NAS / OpenMediaVault

[stuartiannaylor]

USB RAID yeah prob a joke but keep thinking about the Rock64 with its cost/IO and how it could be a great "TV Box NAS".
Its at a cost for SoHo use that with USB3.0 you still have the bottleneck of the 1Gig ethernet.

I keep wondering more about ease of use and if you could just stack cheapo 2 bay Raid1 or single drives where when you just need more space Just Add Another via USB3.0.
Anyone ever played with AuFS and knows how much the performance hit is?

I keep thinking apart from Docker AuFS & OverlayFS could provide some novel simple storage solutions that sort of fit the simplicity of 'Settop NAS'
Things are getting really cheap as look at what you get with a Rock64 same with 2bay RAID as found this thing for £30 https://www.amazon.co.uk/HDD-USB-RAID-En...bay+raid+1
It might be a bit mweh but it could be fit for purpose if its just SoHo

I am thinking of getting one just to play and see as prices are sort of getting to a point where maybe its not RAID but AIR (Array of Inexpensive RAID) or with me more likely just hot air.
AuFS could do just pure JAA (Just Add Another) where the multiple spindles of some pretty god damn awful drives of low cost just build up into a volume that does the job.
OverlayFS is more like a cache where the copy up to a fast 'work' drive could still closely mirror what we do with storage and periodically aged files get placed in the lower file system.

Maybe its a shame that the Rock64 didn't ship with just 2 independent USB 3.0 ports that be it network or storage you can just cluster via adaptors.

As long as you've got just one hard drive/SSD, the Rock64 would make a very good NAS. As has been mentioned before, the performance of the USB 3.0 controller will come close to saturating the SATA3 interface of modern disks.

However, when you add more drives, regardless of whatever method you use (AuFS, ZFS, you name it) you will be bottlenecked by that single USB connection. Not to mention that USB is not exactly a reliable protocol. It will be the single point of failure which could compromise uptime at minimum and completely corrupt your data at worst.

My suggestion if you want multiple disks? Find another board to use, or cluster multiple Rock64s.

Also, the reason that the board didn't ship with more than one USB 3.0 port is because the RK3328 SoC doesn't have any more USB3 controllers.

My whole point is that its not the USB 3.0 controller that is the bottleneck but the 1Gig Ethernet controller.
But to be honest confused as you seem to say the Rock64 would be a good NAS and then say the mechanisms for doing so are not. "Not to mention that USB is not exactly a reliable protocol"

AuFS or OverlayFS are not blk level file systems but purely ways to concatenate filesystems ZFS and RAID can run under AuFS or OverlayFS as they work at a file level.
Each raid unit or disk isn't part of a volume or span the drivers just make it look that way but you do get a performance hit.

I have no idea why you have any preference to a single disk as why a single usb-> single port sata adapter is any better that a usb -> multiple port sata raid has me bemused? 

True, 1GbE is the bottleneck here, unfortunately your only other option without spending a lot of money is 802.11ac WiFi... which is not a great idea for NAS use for hopefully obvious reasons.

USB is not ideal for NAS work, but in this price range there isn't much else option. The risks can be mitigated by keeping it simple: single USB-SATA adapter (JMS578, preferably) and one drive (HDD/SSD). The issues with USB come in when you throw hubs into the mix, as you would have to in order to have multiple disks. This still is not what I would call an enterprise-ready solution, but for SoHo use it is adequate.

Yeah the bottleneck is the 1Gbe and the router we are probably going to plug into prob has better 802.11ac WiFi.

I am quite excited about the Rock64 especially at its price point as with previous SBCs I would say you are correct as the I/O hasn't even been sufficient for SoHo (Apols Pi Users, I had one and they are great but I/O sucked)

I am not really sure what "USB is not ideal for NAS work" means to be honest as it is very dependent on what your NAS work is.

I am thinking though at the price level of the Rock64 and the tech level of SoHo USB could be fit for purpose and still struggling to see how a single USB drive is in anyway better or worse than multiple.
I imagine quite a few Rock64 boards will be connected to some of the cheap 4 bay USB 3.0 RAID units that are on offer and they will be fit for purpose and giving much larger volume sizes that home media might dictate.
There might be people out there who connect a few 4 bay RAID units mounted at different mount points purely for volume size.

OpenMediaVault already has a Aufs plugin just haven't played with it to see what the overall performance hit is.
Need to get my Rock64 and play with some images.

We might see due to lower costs and wider consumer adoption simpler Just Add More solutions to questions of initial specification and purchase of volumes and drives.
I am just playing with some ideas that the Rock64 could do and actually could be fit for purpose, just depends on what that purpose is.