A more robust digital archive: ZFS on plugs

[nicolasc]

The combination of:
- large data collections
- error rate of typical HD
- file system not designed for robustness

creates the need for a device providing better data survivability than current NAS at a reasonable operating cost.
(my own testing shows 45 W/h for ATOM based 2 HD NAs and 115 W/H for Core2Duo 6HD NAS, translating to as many $ or Euro/year, ergo 45 $/y or 115$/y in electricity)

Tonido and Dockstar/Flexstar cloud approach work a lot like QNAP/Synologic backup-over-network systems (don't know about thecus offer).
but do not address data quality.

The only one Filesystem i am aware of that provide much better data survivability is ZFS.
EDIT: from either HD failure or from operator error (through snapshot)


The killer app would be:
- 2 NAS (one at home, one at friends/parents/network), synchronized over the Internet (data encryption if 2nd NAs at untrusted location or fear of network traffic intercept)
- each NAS running 2 HD in ZFS mirror with scheduled weekly scrubbing
- HD  providing storage over the network through samba/cifs/iscsi protocol or application (mediatomb, etc..)
- plug-and-forget hide-in-a-closet operation

Can any plug (including the annonced 2.0 Ghz part) run ZFS (either Freebsd 9.0 or a light Opensolaris distribution such as EON) ?
The only 2-Sata sheeva-based part I am aware of is the Seagate Goflex station which is limited to 128 Mb RAM.

As Marvell releases new HW every 6 months in its ARM lineup, what can we expect down the line ?


 

[heini]

The combination of:
- large data collections
- error rate of typical HD
- file system not designed for robustness

creates the need for a device providing better data survivability than current NAS at a reasonable operating cost.
(my own testing shows 45 W/h for ATOM based 2 HD NAs and 115 W/H for Core2Duo 6HD NAS, translating to as many $ or Euro/year, ergo 45 $/y or 115$/y in electricity)

Tonido and Dockstar/Flexstar cloud approach work a lot like QNAP/Synologic backup-over-network systems (don't know about thecus offer).
but do not address data quality.

The only one Filesystem i am aware of that provide much better data survivability is ZFS.
EDIT: from either HD failure or from operator error (through snapshot)

The other one is btrfs (ZFS may be a small step ahead, though ).

Can any plug (including the annonced 2.0 Ghz part) run ZFS (either Freebsd 9.0 or a light Opensolaris distribution such as EON) ?

Well, FreeBSD folks suggest to run ZFS preferably on 64-bit machines with enough RAM. So while it could be possible, it most likely isn't fun.

BTW: My plug happily runs Linux from btrfs formatted ESata.

Bye...

    Dirk