[Soekris] RFC: soekris with directly attached stroage as home server

[Andy Michaels]

On Mar 15, 2007, at 6:08 PM, Bjoern A. Zeeb wrote:

> Hi,
>
> while energy costs are rising soekris provides an ideal platform to
> reduce power costs.
>
> With the upcoming net5501 with up to 600Mhz and up to 1G RAM, it would
> be good replacement for an inhouse server doing a bit of mails and
> web and this and that and a bit more with some freebsd jails while
> still being 99% idle most of the day.
>
> The only thing that I'd like is to have two hard disks attached to
> that. eSATA seems the way to go (no USB is not really an option).
> While the net5501 already has 1 SATA port I'd prefer to have some
> kind of (|soft|software)-RAID. For now I guess the only option
> would be to find a PCI card with two eSATA ports that will work
> with the upcoming soekris.
>
> Why soekris and not one of the many "home-enduser-NAS Appliances"
> that pop up everywhere these days?
>
> - I like my data.
> - I like my data.
> - I like my data.
> - I like the serial console with no need for keyb+vga of the
>     soekris; I like a CF with images for the base system; PXE
>     boot; it just works and is great from the setup and management
>     point of view.
> - I don't want some linux filesystem + smaba + NFS + some special
>     3rd party drivers for special hardware in a black box where I
>     have no chance for any recovery, ...
> - I'd like to run my normal applications on the box too and not
>     only use it as a NAS appliance.
> - I have done some research but not found (too m)any other
>     products in an acceptable price range that would meat the above
>     requirements and specs (no pci slot, no CF slot, no low power
>     device, way too expensive, only keyb+vga, ...)
> - you got the idea...
>
> Why two disks/some kind of RAID?
> Well I am running soekris boxes with one 24-7 HDD but there are no
> often changing (important) files on that like mailboxes...
> I still have them in pairs but at home I'd like to just have 1 box
> and do not want to lose the data because of a single disk problem.
>
> Why external disks? I don't want:
> - (too) special soekris cases
> - to think about heat problems
> - fans
> but still be able to plug them into another box
> and ...
>
>
> Maybe more people are interested in something like this and have
> ideas/suggestions/...?
>

Bjoern, Software RAID of some sort is supported under most BSDs and LVM 
+ MD RAID under linux work well.
Also, you might consider going with ATA over Ethernet for your disk 
solution.  It's a pretty good solution, and is relatively low-cost.  
You could build a RAID box with your disks and connect it to the 
Soekris.  This would give you a bit of separation so that if your 
Soekris needs to go down, your files don't go offline.

Anyway, just a thought.


> -- 
> Bjoern A. Zeeb				bzeeb at Zabbadoz dot NeT
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