correct?
 
Originally posted by SKiTLz
ahh. explains alot. thanks.

So considering your box will be 2k its not really a NAS device correct?
Click to expand...

im not actually putting 2k Server on there (that was only a thought), instead I will be using a Linux distro (most likely RedHat), with only required components installed (including Samba 3 for example)
 
Originally posted by SKiTLz
got a model number?
Click to expand...

hmm, the model of the unit is; IOMEGA NAS A300u, I have searched Google a little and cant find any pics of the internals.... I cant find anything of this model on eBay either (just stock photo's)

but if you could get a pic of the inside's that would be fantastic !
 
Originally posted by RichardParry
hmm, the model of the unit is; IOMEGA NAS A300u, I have searched Google a little and cant find any pics of the internals.... I cant find anything of this model on eBay either (just stock photo's)

but if you could get a pic of the inside's that would be fantastic !
Click to expand...

I've come up dry so far. Will let you know if I find anything though.

Most people that own such a device dont post internals on the web. Also probably not in the interest of the manufacture either.

Email imoega making it sound like your interested in purchasing one (companies will do anything to get your money). Make up some bogus excuse why you need to see the internals.

Im sure they have something they can show you.
 
found a guy's website in the UK, who has modding and played with them

he has spec's and links to a MSI board which was used with this chassis (has RAID 5 onboard too ! woot)

I would like to built it with the same components that IOMEGA use if possible :)
 
Originally posted by RichardParry
found a guy's website in the UK, who has modding and played with them

he has spec's and links to a MSI board which was used with this chassis (has RAID 5 onboard too ! woot)

I would like to built it with the same components that IOMEGA use if possible :)
Click to expand...

Sounds interesting ... linky to that website ?
 
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