08-04-2018, 04:59 AM
Hi.
Have you considered this thread, "Rock64 NAS project" - https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=5132
Perhaps, its content will provide some response to issues here.
I noted the following.
(1) The OP would like a RAID of two drives via USB 3.0 /and/ a third drive via USB 2.0. Seems odd to me. Why not all three on USB 3.0?
(2) The OP plans to use a RAID controller.
(3) The desired setup is peculiarly complex, with wires heading to nowhere.
Replies include [my comments in brackets],
(1) "Reading the Armbian guys who are very OMV (open media vault) orientated it would seem Raid over USB separate drives is not a good idea [why?].
It will work [how so?] but before you get there you have to think about the USB ports max raw bandwidth then deduct overhead and look at what you can place on it. [Specifics? Anyone, anywhere?]"
(2) "Don't do RAID over USB3 hub, it will break [how?], and very baddly [ditto] Smile Use only proven to work SATA-to-USB adapter, that has UASP support, as this gives a good performance.
There's a very good and long thread from tkaiser on Armbian forum where he describes SATA bridges, NAS solutions, and Rock64 performance numbers and he has good explanations what setups will work correctly."
(3) [responding to previous citation] "I have to disagree and not because it will not break, as it prob will but for the lack of reasons to why it should.
Much is to do with power & connectors and with the kernel we have and some quirks on cheap silicon.
UASP is transparent across a hub so all a hub does is increase cable length and connector count if its a decent hub with a good chip.
Many of the problems are how host port stacks are implemented on the motherboard and not all are the same.
Kernel 4.4 is the current image 4.6 = USB 3.1 prob really with images we should already be backporting kernel 4.9 as we have hardware that is further forward than the 4.4 mainline kernel we are currently employing."
(4) "I'm using one of these with my Rock64 to turn it into a NAS, it's a 5-port SATA to USB 3.0 bridge with hardware RAID:
https://www.amazon.com/Oodelay-eSATA-Por...B00PZ7347E
There's also a (much cheaper) 2-port version, if all your need are two disks:
https://www.amazon.com/Oodelay-eSATA-6Gb...B00T22JUT4
In hardware RAID mode, the Rock64 just sees one disk, and operates without any further configuration. If you switch to JBOD mode, the Rock64 sees all disks individually, allowing for the use of software RAID."
[I did not see any way to detect HD failure if using hardware RAID. Could anyone either confirm my observations or tell me what I missed?]
(5) "Speed and stability have been great. I currently have two 2TB hard disks connected to the controller, with the controller performing hardware RAID 1 (mirroring), and have it connected to my Rock64 (running Open Media Vault) via USB 3.0. I'm sharing an NTFS formatted volume using SAMBA.
I use it as a target for daily backups of my homelab, with backups being taken of an ESXi host by Veeam Backup & Recovery. I usually see transfer speeds in excess of between 90 and 100 MB/s while running backups over the network.
I know I might get slightly better performance if I were to reformat the disks as EXT4, but I wanted to be able to plug the controller + disks into a Windows machine if need-be."
(6) "I'm using the "jessie-openmediavault-rock64-0.5.15-136-armhf" image from here [ https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-b...tag/0.5.15 ] with the kernel it comes with.
Like I said in my previous post, network transfers are being done over SMB.
I didn't really do anything special to get these speeds, it just kinda worked out of the box... Connected my storage device via USB 3.0, mounted the pre-existing NTFS volume and created shares using the OpenMediaVault WebUI, good to go. Still 100% reliable, handling gigabytes of backups from Veeam, every night."
(7) [Last post included for completeness. I found it relevant but insufficiently detailed for me to make sensible.] "I am successfully running 16 drives on my 4GB Rock64, two 8x USB3/eSATA (USB3 mode) enclosures with ZFS on Bionic. ..."
Any kind soul wishing to address my comments and questions above [in brackets]?
Have you considered this thread, "Rock64 NAS project" - https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=5132
Perhaps, its content will provide some response to issues here.
I noted the following.
(1) The OP would like a RAID of two drives via USB 3.0 /and/ a third drive via USB 2.0. Seems odd to me. Why not all three on USB 3.0?
(2) The OP plans to use a RAID controller.
(3) The desired setup is peculiarly complex, with wires heading to nowhere.
Replies include [my comments in brackets],
(1) "Reading the Armbian guys who are very OMV (open media vault) orientated it would seem Raid over USB separate drives is not a good idea [why?].
It will work [how so?] but before you get there you have to think about the USB ports max raw bandwidth then deduct overhead and look at what you can place on it. [Specifics? Anyone, anywhere?]"
(2) "Don't do RAID over USB3 hub, it will break [how?], and very baddly [ditto] Smile Use only proven to work SATA-to-USB adapter, that has UASP support, as this gives a good performance.
There's a very good and long thread from tkaiser on Armbian forum where he describes SATA bridges, NAS solutions, and Rock64 performance numbers and he has good explanations what setups will work correctly."
(3) [responding to previous citation] "I have to disagree and not because it will not break, as it prob will but for the lack of reasons to why it should.
Much is to do with power & connectors and with the kernel we have and some quirks on cheap silicon.
UASP is transparent across a hub so all a hub does is increase cable length and connector count if its a decent hub with a good chip.
Many of the problems are how host port stacks are implemented on the motherboard and not all are the same.
Kernel 4.4 is the current image 4.6 = USB 3.1 prob really with images we should already be backporting kernel 4.9 as we have hardware that is further forward than the 4.4 mainline kernel we are currently employing."
(4) "I'm using one of these with my Rock64 to turn it into a NAS, it's a 5-port SATA to USB 3.0 bridge with hardware RAID:
https://www.amazon.com/Oodelay-eSATA-Por...B00PZ7347E
There's also a (much cheaper) 2-port version, if all your need are two disks:
https://www.amazon.com/Oodelay-eSATA-6Gb...B00T22JUT4
In hardware RAID mode, the Rock64 just sees one disk, and operates without any further configuration. If you switch to JBOD mode, the Rock64 sees all disks individually, allowing for the use of software RAID."
[I did not see any way to detect HD failure if using hardware RAID. Could anyone either confirm my observations or tell me what I missed?]
(5) "Speed and stability have been great. I currently have two 2TB hard disks connected to the controller, with the controller performing hardware RAID 1 (mirroring), and have it connected to my Rock64 (running Open Media Vault) via USB 3.0. I'm sharing an NTFS formatted volume using SAMBA.
I use it as a target for daily backups of my homelab, with backups being taken of an ESXi host by Veeam Backup & Recovery. I usually see transfer speeds in excess of between 90 and 100 MB/s while running backups over the network.
I know I might get slightly better performance if I were to reformat the disks as EXT4, but I wanted to be able to plug the controller + disks into a Windows machine if need-be."
(6) "I'm using the "jessie-openmediavault-rock64-0.5.15-136-armhf" image from here [ https://github.com/ayufan-rock64/linux-b...tag/0.5.15 ] with the kernel it comes with.
Like I said in my previous post, network transfers are being done over SMB.
I didn't really do anything special to get these speeds, it just kinda worked out of the box... Connected my storage device via USB 3.0, mounted the pre-existing NTFS volume and created shares using the OpenMediaVault WebUI, good to go. Still 100% reliable, handling gigabytes of backups from Veeam, every night."
(7) [Last post included for completeness. I found it relevant but insufficiently detailed for me to make sensible.] "I am successfully running 16 drives on my 4GB Rock64, two 8x USB3/eSATA (USB3 mode) enclosures with ZFS on Bionic. ..."
Any kind soul wishing to address my comments and questions above [in brackets]?