The first custom commercial NAS Storage Server

I remember someone on the Internet recently asked me if I had used openfiler for practical application. I think there should be some, and there are many, are you using it, or have you used it?

Linux and PC hosts to customize a variety of application-type servers have always been what I want to promote, that is, how to turn this model into a business to make profits. But I thought it was still September this year. When I decided to start my own company, I went to my friend's advertising company to chat with him, in the chat, he talked about the large design pattern document. In the design computer, storage not only occupies the hard disk space, but also affects the running speed. When I heard such a problem, I immediately blurted out why I didn't use the separate storage mode from the computer, so that the above problems could not only be well solved, but also the data would be safer.

My friend agreed with my suggestion and asked me to help him with his transformation.

At the beginning of this project, I was planning to purchase 4-disk NAS storage servers. After going online, it is found that the price of such servers is not low (for some companies, such a price does not matter, it is impossible to use such a small NAS storage service, but for small companies, the cost is still very important ), A good friend has a PC host that is idle and not used. The machine is normal, but the design and processing capabilities cannot be kept up, so he decided to use it, find another NAS server system to create one.

Check the PC host hardware first. The motherboard has four SATA interfaces, which are barely enough for RAID 5. cpu2.6g Hz and 2 GB memory; the actual power output is 260 w, 4 2 TB hard disks plus CPU and other power supplies should also be enough. Therefore, only three 2 TB hard disks were added for RAID 5, and no other hardware was changed.

The hardware meets the requirements. The next step is the NAS server system. freenas and openfiler are my goals. I tried freenas first, probably because I am only familiar with Linux systems. Whether installed or configured, I feel that it is not a commercial NAS system, so I have to switch to the latter. In the process of installing openfiler2.99.1, after seeing the familiar installation process, I made a decision in my mind.

The installation of openfiler is very simple. Note that you must set a fixed IP address for the Ethernet interface card and a root logon password for non-web management systems. In addition, if you need higher security, you can install it in Raid 1, but you need two hardware or flash cards for RAID 1. In view of the robustness of the Linux system and the use of the ext4 file system, the possibility of system damage is acceptable in such a small company, that is, one GB hard disk is used as the system disk. (No way. I can't find a hard disk with a smaller capacity. I can only "waste" it)

All openfiler configurations can be performed on the web, or set the language to the Chinese language. I prefer it. The Web login method is the Ethernet interface IP address set during installation: 446.

In fact, openfiler focuses on disk configuration as a NAS configuration, and all functions are implemented under volumes. Create new physical volumes, select RAID5, select the three hard disks listed, and click "add array" to create the RAID 5 array, displayed as/dev/md0. Then you can add a volume group. There can be only one volume group, and then add a volume to the created volume group, which is equivalent to the partition we usually call. The partition file system selects ext4. In this way, the configuration of the entire disk is complete, which is very simple and easy.

After completing these settings, you need to share these volumes with CIFS files, set the service labels on the openfiler interface, and enable the CIFS service, then, set "shares"-"networkshares"-volume group name-volume name to share. smbsharename must be an English shared folder name. Otherwise, share cannot be enabled. After setting the volume that needs to be shared, the NAS server will be able to serve on site.

The entire process is very simple. It takes less than two hours to install and configure it. However, there are still several minor issues to be noted during actual use:

1. It is best to reconfigure the DHCP configuration of the switch or router in the LAN. At least the IP address of the NAS storage service must be fixed and cannot be allocated. Once a conflict occurs, the NAS storage server cannot be accessed.

2. The heat dissipation inside the chassis must be good, and there must be gaps between hard disk installation to facilitate air circulation.

3. the SATA interface of the motherboard should be better and can be expanded later.

4. mute the power supply. It is better to increase the power. Of course, it depends on the number of hard disks and the total load. In addition, the number of SATA power plugs is also one of the factors to determine the power supply.

5. The NIC rate of the PC host, which matches with the port rate of the LAN switch, preferably at M.

This article is from the "xuanyuan meixiang" blog. For more information, contact the author!

The first custom commercial NAS Storage Server