Pre Purchase Questions about DS 1812+

[maclab]

I am thinking to purchase this for a small office setup.

Nature of use: Photoshop and other graphic design software, media streaming including HD

Existing Hardware:
3 Apple computers running 10.7.3
Time Capsule wireless router
Telstra Cable Connection

QU:

1)Wanting to make this as fast as possible without blowing the budget, which switch do you recommend for Link Aggregation to increase speed?

2)Was looking at the D-Link DGS-1005D but not sure the difference between - Applied Standard: Non-IEEE 802.3ad (ALB) + Applied Standard: IEEE 802.3ad?

3) and Any problems with existing hardware?

4) what Hard Drive do you recommend, we dont really want to spend big here, but want to get the best speed possible in the lower to mid range. I have 1 Western Digital Green Cav 2TB that I could put in, but not sure what the speed will be like.

What do you recommend?


Thank you

[maclab]

Someone please help


Thx

[ed_sweden]

1)Wanting to make this as fast as possible without blowing the budget, which switch do you recommend for Link Aggregation to increase speed?

For a good switch on a budget that supports Link Aggregation Groups (LAG) have a look at the TL-SG3210 from TP-Link. In short, to use link aggregation you need a switch that supports it, you also need two NIC’s in the workstations that can bind and are aggregation aware.

2)Was looking at the D-Link DGS-1005D but not sure the difference between - Applied Standard: Non-IEEE 802.3ad (ALB) + Applied Standard: IEEE 802.3ad?

A few things about this, as far as I can see it is end of life. Maybe not a problem for you but just thought I’d mention it. Second thing is that it is an unmanaged switch (again, maybe not a problem for you) you would get a much bigger benefit from having a managed or semi-managed switch where you can manage the aspects of flow control and LAG assignments.

Applied IEEE / Non-IEEE differences I don’t really know about. As far as I’ve dealt with aggregation, you should have compatible standards at both end and differences between applied and non-applied IEEE standards can give performance / negotiation problems. OSX aggregation uses the applied standard as does the TP-link switch I mentioned above.

3) and Any problems with existing hardware?

Again depends, if all the machines have just one network card they won’t get a benefit from link-aggregation. For 3 workstations to use link-aggregation that would be a total of 6 connections plus 2 from the DS giving you a total of 8 connections to the switch, the 1005D you mentioned is a 5 port switch so you’d have a problem there.

4) what Hard Drive do you recommend, we dont really want to spend big here, but want to get the best speed possible in the lower to mid range. I have 1 Western Digital Green Cav 2TB that I could put in, but not sure what the speed will be like.

I would get the same hard-disks as you already have i.e. the 2TB WD Caviar Greens. Better to keep things as similar as possible for performance reasons.

Hope this helps.

[wattacetti]

I am thinking to purchase this for a small office setup.
Nature of use: Photoshop and other graphic design software, media streaming including HD
Existing Hardware:
3 Apple computers running 10.7.3
Time Capsule wireless router
Telstra Cable Connection
QU:
1)Wanting to make this as fast as possible without blowing the budget, which switch do you recommend for Link Aggregation to increase speed?
2)Was looking at the D-Link DGS-1005D but not sure the difference between - Applied Standard: Non-IEEE 802.3ad (ALB) + Applied Standard: IEEE 802.3ad?
3) and Any problems with existing hardware?
4) what Hard Drive do you recommend, we dont really want to spend big here, but want to get the best speed possible in the lower to mid range. I have 1 Western Digital Green Cav 2TB that I could put in, but not sure what the speed will be like.

Well, are your Macs connected by wire or wirelessly? If the latter link aggregation isn't going to do a whole lot to improve performance even if you have the latest generation of Time Capsule.

I use a Cisco 300-series switch which works pretty well and supports multiple LAGs but if you don't need that number of ports you can look to something like Netgear's GS108T (Time Capsule, 3 Macs + two ports on DS = 6 ports). The DGS-1005D has 5 ports, so you're short unless you want to use the two remaining ports on the Time Capsule. In that setup, you have no room for wired expansion since you lose two ports overall to connect the TC and the switch.

My DiskStation does LA through 802.3ad; ALB doesn't work in my setup.

As for drives, you want to start by installing one drive? That doesn't provide for any data protection. 4 drives gets you RAID-6

I support the idea of getting more WD Greens if your existing drive hasn't been in consistent use (that failure thing), but if not, gear up to buy drives. The most expensive ones are 3 and 4 TB units, but you can find reasonably-priced 1.5 and 2 TB drives. I just completed a capacity upgrade after a drive failure and managed to find Seagate's ST33000651AS (3 TB, 7200 rpm; the "old model") for less than the 2 TB Caviar Green but that was probably atypical.

[maclab]

Thank you for the replies

Currently my exact set up is:

Connected to Time Capsule
1.iMac wired to TimeCapsule
2. Thunderbolt Display wired to TimeCapsule (MBA plugged in when in office or not connected wirelessly when away from my desk working on something out side, as you do
3. Cable internet connection

So basically all wired connected to the TC and 3 ports taken of the 4. I did have another Computer connected but this wont be needed once the NAS in in place.

So I am confused about the first poster saying I would need 2 Nic's? Basically I am confused about how I would set up the Link aggregation, what plugs into what etc...if you could please give me a clear idea now knowing exactly what I have.


Hard drives

I do have a Green, but its virtually full, so I think I will just get new Hard drives up to about 6-9TB to start with.

I have been looking at the:

1. Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000
2. WD Black Cavier WD2002FAEX (concerned about comment on Syn compatibility sheet saying 'This model is advised to be used in environments with average temperature below 30 degrees Celsius'
3. Seagate Barracuda 3TB (released end of 2011)

So info I have found about performance etc..

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/hdd-charts-2012/compare,2930.html?prod%5B5348%5D=on&prod%5B5327%5D=on&prod%5B5357%5D=on&prod%5B5347%5D=on

and

http://www.storagereview.com/seagate_barracuda_3tb_review_1tb_platters_st3000dm001

As the NAS is going to be used in a Graphic Design Company environment, I was thinking I need the quickest affordable drives.

I would really appreciate your opinions on this, have I got the wrong idea? recommendations regarding Hard drives?


Thank you

[wattacetti]

Thank you for the replies

Currently my exact set up is:

Connected to Time Capsule
1.iMac wired to TimeCapsule
2. Thunderbolt Display wired to TimeCapsule (MBA plugged in when in office or not connected wirelessly when away from my desk working on something out side, as you do
3. Cable internet connection

So basically all wired connected to the TC and 3 ports taken of the 4. I did have another Computer connected but this wont be needed once the NAS in in place.

So I am confused about the first poster saying I would need 2 Nic's? Basically I am confused about how I would set up the Link aggregation, what plugs into what etc...if you could please give me a clear idea now knowing exactly what I have.

I'm not exactly sure what ed_sweden was getting at, but in general most machines will have a single NIC and the server will have 2 or more NICs. You aggregate the server (in this case the NAS). When you have the switch that supports LA, you plug both NAS NICs into the switch, and then set up the LAG on the switch to bond the two NAS NICs into a single trunk.

The way I saw your setup was as follows (assuming 8-port switch):

cable modem -> Time Capsule WAN port
Time Capsule LAN port 1 -> switch (two remaining WAN ports open)
2x NAS NICs -> switch
iMac -> switch
Thunderbolt Display -> switch

TC is set up as the router for the internal network and will provide DHCP and whatever other services you requrie (AppleTalk zone etc).

Hard drives
I do have a Green, but its virtually full, so I think I will just get new Hard drives up to about 6-9TB to start with.

The Green is unusable in this case unless you happen to have 2 TB storage lying about. Installing into the NAS will wipe the data.

6-9 TB of useable space? Since it's a production environment and you don't have DX510 expansion units, I'd suggest RAID-6 so that you can survive a drive failure without too much of an impact. In that scenario (n-2), 5 x 2 TB or 4 x 3 TB will get you about 5.5 TB useable space.

8 x 2 TB = 10.5 TB
8 x 3 TB = 15-16 TB

I have been looking at the:

1. Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000
2. WD Black Cavier WD2002FAEX (concerned about comment on Syn compatibility sheet saying 'This model is advised to be used in environments with average temperature below 30 degrees Celsius'
3. Seagate Barracuda 3TB (released end of 2011)

I don't have any recent experience with Deskstars but I thought that Hitachi had sold the drive business to WD. Anyway, the Barracudas I'm using have the same "do not use in ambient temperatures > 30ºC warning too. Is your office a sweat shop? So long as the NAS isn't in some unventilated enclosure and you have AC in your office, chances are pretty good you're not going to get to 30ºC ambient.

The newer Barracudas spin at 7200 rpm, use 1 TB platters and have less heat issues. Relatively hard to come by and more expensive.

As the NAS is going to be used in a Graphic Design Company environment, I was thinking I need the quickest affordable drives.

I'm of a slightly different opinion because you're running this setup in a production environment. I'd be more inclined to trade drive reliability over speed because downtime can be a killer. If you can afford enterprise drives, that would be best, but I wouldn't be so inclined to insist on the latest drive mechanism.

[ed_sweden]

I'm not exactly sure what ed_sweden was getting at, but in general most machines will have a single NIC and the server will have 2 or more NICs. You aggregate the server (in this case the NAS). When you have the switch that supports LA, you plug both NAS NICs into the switch, and then set up the LAG on the switch to bond the two NAS NICs into a single trunk.

What I am getting at: The point of link-aggregation is to enable a greater throughput than is available from a standard "single" connection and/or redundancy.

I'll try and explain it another way. If you have the DS with aggregated links connected to a switch that supports LAG then you have a theoretical maximum throughput of 2000Gb/s (1000Gb/s for each NIC in the DS).

Now you have your workstation PC, with one 1Gb/s NIC - how are you ever going to get a throughput of 2000Gb/s? You can't, it is impossible.

What you can do however, is have an additional NIC in the workstation that is then binded (aggregated) with the other, thus giving you the theoretical 2000Gb/s to the NAS.

As a note, where I work we have 10Gb/s backbone to our NAS and a lot of our database servers have binded gigabit NIC's - some have two NICs others have four. Those servers have theoretical throughput of 2000Gb/s and 4000Gb/s respectively.
[/quote]

[maclab]

Thank you for the replies, its really helping

Ok...I think I get the link aggregation now....

Looking at the GS108T but also found GS108T-200, not sure what the difference is? these are not on compatibility list but I assume they are still ok otherwise you wouldn't be recommending

This one is about half the price of the TP Link that was also recommended, would one do the job any better than the other?



As for Hard drives .... I got the impression that the Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm was a good option if the price is right, I found a supplier not far from me who has the 2TB version ST2000DM001 on special atm going for cheaper than the others at 2TB equivalent, priced at $139AU, so I might jump on those and just get 4 of them?

I will seriously consider the raid6 option too thanks.


Look forward to some final (hopefully ) guidance....

[wattacetti]

What I am getting at: The point of link-aggregation is to enable a greater throughput than is available from a standard "single" connection and/or redundancy.

I already understand this.

Now you have your workstation PC, with one 1Gb/s NIC - how are you ever going to get a throughput of 2000Gb/s? You can't, it is impossible.

I don't understand why you would want to do this. LA is typically done on servers to provide better throughput to the clients attached to them.

If I read maclab's original query correctly, it's to work on Photoshop (static in the sense of nothing requiring real-time access) and efficiently stream HD video from two or more computers. LA would make sense in this case because the two clients are are targeting the same NAS, and the larger outbound pipe from the NAS will theoretically minimize access delay.

He doesn't seem to need a fat pipe to the NAS since he doesn't appear to be doing anything like rendering 3D video. If he was, I'd say he's considering the wrong hardware.

The proposal to add a second NIC to the Mac would make sense if he had expansion in the iMac (which they don't) and if it were a solo machine (of which he has two).

As a note, where I work we have 10Gb/s backbone to our NAS and a lot of our database servers have binded gigabit NIC's - some have two NICs others have four. Those servers have theoretical throughput of 2000Gb/s and 4000Gb/s respectively.

But that again makes sense because your servers should have as much throughput as possible for the clients connecting to it. You want a big pipe available to a lot of little straws. Do any of your clients have LAGs?

[wattacetti]

Looking at the GS108T but also found GS108T-200, not sure what the difference is? these are not on compatibility list but I assume they are still ok otherwise you wouldn't be recommending

There are revisions to the GS108T. The -200 is version 2.0 and passively cooled. It supports 802.3ad Link Aggregation.

I've never used the TP Link. I have installed the Netgear for others and I use Cisco for my own setup.

As for Hard drives .... I got the impression that the Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm was a good option if the price is right, I found a supplier not far from me who has the 2TB version ST2000DM001 on special atm going for cheaper than the others at 2TB equivalent, priced at $139AU, so I might jump on those and just get 4 of them?

From reading other parts of this forum, you're going to get "Seagate/WD/Hitachi/Samsung sucks" messages so buy what you're comfortable with.

The ST2000DM001 is one of the newer 7200 rpm drives that runs slightly less hot than the earlier iteration (no 30ºC ambient warning); seems like a good price (cheaper than what I can find the older generation for anyway).

4 drives gets around 5.5 TB storage under RAID-5 or SHR, or about 3.6 TB under RAID-6 (I'm estimating).

[maclab]

Ok not to sure the difference in what you guys are talking about now with the link aggregation. Basically I am wanting to speed up read and write time of files, PDS, ai, and the odd hd movie I might want to stream. Also be using it for shared itunes library and iphoto.Wont be doing Video editing.

Was going to just use thunderbolt harddrives but then is problem with sharing.....so might be just getting one for the designer to use also and have that backup to the NAS as well.

?

thank you

[ed_sweden]

@wattacetti

I think we have got off on the wrong foot, my advice was based on - what I realise now - a misunderstanding.

I was thinking along the lines of optimum throughput for rich media, alas it appears not the case.

You are indeed correct in pointing out aggregation would give you a bigger pipe, thus reducing the potential of a bottle-neck at the NIC level.

That being said, there have been various reports that link aggregation shows a menial improvement over a non-aggregated connection.

In the long and short of it I think aggregated/non-aggregated will have no bearing on what maclab wants to accomplish with only 3 artists working at the same time. A non-aggregated connection would give a adequate throughput based on described requirements.

Side note @maclab - if you are now thinking of running DAS thunderbolt drives and using the DS for backup link aggregation is not worth the consideration. Save yourself some money and hassle by running un-aggregated as you have no real need for it.

[maclab]

Ok

I have 5 new Seagates plugged in, done smart test on them all, got the netgear switch all configured to Link aggregation etc..

Now just need to decide on which raid to use, I have 5 x 2td all same specs, so if I was to go SHR or raid 5 any benefit over the over?

Thinking also Raid 6 but not sure if is overkill? perhaps 2 in raid 6 and 3 in SHR ?

Also should I set them all up as one volume if I choose to use the same raid config for all the disks?


Any guidance on how to look at this would be greatly appreciated

[jrosado]

You need at least 4 drives to make a raid6 volume. Being the drives all equal, there is no advantage to make SHR

[maclab]

If I do go raid 5 or SHR is there any disadvantage to SHR ? From what I have read its a very flexibable form of raid 5. Any reasons why I would choose raid 5 instead?


Thanks