Best approach to a new build

[Adam H]

I have just acquired a DNS-323 with no disks and have not set it up yet except to log into the D-Link interface and poke around. It has the 1.10 firmware and is the A1 version. I have 2 1TB WD Red disks that I intend to use in the NAS that are still in their packaging. My needs are simple. Currently I am using a headless PC running a Linux-based OS called Daphile that acts strictly as a music server. That PC has no data on it except for the OS install on a SSD, and a small (maybe 500GB) USB external drive plugged into it that houses my music collection along with a handful of miscellaneous files I'd like to keep backed up. My girlfriend has a MacBook Pro. I may introduce another Windows PC into the environment someday.

I would like to accomplish the following:

-Move my music files to the NAS and let it serve those files to my headless PC.

-Backup the Daphile OS install to the NAS for recovery if ever needed (the OS has its own backup mechanism and I believe I would just have to point it to the NAS).

-Store those other miscellaneous files for safe keeping.

-Use Time Machine to back my girlfriend's computer up to the NAS.

-Have the option of possibly backing up a Windows PC to the NAS.

-Have a level of redundancy that's fairly safe, though I recognize that this is not a perfect system. I'm not going to introduce a bunch of additional drives to make 100% sure I will never lose my data. I'm looking at RAID 1 or 5 but am open to suggestions.

I am not good with this stuff, but I'm good at troubleshooting and following instructions (I did get Daphile set up, after all, and that was quite a feat for me). I've been researching Alt-F for a few days now but I don't see a lot of people who are starting with this kind of clean install and I have some questions. I'm mostly interested in Alt-F because of the limited disk formatting options in the native firmware.

Can I install Alt-F to my DNS-323 before introducing the HDDs or do they need to be in there first? The reason I ask is that I know the native firmware only supports limited disk formats where Alt-F has several options. I feel like I might as well start off with my infrastructure in place before bringing in any data, so why format then reformat the disks unnecessarily?

What is the best disk format for my cross platform setup and needs?

I have the option of using that 500GB (or so) external USB drive as a third drive in a RAID 5 setup. It is only able to be powered through its USB cord, however, and I have read enough to know that this could be an issue. I could also pick up a separately powered 1TB external drive and introduce that to the system, but I'm not wanting to spend much more money on this immediately. Is it a poor choice to begin with a RAID 1 system then later convert to RAID 5 (by "convert" I think I probably mean moving all the data off and rebuilding the system as it sounds like you can't just change an existing system from 1 to 5 without erasing your disks or knowing much more than I do)? Should I attempt to start with a RAID 5 system using my current external USB drive and upgrade it later when I feel like spending the money?

Any other thoughts or suggestions?

Thank you in advance for any help. I don't know enough about any of this to be a contributor to what you folks do but I have long been a beneficiary! Maybe just asking good questions is helpful enough and hopefully I have. My only other note is that the current drive space I've allotted myself is not a concern. I know that most of you have graduated to many more TBs than me at this point, but what I have right now is plenty for my music, the few photos we store and our various small files. As I continue converting my music over to FLAC I might have greater needs in the future but I'll just get additional drives then and expand my capabilities when needed.

[João Cardoso]

On Thursday, 7 April 2016 04:24:50 UTC+1, Adam H wrote:

I have just acquired a DNS-323 with no disks and have not set it up yet except to log into the D-Link interface and poke around. It has the 1.10 firmware and is the A1 version. I have 2 1TB WD Red disks that I intend to use in the NAS that are still in their packaging. My needs are simple. Currently I am using a headless PC running a Linux-based OS called Daphile that acts strictly as a music server. That PC has no data on it except for the OS install on a SSD, and a small (maybe 500GB) USB external drive plugged into it that houses my music collection along with a handful of miscellaneous files I'd like to keep backed up. My girlfriend has a MacBook Pro. I may introduce another Windows PC into the environment someday.

I would like to accomplish the following:

-Move my music files to the NAS and let it serve those files to my headless PC.

-Backup the Daphile OS install to the NAS for recovery if ever needed (the OS has its own backup mechanism and I believe I would just have to point it to the NAS).

-Store those other miscellaneous files for safe keeping.

-Use Time Machine to back my girlfriend's computer up to the NAS.

-Have the option of possibly backing up a Windows PC to the NAS.

-Have a level of redundancy that's fairly safe, though I recognize that this is not a perfect system. I'm not going to introduce a bunch of additional drives to make 100% sure I will never lose my data. I'm looking at RAID 1 or 5 but am open to suggestions.

All the above can in principle be done under Alt-F. If it fulfil your specific needs is another question.

The DNS-323-rev-A1 is fairly old now, its hardware might start failing. I have one myself (donated) and one of the drive leds is not working -- that's not important, but other vital components might start to fail. Alt-F will happily handle most disk layout and filesystems it finds in your disks, but if your box fails and you move you disks to another NAS, its OS might be not so forging.

 

I am not good with this stuff, but I'm good at troubleshooting and following instructions (I did get Daphile set up, after all, and that was quite a feat for me). I've been researching Alt-F for a few days now but I don't see a lot of people who are starting with this kind of clean install and I have some questions. I'm mostly interested in Alt-F because of the limited disk formatting options in the native firmware.

Can I install Alt-F to my DNS-323 before introducing the HDDs

 

Yes.  But without disks there is not much that you can try.

And a "first login wizard" will guide you thought initial setup, so you know where to go latter to further customize it. That login tour only runs once.

Why don't you attach an old disk to the box, on even an USB pen, just to try Alt-F? Then, to repeat the "first login tour", you only need to remove that disk, apply "Clear Settings" and reboot with the final disks.

or do they need to be in there first? The reason I ask is that I know the native firmware only supports limited disk formats where Alt-F has several options. I feel like I might as well start off with my infrastructure in place before bringing in any data, so why format then reformat the disks unnecessarily?

What is the best disk format for my cross platform setup and needs?

Any.

The only requirement is that if you want to install additional software (Alt-F packages), an ext2/3/4 filesystem is needed. NTSF/FAT is not linux native and will not work. If you only want to store data, any filesystem will do, albeit slowly. But you will want to install Alt-F packages, as you need at least 'netalk' for Time Machine.

 

I have the option of using that 500GB (or so) external USB drive as a third drive in a RAID 5 setup. It is only able to be powered through its USB cord, however, and I have read enough to know that this could be an issue. I could also pick up a separately powered 1TB external drive and introduce that to the system, but I'm not wanting to spend much more money on this immediately. Is it a poor choice to begin with a RAID 1 system then later convert to RAID 5 (by "convert" I think I probably mean moving all the data off and rebuilding the system as it sounds like you can't just change an existing system from 1 to 5 without erasing your disks or knowing much more than I do)?

Not exactly. There are ways to convert a RAID1 to RAID5 using the command line, but I have tested it (and already forgot how to do it) on a small test setup. Copying files is just the safer/easier way of doing that.

RAID1 should be OK for you.

Some users use instead "standard" (non RAID) setups, and they sync every night from one disk to another.

Should I attempt to start with a RAID 5 system using my current external USB drive and upgrade it later when I feel like spending the money?

Couldn't say.

But your USB disk is 500GB, and your disks are 1TB, so on a RAID5 setup you will be using only half of the disks capacity (RAID requires the same capacity on each component (read "partition").

Under Alt-F you could use the remaining 2x500GB disk space for "standard" filesystems, or a 500GB RAID1.

 but then you would have two or three "devices" to deal with, and most people just want "D:" :-)

 

Any other thoughts or suggestions?

Thank you in advance for any help. I don't know enough about any of this to be a contributor to what you folks do but I have long been a beneficiary! Maybe just asking good questions is helpful enough and hopefully I have. My only other note is that the current drive space I've allotted myself is not a concern. I know that most of you have graduated to many more TBs than me at this point, but what I have right now is plenty for my music, the few photos we store and our various small files. As I continue converting my music over to FLAC I might have greater needs in the future but I'll just get additional drives then and expand my capabilities when needed.

I'm using a RAID1 for homecare and PC backups, and an external USB drive (that I plug when necessary) as secondary backup that I manually do.

[Adam H]

Hello João,

Thank you very much for the response! You'll see below that I went ahead and starting setup prior to receiving any feedback, but the feedback helps regardless, at least as it confirms my choices and may be useful to others venturing down this path in the future. Everything with the install and setup went very smoothly, a huge credit to those of you who put time into this project's development.

On Friday, April 8, 2016 at 10:24:31 AM UTC-7, João Cardoso wrote:

On Thursday, 7 April 2016 04:24:50 UTC+1, Adam H wrote:

I have just acquired a DNS-323 with no disks and have not set it up yet except to log into the D-Link interface and poke around. It has the 1.10 firmware and is the A1 version. I have 2 1TB WD Red disks that I intend to use in the NAS that are still in their packaging. My needs are simple. Currently I am using a headless PC running a Linux-based OS called Daphile that acts strictly as a music server. That PC has no data on it except for the OS install on a SSD, and a small (maybe 500GB) USB external drive plugged into it that houses my music collection along with a handful of miscellaneous files I'd like to keep backed up. My girlfriend has a MacBook Pro. I may introduce another Windows PC into the environment someday.

I would like to accomplish the following:

-Move my music files to the NAS and let it serve those files to my headless PC.

-Backup the Daphile OS install to the NAS for recovery if ever needed (the OS has its own backup mechanism and I believe I would just have to point it to the NAS).

-Store those other miscellaneous files for safe keeping.

-Use Time Machine to back my girlfriend's computer up to the NAS.

-Have the option of possibly backing up a Windows PC to the NAS.

-Have a level of redundancy that's fairly safe, though I recognize that this is not a perfect system. I'm not going to introduce a bunch of additional drives to make 100% sure I will never lose my data. I'm looking at RAID 1 or 5 but am open to suggestions.

All the above can in principle be done under Alt-F. If it fulfil your specific needs is another question.

The DNS-323-rev-A1 is fairly old now, its hardware might start failing. I have one myself (donated) and one of the drive leds is not working -- that's not important, but other vital components might start to fail.

Yes, I'm doing this on the cheap and I know the risks. I was able to pick up the NAS for very little and it's my first experiment with one. My usage shouldn't be very taxing, so hopefully it hangs on for a while.

 

Alt-F will happily handle most disk layout and filesystems it finds in your disks, but if your box fails and you move you disks to another NAS, its OS might be not so forging.

 

I am not good with this stuff, but I'm good at troubleshooting and following instructions (I did get Daphile set up, after all, and that was quite a feat for me). I've been researching Alt-F for a few days now but I don't see a lot of people who are starting with this kind of clean install and I have some questions. I'm mostly interested in Alt-F because of the limited disk formatting options in the native firmware.

Can I install Alt-F to my DNS-323 before introducing the HDDs

 

Yes.  But without disks there is not much that you can try.

And a "first login wizard" will guide you thought initial setup, so you know where to go latter to further customize it. That login tour only runs once.

While researching I ran across a DNS323 for sale online that advertised no disks and Alt-F already installed. I saw that and figured there was no harm in flashing it without the hard drives, so I went ahead and did so last night with no issues at all. As you said, there's not much I could do with it without disks in, but I was able to get the basic networking set up before introducing the disks, which I did immediately after.

 

Why don't you attach an old disk to the box, on even an USB pen, just to try Alt-F? Then, to repeat the "first login tour", you only need to remove that disk, apply "Clear Settings" and reboot with the final disks.

or do they need to be in there first? The reason I ask is that I know the native firmware only supports limited disk formats where Alt-F has several options. I feel like I might as well start off with my infrastructure in place before bringing in any data, so why format then reformat the disks unnecessarily?

What is the best disk format for my cross platform setup and needs?

Any.

The only requirement is that if you want to install additional software (Alt-F packages), an ext2/3/4 filesystem is needed. NTSF/FAT is not linux native and will not work. If you only want to store data, any filesystem will do, albeit slowly. But you will want to install Alt-F packages, as you need at least 'netalk' for Time Machine.

Thank you. I thought I would probably need this for Time Machine but all of the forum talk about this is so old, it's hard to know how the technology may have changed. The most recent information i could find was from when people were having trouble with OSX Lion. I have not yet attempted this but will have a look at it this weekend, I hope. 

 

I have the option of using that 500GB (or so) external USB drive as a third drive in a RAID 5 setup. It is only able to be powered through its USB cord, however, and I have read enough to know that this could be an issue. I could also pick up a separately powered 1TB external drive and introduce that to the system, but I'm not wanting to spend much more money on this immediately. Is it a poor choice to begin with a RAID 1 system then later convert to RAID 5 (by "convert" I think I probably mean moving all the data off and rebuilding the system as it sounds like you can't just change an existing system from 1 to 5 without erasing your disks or knowing much more than I do)?

Not exactly. There are ways to convert a RAID1 to RAID5 using the command line, but I have tested it (and already forgot how to do it) on a small test setup. Copying files is just the safer/easier way of doing that.

RAID1 should be OK for you.

Some users use instead "standard" (non RAID) setups, and they sync every night from one disk to another.

Should I attempt to start with a RAID 5 system using my current external USB drive and upgrade it later when I feel like spending the money?

Couldn't say.

But your USB disk is 500GB, and your disks are 1TB, so on a RAID5 setup you will be using only half of the disks capacity (RAID requires the same capacity on each component (read "partition").

Under Alt-F you could use the remaining 2x500GB disk space for "standard" filesystems, or a 500GB RAID1.

 but then you would have two or three "devices" to deal with, and most people just want "D:" :-)

 

Any other thoughts or suggestions?

Thank you in advance for any help. I don't know enough about any of this to be a contributor to what you folks do but I have long been a beneficiary! Maybe just asking good questions is helpful enough and hopefully I have. My only other note is that the current drive space I've allotted myself is not a concern. I know that most of you have graduated to many more TBs than me at this point, but what I have right now is plenty for my music, the few photos we store and our various small files. As I continue converting my music over to FLAC I might have greater needs in the future but I'll just get additional drives then and expand my capabilities when needed.

I'm using a RAID1 for homecare and PC backups, and an external USB drive (that I plug when necessary) as secondary backup that I manually do.

I think I pretty much went with the setup you're using. I wasn't sure I'd get a response on here, so I just got to work on it last night and got everything set up. After enough research, I decided to set up RAID 1 on the DNS 323 and formatted the disks in ext4. For now I'm going to leave my external USB drive untouched while I start copying files over to the NAS, get the networking set up on my music server, and figure out the Time Machine backups. I've decided that once everything is running smoothly, I'm going to invest in a 1TB external USB drive, run that off the USB on the DNS 323 and use it only for backups of the NAS instead of trying to incorporate it into a RAID 5 setup.

[Adam H]

A question about Time Machine. Everything is up and running smoothly but I want to limit the amount of disk space Time Machine can take up. In the setup screen there is a Max Size field but it doesn'tdidn't specify what measurement it uses. Kb? Mb? Specifically, what do I enter there if I want to allocate 150GB to my Time Machine folder?

[João Cardoso]

On Friday, 15 April 2016 17:24:34 UTC+1, Adam H wrote:

A question about Time Machine. Everything is up and running smoothly but I want to limit the amount of disk space Time Machine can take up. In the setup screen there is a Max Size field but it doesn'tdidn't specify what measurement it uses. Kb? Mb?

From the netatalk manual http://netatalk.sourceforge.net/3.0/htmldocs/afp.conf.5.html

vol size limit = size in MiB (V)

Useful for Time Machine: limits the reported volume size, thus preventing Time Machine from using the whole real disk space for backup. Example: "vol size limit = 1000" would limit the reported disk space to 1 GB. IMPORTANT: This is an approximated calculation taking into account the contents of Time Machine sparsebundle images. Therefor you MUST NOT use this volume to store other content when using this option, because it would NOT be accounted. The calculation works by reading the band size from the Info.plist XML file of the sparsebundle, reading the bands/ directory counting the number of band files, and then multiplying one with the other. 

[Adam H]

Thank you again, João. One point of clarification just to be safe: you say "you MUST NOT use this volume to store other content when using this option." Please clarify what you mean by "volume." I have a folder within a user folder called Time Machine. I have designated that folder for Time Machine backups and I am going to restrict the size of that folder. When you say "volume" are you describing this folder, or are you describing something like a partition? I.e., do I need to create a partition (or some other thing besides a folder) just for Time Machine or does segregating it to a specific folder with a size limit defined in setup accomplish the task?

Currently I have:

Users/Username1/Time Machine

Users/Username1/Storage

where I'm meaning to only keep Time Machine backups in the Time Machine folder and anything else stored for that user in the Storage folder.

[João Cardoso]

On Friday, 15 April 2016 20:44:17 UTC+1, Adam H wrote:

Thank you again, João. One point of clarification just to be safe: you say "you MUST NOT use this volume to store other content when using this option." Please clarify what you mean by "volume." I have a folder within a user folder called Time Machine. I have designated that folder for Time Machine backups and I am going to restrict the size of that folder. When you say "volume" are you describing this folder, or are you describing something like a partition?

That's not me who wrote that, I not even have a Mac nor use Netatalk; that's the F.M. (C) who says that :-)

That's a good question, but again the Fine Manual says:

SECTION DESCRIPTIONS

       Each section in the configuration file (except for the [Global] section) describes a

       shared resource (known as a “volume”). The section name is the name of the volume and the

       parameters within the section define the volume attributes and options.

So, as each "Share Name" entry in the webUI is a Volume in the configuration file, the FM quote about "vol size limit " applies to the corresponding "Share Name / Folder".

In the webUI (and now it's my responsibility) I should have called it Volume instead of "Share Name", but I guess that I wanted to save users from netatalk terminology.

Anyway, that's my interpretation of the manual page, only experience will tell if it's correct.

[Adam H]

Thank you, João! Yes, I do hold you responsible for everything Alt-F even when it's not Alt-F :) That's a credit to you as it's going quite well in my little household. Before I left for work I initiated the transfer of all of my music files to the NAS, so I will find out how it has held up under it's biggest test yet when I get home.