Marcin Pudełek | pudelek.org.pl

For many months I was thinking about buying a NAS (Network Attached Storage) for home use. My goal was not just a typical NAS, but something more. Something that I could use in my work. Not only for file storage, but also a toy for docker, nginx, media center, etc.

At first I have thought about simplest solution – buying QNAP device. Below you can find comparison of the models which I have considered.

	TS-228A	TS-231P	TS-231P2	TS-251
OS	Linux	Linux	Linux	Linux
CPU	Quad-core Realtek RTD1295	Annapurna Labs Alpine AL-212 2-core	Annapurna Labs Alpine AL-314 4-core	Dual-core Intel® Celeron®
CPU Freq	1.4GHz	1.7 GHz	1.7 GHz	2.41GHz (Up to 2.58GHz)
Memory (RAM)	1GB	1GB	1GB / 4 GB	4GB
Number of RAM Slots	0	0	1 (Max 8GB)	2 (Max 8 GB)
Max. number of HDDs/SSDs	2 x 2.5″/3.5″	2 x 2.5″/3.5″	2 x 2.5″/3.5″	2 x 2.5″/3.5″
Power Consumption (W)	5-12	9-16	9-24	10-20
Price	173 EUR	200 EUR	240 EUR	300 EUR

Unfortunately, integrated sets have many disadvantages. For example:

no or limited expandability (more RAM or better CPU – forget!),
limited number of applications,
relatively expensive,
threatened by fast EoL (try upgrade software in 2 years)

I was also thinking about CloudShell2 with Ordoid XU4 but the price of the kit is 175 EUR. See more here.

Because of these limitations, I finally decided to challenge myself and build my own low-cost NAS server.

Chassis

The most difficult part was finding the right chassis. It should be small and at the same time large enough to accommodate many hard drives: for system 1 x 2.5″ and for storage 3 x 3.5″ – 2 disks working as RAID1 for user data + 1 disk for media.

I have found old version of model In-Win BL631 – without USB3.0 ports on front.

In-Win BL613
In-Win BL613 front

External Drive Bays: 1 x 5.25″ & 1 x 3.5″
Internal Drive Bays: 2 x 3.5″ & 1 x 2.5″
I/O Expansion Slots: 4 x Low Profile Slot
Built-in PSU 300W

I don’t know how but somehow I managed to buy this chassis for 8 EUR! Seriously :-).

Attention: The side fan (80x80x25mm) attached to the set is quite loud. I bought fan of a better quality and replaced the default one.

Motherboard

The choice was simple. I used the micro-ATX Gigabyte GA-G41MT-S2 witch CPU Intel Core 2 Duo E4600 from old computer. The disadvantages of this mobo are unfortunately: max 8GB RAM, no USB 3.0 and only SATA 3Gb/s connectors. If you want use SATA 6Gbps you may buy and install PCI Express SATA Controller.

As the advantages I can mention: 1Gbps LAN port and the old but still good LGA775 socket support.

Two core CPU Intel E4600 (TDP 65W) is listed in the second half of the PassMark rate for LGA775 processors. I’m going to upgrade CPU to Intel Core 2 Quad (TDP 95W).

Attention: Standard CPU cooler could be not enough because of compact chassis. My server is located in a cabinet, the air flow is limited. Now in idle state CPU core temperature is 57-60 °C, I think that is too much so I consider buying better quality cooler and mounting additional fan in the cabinet.

This mobo doesn’t have USB 3.0 ports so I needed to extend it via external PCI Express Card. Ports will be used to backup data.

Operating system

Of course the only right one: Linux. I decided to install OpenMediaVault based on Debian distribution. The second system worth considering is FreeNAS. See comparison and choose yourself the best for you.

Summary

I spent about 60 EUR on building my server – as I said, a processor with mobo and RAM memory recovered from the garbage. The remaining items I bought on well-known auction portals. This is quarter the price of middle-range brand-new QNAP. Detailed expenses are listed in the table below.

	Name	Price
Chassis	SFF Slim Chassis In-Win BL631 (new)	8 EUR
Motherboard	Gigabyte GA-G41MT-S2 rev 1.3 (used)	23 EUR
Side fan	Arctic Cooling F8 (80x80x25mm)	5 EUR
Processor	Intel Core 2 Duo E4600 2×2,4GHz (used)	3 EUR
RAM	2 x 2GB DDR3 PC3-1333MHz (used)	14 EUR
PCI card	PCI Express UBB3.0 (used)	4 EUR
System disk	SSD 128GB ADATA SU800 (new)	35 EUR
Other	SATA cables, etc.	8 EUR
	Total:	100 EUR

As mass storage we can use any hard disk designed for work 24 hours, 7 days a week – for example Seagate IronWolf or WD Red series. In my case the main storage is created on one WD Red 3TB disk – ca. 105 EUR.

s-toi monitor
htop

My NAS has one big disadvantage – power consumption. In the idle state wattmeter shows a value ca. 50W. A lot compared to QNAP devices.

Disk tests

Disk performance was checked using bonnie++ package.

bonnie++ -d ./ -r 2048 -u root

\dev\sda result (SSD disk)

Version 1.97 Sequential Output Sequential Input Random
Seeks Sequential Create Random Create
Size Per Char Block Rewrite Per Char Block Num Files Create Read Delete Create Read Delete
K/sec % CPU K/sec % CPU K/sec % CPU K/sec % CPU K/sec % CPU /sec % CPU /sec % CPU /sec % CPU /sec % CPU /sec % CPU /sec % CPU /sec % CPU
SSD 4G 312 99 205734 47 108435 26 966 99 218986 23 8412 156 16 32056 81 +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++
Latency 31708us 36419us 107ms 20977us 20457us 18070us Latency 2521us 642us 1909us 269us 477us 1631us

\dev\sdb result (HDD disk)

Version 1.97 Sequential Output Sequential Input Random
Seeks Sequential Create Random Create
Size Per Char Block Rewrite Per Char Block Num Files Create Read Delete Create Read Delete
K/sec % CPU K/sec % CPU K/sec % CPU K/sec % CPU K/sec % CPU /sec % CPU /sec % CPU /sec % CPU /sec % CPU /sec % CPU /sec % CPU /sec % CPU
WD Red 4G 331 98 150965 37 76428 19 1067 97 170276 21 417.8 10 16 26389 78 +++++ +++ 30362 78 28291 80 +++++ +++ 30115 77
Latency 46904us 101ms 100ms 31127us 79169us 476ms Latency 1935us 1205us 885us 1929us 515us 568us

TODOs in the nearest future

buy two WD Red 1T disk and create RAID 1 storage for sensitive data,
buy PCIe SATA 6.0 Gb/s controller for storage (now is only 3.0Gb/s)
upgrade CPU to Intel Core 2 Quad
change standard mobo CPU cooler to more effective

OpenMediaVault in current version 4.1.12 is based on Debian Stretch which uses (unfortunately) PHP 7.0 as default. If you want to upgrade the version of PHP to version 7.2, the following tutorial is what you are looking for. Let’s play…

1. Add PHP 7.2 repository

Personally, I use SURY repositories. Add SURY repo to yours.

apt-get -y install apt-transport-https lsb-release ca-certificates
wget -O /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/php.gpg https://packages.sury.org/php/apt.gpg
sh -c 'echo "deb https://packages.sury.org/php/ $(lsb_release -sc) main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/php.list'

apt-get update
apt-get install php7.2-cli php7.2-fpm

And voila! PHP7.2 is now our default CLI interpreter. Let’s check.

root@omv:/home# php -v   
PHP 7.2.11-2+0~20181015120801.9+stretch~1.gbp8105e0 (cli) (built: Oct 15 2018 12:08:03) ( NTS )
Copyright (c) 1997-2018 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v3.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2018 Zend Technologies
    with Zend OPcache v7.2.11-2+0~20181015120801.9+stretch~1.gbp8105e0, Copyright (c) 1999-2018, by Zend Technologies

2. Config build-in OMV Nginx

Because I use build-in Nginx service in my OMV, we have to not only install FPM but also override default configuration using GUI.

Open OMV control panel. Go to Services on the left sidebar and click Nginx section. Edit your server, and add section in config file.

location ^~ / {
    index index.php indec.html;
    try_files $uri $uri/ =404;

    location ~ \.php$ {
        try_files $uri =404;
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
        fastcgi_pass  "unix:/var/run/php/php7.2-fpm.sock";
    }
}

Adding a caret and tilde (^~) to your location directives tells NGINX, if it matches a particular string, to stop searching for more specific matches and use the directives here instead. Other than that, these directives work like the literal string matches in the first group. Even if there’s a more specific match later, if a request matches one of these directives, the settings here will be used. See more cases in official documentation.

Now we can check new php fpm engine. Create new file index.php in your root directory defined in General section in Nginx server configuration.

<?php
echo phpversion();

Go to browser and open page http(s)://OMV_IP. You should see something like this

7.2.11-2+0~20181015120801.9+stretch~1.gbp8105e0

Notice: This changes work only for our defined locations, not for OpenMediaVault GUI.

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Building own NAS