NASLite Network Attached Storage

Hi....I have recently built a NAS with 2x2TB, 2x1.5TB & 2x1.0TB Seagate HDDs. The MOBO is a Asus M3A78-CM with a AMD 2x64 4400+ processor and 3GB of RAM. As I've moved the data from NTFS HDDs into the NAS the old NTFS HDDs have then been added to the NAS pool. Presently mirroring the HDDs as Disk-1 mirroring Disk-0, Disk-4 mirroring Disk-2 and Disk-5 mirroring Disk-3. My RAM is almost max'd out. The manual notes the process of mirroring 800,000 files will consume approximately 80 megabytes or RAM, well mine seems to be well beyond this. Any thoughts?

This is pretty normal for Linux; it will allocate as much memory as it can; it does not indicate a problem. 3GB is plenty, including the large amount that's needed if ever your system needs to do an fsck on a very large drive.

It uses any extra RAM over and above the RAM drive for a read/write buffer cache. Every NASLite I have built has done this and functioned just fine.

Mike

Sooo.. Ive had NasLite for a couple of years, and finally registered in the forums.
I'm having the same issue. Also, my total bandwidth usage reads at least 50% in or our all the time. And the memory usage should be very very low like on first boot once all the buffers have been flushed/emptied caches..
My machine currently has 4GB DDR2-800 memory with an Intel Q6600 currently overclocked slightly from 2.4Ghz to 3.01.
The motherboard is a Gigabyte EP45-UD3R

Also after performing large file transfers to the appliance, the CPU usage stays around 50% but it's not currently serving up anything. When all data transfers are complete and I let it sit overnight and come to it again and check the status pages, memory is still 99% used, and the CPU is still sitting at 50%+. It's not indexing anything that's in the MEDIA folders, and there is zero disk activity.

It shouldnt' allocate anything if it's not currently being used for anything such as streaming or file access that's actually active.

With that said, I do a reboot and everything is back down to normal. CPU usage is 0% and memory is 1%.

This is a quad core in case you guys aren't aware of what CPU I have. It's also a G0 stepping. If it matters.

The RAM allocation (IMHO) is still normal; once allocated the 99% won't go down. However, the 50% CPU usage is not normal. Temporarily disconnect the LAN cable to be sure nothing external is happening (unless you can see the LAN activity light being idle). It is possible there's a Linux bug in the CPU usage algorithm with the Quad-core. Naturally, whatever is in the Linux core will also be exhibited by NASLite. I wonder if the CPU is in fact busy. Tough to check (except via accurate power usage) ... Kill-A-Watt ?

Why are you throwing a quad core at a NAS when a slower single core will save power and work just as well?

Considering how many boards and variants of them as well as the BIOS I would suspect that it is a simple glitch in the way NASLite interacts with the combo you are running.

Mike

Before you go all gung ho on the single core, no a single core cannot shove all the data down a gigabit pipe and feed multiple users at the same time without hiccuping. Especially streaming HD content.

Anyways, it was what I had spare on hand and I wasnt going to use a higher wattage AMD Phenom X4 9500 (it has a hardware math bug and is only 2.20Ghz and the board it's on says it supports 4GB of ram, but only 3.75 is addressable, and before you get stupid on me, YES, Everything I run is 64Bit now.)

Not trying to be rude, but these days even for a nas box a single core just doesn't cut it.

Tell that to Netapp! They were doing a NAS boxe 17 years ago that used a single core Pentium 200 (not the MMX) and would serve up hundreds of users at the same time all the while near saturating multiple FDDI interfaces. It was not uncommon for them to be serving 300 - 400Mb/s constantly. I think that the modern processor is more than capable of handling two or three HD streams at the same time. The limiting factor is not a processor bottleneck but rather the storage you are pulling from.

You might also consider the poor Atom processor. It is more than enough to handle a couple of HD streams at the same time and it is less than 2GHz and single core.

We can go around and around on this to no end. You can keep your big overclocked hardware and SSDs and compare apples (NASLite) to oranges (Microsoft home server) and lament the differences in performance. In the end it really doesn't matter much except to the power company.

I have a simple 2GHz Celeron (single core), 2GB of RAM and a 3com gigabit NIC and I have no problems streaming a couple of HD (that's 1080P) programs from my simple setup. There are no dropped frames or hiccuping.

There is no "Gung HO" just a reasonable solution matched to the task. I have a Data Direct hardware RAID box with 12GB of cache and ASICs as well as a number of sleds filled with 10K FC-AL drives if I want to serve the neighborhood HD.

Mike

So, my multicore unit has to handle several HD streams, iTunes syncs and backups from multiple users, I have a lot of streaming all around my house.

There are at least three Xbox-360's in the house, at least two PS3's, not to mention the iPhones, Android devices, and computers/laptops that all stream media.

The ultimate media setup I'd have is that of Xlobby. But I don't want to buy their hardware, I'd rather just have their software. Since I already paid for a capable and dedicated server setup, I just need better streaming options for HTPC.
Youtube "Xlobby and my 2 year old" or click here.

Bah, that's getting off track. Anyways, for network interfaces, I do have the Gigabit NIC that's built in and tied to the PCI express bus, I also have a switch card (two of them) that are four ports each and they are all gigabit.

Not to mention I have mostly SSD drives in the system. Corsair Force GT's.

This box will be serving up 4k here soon, so I don't want any potential for bottlenecks.

Also an off-the-subject question, what formats does the DAAP server side of this thing support? Anything that a DAAP capable client is able to read? I have ripped all my audio into FLAC format and ... yeah... wanna stream to everything in the house.



And thanks for putting up with my rambles.

The way I understand it most of it is handled in DMA transfers with little interaction from the processor. Again it depends on the hardware surrounding and not the processor per say. You must have allot of people in your house to need to stream HD to 5 devices at the same time while also handling iTunes and Android devices hammering away not to mention the desktops and laptops. I would suggest that you look at a used NAS appliance since it sounds like you need multiple gigabit interfaces to handle your streaming needs. I know that my android phone can hit my server for at least 10Mbps, my poor Gigabit switch has to switch to store and forward rather than cut through to keep up with the demand! All hell really breaks loose when I start to stream a movie too.

You do realize that most all of the older NAS/storage solutions are not going to be able to handle the I/O rates of even a few consumer SSDs. It is just now that the major players in enterprise storage are starting to come to grips with the serious demands of SSDs in storage arrays. A dozen enterprise SSDs can hammer a hardware RAID system that will handle hundreds of 15K drives. Most, if not all, RAID card solutions are not up to the task either. They are great for front line real time transactional needs but for what you are doing, streaming, they are a waste. Near line storage is what you actually want. If I were going to be doing NLE of video or audio then I might think of them as an option. Just something to ponder.

As far as 4K, you must have one hell of a projector and a thick pocket book since there are really no reasonable consumer 4K displays at this time to the best of my knowledge. As well there are no sources at that resolution that can be had save the digital movie theaters, since the hardware and DCP are beyond stupid this is likely not your 4K source. Security is very tight and the drives are heavily encrypted and tracked.

I simply use a bit of Myth and some Windows to play content. Never have found a need for DAAP so I got nothing for you there, sorry. I think Tony and/or Ralph use it since one or both are Apple centric in their hardware.

Check out Kaleidescape, it's another slick system similar to the one you link to above. The hardware is rather meager to be honest considering the stellar performance of the storage server and players. More than I can afford to be sure, though I have installed them and played with them.

Mike

@Mike

Did you not read the part about me also having a couple of Switch Cards? Have you not heard of those before? They're PCI-Express. They are like a NIC only with four ports each.

I have acquired some nice parts over the years

As for I/O requests, it really wouldn't be that high as there wouldn't be a lot of random requests for small-individual requests. Streaming large amounts of data per file. Besides that, I use the SSD's so I can pull multiple streams-per-drive without the mechanical limitations of a regular hard drive (stuttering, etc) and I'm not running hundreds of drives either, so the point is moot.

The system I built is more than capable for my current needs. 4K streams I have are basically rips but are full resolution.

4K projectors aren't THAT super expensive any more. Plus...lets just say I have a friend that lets me borrow his from time to time when he takes random vacations (rich bastard!).


Anyways, yeah, Quad-Core (I know, it's less efficient at processing cause it's two Core2-Duo's on a single chip that have to communicate over the FSB with eachother), but I have it clocked way over spec, (try over 3Ghz) and before you guys chime in about power consumption, my FULL LOAD when I was in windows and running a stress test with my current setup it only pulled around 275Watts. At idle as a NAS, it sits around 60. (Intel Speed Step apparently works independently from the OS I guess).

I'm mostly a hardware guy. I play catch up with software from time to time.