MP 1,1-5,1 Use Mac Pro as NAS/RAID with more than 8 hard drives?

[mayuka]

Hi all,

I'm in need of a NAS with large capacity and redundancy (RAID) but I have limited money and want to upgrade it over the next few years. Per year I will produce 12-16 TB of data which I need to save securely somehow.

First of all I considered a full-blown NAS. But they are too expensive and I already have a bunch of 8 GB drives which I would like to use in the beginning. The next obvious choice would be a TrueNAS Mini XL+. It supports 8 drives, costs slightly over 1000$, supports ZFS and has all the features I need. But it looks very ugly. Then I had a look at the OWC Thunderbay Flex 8. It looks very nice (this is important to me) but the Software-RAID seems to be unstable and requires a Mac with Thunderbolt 3. I'm also unsure if I can see all the 8 drives individually to build my own Software-Raid with ZFS and use it with TB2?

As I couldn't find something fitting my needs, I thought about converting an old Mac Pro 2019/2010/2012 model as a NAS? That would have a certain coolness but I'm still unsure.

- That's still a 10 year old computer. Will it survive the next 10 years as NAS?

- A Mac Pro needs a lot of power (~150 W in idle mode, the TrueNAS only consumes ~25 W w/o drives). Getting one of the 2010 single-cpu boards and "downgrading" it to a quadcore-CPU would bring it to ~60 W. But then, memory may be limited and io speed reduced.

- A Mac Pro can be loud due to fan noise. Not sure if swapping fans would help.

- Mac Pro seem to able to house eight 3.5" hard drives. Four in the dedicated trays and four in the compartment for optical drives using this extension card: MaxUpgrades Maxconnect (https://www.maxupgrades.com/istore/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_id=158). The extension card seem to be very old and is not available in Germany. It even says somewhere that it was made for the PowerMac G5? Maybe there are better alternatives?

- Using 10.13 with OpenZFS drivers would be ideal. I also do not have a problem running with FreeBSD or Linux with ZFS.

- Would it also be an option to buy a defective Mac Pro and swapping the defective motherboard to a new PC motherboard? Again, a hackintosh would be cool but I can live with Linux as well.

Hope to get some insights from you.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

Or you can just buy a 8-bay NAS for the job.
A ready-to-go 2nd 8-bay NAS may be cheaper than a defective Mac Pro + hacked parts & tools.

BUFFALO TeraStation 5800 8-Bay RAID NAS & iSCSI Unified Storage (NO Drives) | eBay

Condition is "Used".

www.ebay.com

 

[Successful Sorcerer]

Unfortunately I can't answer all your questions but I can confirm you'll see all drives separately in a Thunderbay Flex 8. And no problem connecting it with a specific cable or adapter. So any raid software available working on your computer can be used. What Raid setup doe you want to use? Raid 1 works from osx disk utility, Softraid works well in my opinion but isn't cheap. I personally have some SSDs for working from and a large raid 1 set. You're completely free to do with the drives what you want, for example a raid 5 of 3 disks, a raid 1 of 2 disks and some separate disks all from the same enclosure. The pros of a NAS of course are network capabilities but you're limited by the connection (and lots have just a 1gbe connection which is ±100mb/s), the pros of a thunderbay are much faster speeds.

 

[mayuka]

Thanks for the answers. I would like to use ZFS, which limits the choice of the typical ready-to-go NAS systems. OpenZFS is well supported in 10.13 and less so in later versions. And it is well documented and has a large community that can help with these a bit hacky situations like I have. The reason is that I need to mix hard drives with different sizes (e.g. I plan to buy a 16 GB drive and coupling that to the two 8 GB drives I have + some old 6 GB and 2 GB drives until I have enough to dynamically upgrade. I would also like to use an SSD for caching. That greatly speeds up file transfers, which usually are ~200 MB/s with two of these older drives. And there's always an option to upgrade to 10 GBit Ethernet).

Would it work to couple a Mac mini 2014 (which I already have) to the OWC Thunderbay 8 using Linux? The MM2014 only has TB2, so I need an adapter. Would the Thunderbay 8 also work without dedicated drivers?

Buying used NAS-systems is, of course, also an option. Since they will be sitting on my desk they should have acceptable aesthetics.

 

[Weisswurstsepp]

I'm in need of a NAS with large capacity and redundancy (RAID) but I have limited money and want to upgrade it over the next few years. Per year I will produce 12-16 TB of data which I need to save securely somehow.

I hope you also budget in for backup. Because despite what many people believe, RAID is not a backup. RAID is a means to increase availability of the storage subsystem (i.e. to avoid down-times due to disk failure). But RAIDs do fail and if your data is important then you want at least another copy which is physically separate from the NAS or your computer.

As I couldn't find something fitting my needs, I thought about converting an old Mac Pro 2019/2010/2012 model as a NAS? That would have a certain coolness but I'm still unsure.

Unless you really meant a 2019 Mac Pro (and not 2009), that Mac would by now be more than 10 years old and thereby way beyond what it considered a normal replacement cycle for a desktop computer (usually between 4 to 6 years).

A Mac Pro needs a lot of power (~150 W in idle mode, the TrueNAS only consumes ~25 W w/o drives).

That sounds bogus. My MP5,1 2010 consumes around 95W in idle, and that is with a 3.3Ghz 6-core, 64GB of RAM, a RX580 and a not exactly power-saving NVMe drive.

I'd still not use it as a NAS, though.

Getting one of the 2010 single-cpu boards and "downgrading" it to a quadcore-CPU would bring it to ~60 W. But then, memory may be limited and io speed reduced.

You're confusing TDP with power consumption, which it is not. In general, TDP is the thermal power the CPU was designed for, i.e. a processor with 130W TDP will dissipate 130 Watts of heat when running under full load.

That doesn't mean the higher TDP processor will always consume more power. In fact, in many cases the higher performance of the 6 core will result in the processor drawing full power for a much shorter period than the quad-core equivalent, which means the 6 core will consume less energy than the lower TDP quad-core processor (which takes longer to complete a task).

On top of that there also is active power management such as SpeedStep (which clocks down the CPU when its load is low, this saving energy), although that seems to work better on Windows and Linux than macOS.

- Would it also be an option to buy a defective Mac Pro and swapping the defective motherboard to a new PC motherboard? Again, a hackintosh would be cool but I can live with Linux as well.

And what for when there are lots of better alternatives (like a 2nd hand HP z800 which uses the same processors, has internal 6-port SATA and 8-port SAS/SATA controllers, has quick-swap bays for four drives and can use standard RAID bays in 5.25" format for more drives, although it's similarly old as the cMP)?

Buying a cMP to turn it into a NAS makes zero sense.

Hope to get some insights from you.

I'm not sure you really understand the criteria for what makes a good, reliable NAS, and frankly what you describe sounds more like NAS from Hell than anything else.

If I were you I'd just get a cheap HP MicroServer (Gen8 are cheap and cheerful, or a Gen10) and throw TreuNAS Core onto it and be done. It's cheaper than a ready-made NAS, more flexible, and consumes little power. Plus the hardware is as reliable as it gets. The only downside is that they are limited to four drives but that still gives you 42TB in a 4x14TB disk config (RAID5) which is plenty of storage for such a compact NAS.

If you need more space then you'd be much better off getting something more appropriate than an cMP. For example there are lots of 2nd hand tower servers which go for modest money, which can take 8 or more 3.5"drives and aren't overly power-hungry or noisy. Something like HP ProLiant ML Gen8 servers or Dell PowerEdge Tx10/Tx20 servers (e.g. ML310 G8 and Dell T110/120 can take up to six drives, HP ML350G8 up to 18 drives). Load them with hard drives and throw TrueNAS Core on them and be done with it. They'll happily idle around 65-75W, produce only little noise and are built like tanks. They have remote management so they don't even need to be in the same room for being worked on. And because they are abundant if something breaks then parts are cheap and widely available.

In any case, almost anything is better than using a cMP as NAS.

 

[DFP1989]

I picked up a cheap 2012 MP about six months ago which I briefly considered making into a NAS, but quickly realised it was a ridiculous solution.

As others have noted, get something like a DAS that will give you decent speeds, and isn’t a decade-old unknown that will suck way more power which providing no benefit.

Also, RAID isn’t a backup solution.

For every project I have currently in progress, I have at least two but ideally three copies.

One on an external SSD I use for editing, and one or two copies on hard drives.

All my drives are backup up to Backblaze at least once every two weeks.

 

[mayuka]

Okay. You convinced me. I will consider a dedicated (True)NAS solution.

 

[Successful Sorcerer]

Thanks for the answers. I would like to use ZFS, which limits the choice of the typical ready-to-go NAS systems. OpenZFS is well supported in 10.13 and less so in later versions. And it is well documented and has a large community that can help with these a bit hacky situations like I have. The reason is that I need to mix hard drives with different sizes (e.g. I plan to buy a 16 GB drive and coupling that to the two 8 GB drives I have + some old 6 GB and 2 GB drives until I have enough to dynamically upgrade. I would also like to use an SSD for caching. That greatly speeds up file transfers, which usually are ~200 MB/s with two of these older drives. And there's always an option to upgrade to 10 GBit Ethernet).

Would it work to couple a Mac mini 2014 (which I already have) to the OWC Thunderbay 8 using Linux? The MM2014 only has TB2, so I need an adapter. Would the Thunderbay 8 also work without dedicated drivers?

Buying used NAS-systems is, of course, also an option. Since they will be sitting on my desk they should have acceptable aesthetics.

Again, keep in mind that not all older NAS systems can be upgraded to 10gbe and not all of them support ssd caching. You'd have to buy a newer model for that. Only can answer the thunderbay question: You don't need drives for the thunderbay, you can use a bunch of different drives. I don't know if you could use an SSD for caching sicne I never did such thing but I added an SSD in there to work from and use the HDDs for backup.

 

[mayuka]

The SSD for caching is probably very specific for ZFS. Any cheap SSD will do perfectly fine. Some TrueNAS systems offer to include an additional SSD. Some external Thunderbolt enclosures also offer to have one SSD in addition to the HDDs.

 

[krakman]

I wonder if we are all thinking along the same lines????


Using an Mac Pro as a NAS is not a good idea if you want 24/7 performance, but what if you wanted to use it as an ARCHIVAL device?

For example, turn it on every now and then to copy data to it and then turn it off until needed again.

you could set up a ZFS pool for 6 HDDs and have a SDD cache on the PCI.

you could run it headless, so no need for a GPU and connect via ethernet. There are plenty of old 10GB Ethernet cards on Ebay.

Thoughts.......?

 

[mayuka]

Indeed, I do not need 24/7 performance. The NAS will only be online when I need to access the data, which will be maybe 1 or 2 working days per week.

However, I need at least 8 bays for the HDDs. How can I get 8 HDDs in a Mac Pro?

 

[macsound1]

Maybe I'm not reading this carefully enough but have you considered a Synology? The DiskStation DS1821+ is an 8 bay module and is under $1000 and has space for an NVMe SSD and 10GB ethernet.

While I'm not one to say old macs are useless, I do think making it your initial backup solution isn't a good idea.

I also have had a terrible experience with software raid. Because if the OS gets hosed or you accidentally click the wrong thing when migrating or rebuilding a drive, you've lost everything. The very nature of hardware raid is that can't happen.

Also if in the future you decide you'd like to backup the raid onto something else, you can just duplicate the entire Synology onto a USB drive that's plugged straight into your computer and use Backblaze's unlimited backup.

 

[krakman]

Indeed, I do not need 24/7 performance. The NAS will only be online when I need to access the data, which will be maybe 1 or 2 working days per week.

However, I need at least 8 bays for the HDDs. How can I get 8 HDDs in a Mac Pro?

I think you need to google for an 8 port SATA PCI-e card with raid , this way you can run all the drives from the card rather than the back plane.

this is a highpoint 4 port PCIe with raid: https://highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/series_rr600-overview.htm. it has Mac drivers

Try checking sonnet and OWC websites if they have comparable products.

if you run the SATA HDDS from the PCIE card you will have to run SATA cables and power cables from the mini pie 6 pin connectors.

I too am looking into the possibility of making an archival server out of an old Mac Pro, mainly because I have an old Mac Pro sitting doing nothing and I don't have any spare money at the moment, but for me 6 drives will be enough.

 

[HDFan]

You don't need drives for the thunderbay, you can use a bunch of different drives.

If you are setting up RAID SoftRaid requires drives of the same size, or will only utilize the size of the smaller (est?) drive.

Then I had a look at the OWC Thunderbay Flex 8. It looks very nice (this is important to me) but the Software-RAID seems to be unstable and requires a Mac with Thunderbolt 3.

I have the Thunderbay 8. SoftRaid is still in Beta for Big Sur. Can't recommend it. Won't utilize drives of different sizes, compatibility issues with other disk utilities. Had a ton of issues, problems with APFS volumes, etc. Even with the great support convinced me that I don't want to use software RAID solutions even when the problems are fixed.

Drobo has the drive flexibility, but after 2 unit failures can't recommend it.

In terms of flexibility a NAS is really the best option. QNAP (my preference) has devices with 10 GBe and thunderbolt 3. You can mix disk sizes, although you get the best results when you have disks of the same size. Synology isn't that great with 10 GBe or thunderbolt, but is similarly easy to configure with disks of different sizes. Just today the Seagate Ironwolf Pro 16 TB drive dropped to its lowest price ever on Amazon - $438 - so I ordered one to replace a 6 TB drive on my Synology.

I see some 8 bay used units on 8 bay for as little as $300 for a Synology or $610 for a QNAP.

QNAP has just introduced some expensive units with ZFS.

The best, and priciest, solution I have found is the Promise Pegasus. Rock solid, never had a single failure, great 24x7 support. Requires disks of the same size though. Some on ebay for as low as $190.

If you go the NAS route then you also need to decide on a CPU, memory and whether hardware transcoding (for media servers) is needed.

 

[Successful Sorcerer]

If you are setting up RAID SoftRaid requires drives of the same size, or will only utilize the size of the smaller (est?) drive.



I have the Thunderbay 8. SoftRaid is still in Beta for Big Sur. Can't recommend it. Won't utilize drives of different sizes, compatibility issues with other disk utilities. Had a ton of issues, problems with APFS volumes, etc. Even with the great support convinced me that I don't want to use software RAID solutions even when the problems are fixed.

Drobo has the drive flexibility, but after 2 unit failures can't recommend it.

In terms of flexibility a NAS is really the best option. QNAP (my preference) has devices with 10 GBe and thunderbolt 3. You can mix disk sizes, although you get the best results when you have disks of the same size. Synology isn't that great with 10 GBe or thunderbolt, but is similarly easy to configure with disks of different sizes. Just today the Seagate Ironwolf Pro 16 TB drive dropped to its lowest price ever on Amazon - $438 - so I ordered one to replace a 6 TB drive on my Synology.

I see some 8 bay used units on 8 bay for as little as $300 for a Synology or $610 for a QNAP.

QNAP has just introduced some expensive units with ZFS.

The best, and priciest, solution I have found is the Promise Pegasus. Rock solid, never had a single failure, great 24x7 support. Requires disks of the same size though. Some on ebay for as low as $190.

If you go the NAS route then you also need to decide on a CPU, memory and whether hardware transcoding (for media servers) is needed.

I highly recommend to use identical drives but if you don't it depends on what kind of raid you use, raid 0, raid 1, raid 5 etc. I think it's smarter to Google this, you can find a lot on this topic.

I didn't use softraid with the Thunderbay since I use raid 1, mirrored, and that's handled well by OSX disk utility itself. But that's good to keep in mind for topicstarter!

 

[MVMNT]

Sounds a terrible, and expensive to run, idea to be honest, with so many unknown pitfalls along the way. Be great in the winter when you need to keep somewhere warm.

I'd bite the bullet and get a NAS, and maybe roadmap your scaling plans and upgrade as and when needed.

Don't forget you'll also need a decent UPS to run alongside a Mac Pro in case of a power failure.

 

[mayuka]

One of the initial reasons why I considered an old Mac Pro was that I can be more flexible with using ZFS. Sure, I need to spend some time configuring it, but I can mix several drives and can upgrade to higher capacity drives in the future. I really like these dedicated NAS-systems, Synology, QNAP and others but I'm more or less restricted to their way of doing things and I don't have the option to use an SSD for caching. OpenZFS on the other hand does not work very well with macOS > 10.13. But I always have the option switching to Linux or FreeBSD/TrueNAS.

Regarding the OWC Thunderbays I could use my spare Mac mini. But it has Thunderbolt 2. Will it also work? I do not plan using the drivers or software from OWC as (Open)ZFS does everything. Will it also work without OWC software (drivers)?

I must say I'm really tempted using a PCIe-SATA card in a Mac Pro too. It seems there are many options but none is really that I would go for at first sight...

 

[krakman]

how about something like this : https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/High-Poi...785147?hash=item3da460627b:g:H9EAAOSw3V1e0XXg


or a newer version: https://highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/series_rr272x.htm

 

[mayuka]

These High Point PCIe cards look promising. What are the right cables to attach 3.5" SATA hard drives? The photos on their website show some strange cables which do not seem to use standard connectors...

I'm still puzzled which the right solution is for me. I will take some more days to think it over.

 

[krakman]

These High Point PCIe cards look promising. What are the right cables to attach 3.5" SATA hard drives? The photos on their website show some strange cables which do not seem to use standard connectors...

I'm still puzzled which the right solution is for me. I will take some more days to think it over.

I think its a SAS plug at one end with 4 SATA at the other. I thing its just data connections so you will have to get another cable to supply power to each drive

 

[Successful Sorcerer]

One of the initial reasons why I considered an old Mac Pro was that I can be more flexible with using ZFS. Sure, I need to spend some time configuring it, but I can mix several drives and can upgrade to higher capacity drives in the future. I really like these dedicated NAS-systems, Synology, QNAP and others but I'm more or less restricted to their way of doing things and I don't have the option to use an SSD for caching. OpenZFS on the other hand does not work very well with macOS > 10.13. But I always have the option switching to Linux or FreeBSD/TrueNAS.

Regarding the OWC Thunderbays I could use my spare Mac mini. But it has Thunderbolt 2. Will it also work? I do not plan using the drivers or software from OWC as (Open)ZFS does everything. Will it also work without OWC software (drivers)?

I must say I'm really tempted using a PCIe-SATA card in a Mac Pro too. It seems there are many options but none is really that I would go for at first sight...

Yes like I said before, you don't need OWC drivers or anything and it works with tunderbolt 2. Just plug in and the drives pop up. What raid type are you planning to run?

 

[mayuka]

Okay... The 8 drives in Mac Pro solution is out. It's because the drives are seriously limited as they only use a single 4x PCI-lane if I get that correctly (see here https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/4-drive-ssd-raid-0-mac-pro-5-1.1960123/). Thus, 4 drives just share a max. of 660 MB/s. In addition to the 4 drives in the dedicated bays, putting another 4 drives in the upper optical bay will be quite challenging. Getting SATA-cables there is more or less easy but getting the power connectors in place for all 4 drives will be difficult.

The implementation of ZFS I am planning to use is something in between RAID 1 and 5, I would like to use drive mirroring + extending through zfs pools + caching SSD.

 

[Successful Sorcerer]

I think it depends on the main usage. Is it for backup or something like editing 4K videos. Then you can decide better where to put your money... speed or reliability.