Wow, so pleased I read your post, I was just about to buy a TVS-672XT - Why do you say TB3 doesnt work for you?. I do video & Photo editing and bought into the XT's TB3 for using as a DAS & as a NAS sat next to my Mac. I also use Plex and thought the TVS-672XT would give me a leg up on my existing Qnap TS-453 Pro for HW encoding. However now thinking of getting a Mac Mini and using it as a dedicated headless Plex server connected to my NAS. Any advice on how to set this up ?
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Using New Mac Mini To Replace NAS
- Thread starter A1MB1G
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Nobody needs a nas or a san, not even corporations. You think raid 5 (or 0,1,4,6,10) are foolproof? I have dealt with $1M Nas and San setups in large corporations and each of these can fail, nothing is foolproof. I had our EMC admin make a change to the binary file 20 years ago and our whole system was down. For example, if you use a single input into a NAS/SAN and it generates erroneous data, you get this bad data replicated over your complete raid. For what you listed as requirements above, I can accomplish this with a couple of drives and have it more foolproof than a Nas.
I have over 40 years in IT and if you want buzz words, look at Software Defined Storage instead of a NAS/San, I ran Ceph over many servers with redundancy that no NAS can dream of providing.
I am not a keen believer in having a NAS do much more than what it was intended to do. Transcoding was an added* feature rather than the feature. In my case, I have gone through creating PLEX/XBMC-Kodi computers (Mac and other) and for the most part, found that for mkv and m2ts and other files, the NVidia Shield TV (streamer) was an excellent choice. It will do excellent handling of various file formats whether attached locally, via a network (such as to a NAS) or from streaming sites (Amazon, Google, etc.). If your NAS now has sufficient room and enough speed, then it might be a better movie to simply get a good device for playback (that can handle multiple file formats). In my case, I use Kodi on NVidia Shield TV pro while others may use PLEX or another media player. I can hook it to a TV (HDMI) or use as I do presently, hook one up to my computer monitor. You can find various reviews on Youtube.
Yes, the M1 and even 2018 Mac Minis aren't appropriate, unless one wants an enclosure hanging off the mini.
However, the 2011-2012 have dual 2.5" drive bays and the 2014 has pcie + 2.5" drive bay so can offer RAID with no external enclosures. So for those that want a tiny little server that sucks up less than 20w at moderate load it may not be a bad choice if you only need up to 2TB of storage (2x 2TB for raid 1). The 2012 16GB ram quad-core Mac Minis can be had for under $200 these days.
I personally have jammed in a 15mm 5TB drive + a 1 TB ssd into my quad core 2012 and created a 6TB fusion drive that serves as a file store and media server and it does a time machine backup over the network.
That sounds good. I may do the same. How to clone the external disks automatically nightly?
Really??? How many redundant cpu's does a sinology have? What is high capacity? With any of the NAS devices you specify, you are limited. Redundancy, you saying there is no raid for a Mac? You are wrong in each category. The Mac mini is more suited for NAS type storage than most of the home based NAS units.
High capacity, you do know I can daisy chain multiple 18TB drives on thunderbolt 4. You also know thunderbolt4 is the fastest performance technology to an IO device. As for Redundancy, the M1 Mac provides more options than the NAS devices you mentioned above and even has more capabilities. Compare RAID options, Softraid provides more RAID levels and 1 big option that none of your devices above support: APFS. If I'm using a MAC, APFS is the format to use where your devices above don't support.
What do you mean the M1 Mac isn't appropriate? It's more appropriate than your other options. You run the M1 Mac mini as a headless unit with multiple thunderbolt4 drives/enclosures attached to it, setup RAID XX using Apple's or Softraid and you have a NAS, and you will support APFS, which the older Macs don't support.
A lot of bad information about NAS type file servers on this thread. If you have a newer M1/M2 Mac mini, you have many more options on setting up a NAS than you do if you buy an off the shelf NAS, and you get more support for Macs at the same time.
On the Mac, you can use apple's Raid, Softraid software, or run a native virtual machine running Linux to provide RAID 1-10 levels. If you want to setup a true NAS that resembles other NAS devices, then run the Mac as a headless unit.
Here are some benefits:
1) when using thunderbolt4 on M1/M2 Macs, each port has its own controller whereas on Intel machines, all thunderbolt ports share 1 controller. What this means is that the M1/M2 Mac provides more fault tolerance than most other NAS units. You want individual channels to separate disks so if 1 controller has a problem, it will only corrupt 1 side of the disks, not all of them.
2) none of the off the shelf NAS units support APFS, M1/M2 Mac do
3) Most of the NAS machines you can buy have a very small set of cpu's and memory so it's not capable to run other apps like Roon/plex/streaming software. Whereas a M1/M2 Mac has much more compute/memory capacity to run these streaming services software without impacting IO performance. If you are nervous about computer resources, setup multiple native Virtual Machines and limit resources to each.
4) If you don't want to use Apple's or Softraid's RAID software, then setup a native VM running your flavor of linux and use MDADM to create your own RAID.
I've used Unix/Linux software RAID for decades, and I have configured and used EMC/Netapp systems for decades with units costing over $1M in large enterprises. I have dozens of white papers on the web describing my work with storage systems performance configurations while working for the largest storage manufacturer in the world. My last 2 years, I was involved doing SDS (software defined storage) which replaces all NAS/SAN/DAS setups with more redundancy, cheaper, and better performance.
On the Mac, you can use apple's Raid, Softraid software, or run a native virtual machine running Linux to provide RAID 1-10 levels. If you want to setup a true NAS that resembles other NAS devices, then run the Mac as a headless unit.
Here are some benefits:
1) when using thunderbolt4 on M1/M2 Macs, each port has its own controller whereas on Intel machines, all thunderbolt ports share 1 controller. What this means is that the M1/M2 Mac provides more fault tolerance than most other NAS units. You want individual channels to separate disks so if 1 controller has a problem, it will only corrupt 1 side of the disks, not all of them.
2) none of the off the shelf NAS units support APFS, M1/M2 Mac do
3) Most of the NAS machines you can buy have a very small set of cpu's and memory so it's not capable to run other apps like Roon/plex/streaming software. Whereas a M1/M2 Mac has much more compute/memory capacity to run these streaming services software without impacting IO performance. If you are nervous about computer resources, setup multiple native Virtual Machines and limit resources to each.
4) If you don't want to use Apple's or Softraid's RAID software, then setup a native VM running your flavor of linux and use MDADM to create your own RAID.
I've used Unix/Linux software RAID for decades, and I have configured and used EMC/Netapp systems for decades with units costing over $1M in large enterprises. I have dozens of white papers on the web describing my work with storage systems performance configurations while working for the largest storage manufacturer in the world. My last 2 years, I was involved doing SDS (software defined storage) which replaces all NAS/SAN/DAS setups with more redundancy, cheaper, and better performance.
Thanks. Haven't used it for years. Didn't know it has this function. Will use it again.
I appreciate that you offer some reasons to consider an M series Mini as a reasonable alternative to commercial NAS units and/or homebrewed.
Just for conversation -
If one has RAID 01, 10, 1, 0, 5 or 6 (as an example) and a single controller goes bad, how do you do the rebuild? One would have to swap out the motherboard or* find a way to have a controller double up on duty to make up for the bad one. If a single controller model goes bad, it too would have the same remedy - a motherboard swap out. While technically the fault-tolerant you speak of is correct, a real-world scenario for a remedy would be about the same. The question is what is the level of risk of a single controller going bad in either scenario? Perhaps a multi-bay external enclosure engaging a single port has less risk given that it would be possible to switch to another port as ports are more likely to suffer issues than "controllers" or the physical "bus."
From days of yore, people have learned to use common platform formatting of external drives that may be shared between systems with different OS. The practice still exists today unless one works with all systems containing the same disk formats. All Apple scenario shows your point quite well. However many NAS use ext3 and ext4 (Linux) and can in fact read-write, and some formats that Macs can engage as well. It really is a non-issue for the most part. If absolute speed is not an issue, hang the drive that is APFS on a Mac and let it talk via network to your NAS.
NAS has come a long way. Both QNAP and Synology offer up good contender for media servers. The NAS offered have HDMI out port often enough, quad core CPU etc. A nice feature is the option to build very large SSD cache setups to work with the mechanical drive RAID or SSD RAID. BOTH* PLEX and Roon enjoy installs on these NAS models.
If people are wanting "easy" by using a Mac Mini, I am unsure if a Linux VM would be considered easy for most given it requires a little bit of knowledge to get the maximum from Linux + RAID.
With all the above said - I think both NAS and Mini as a fileserver/storage in a network scenario can be great. What wasn't stated is the fact that some people have had issues with Thunderbolt external devices dropping offline and we both know that can really be savage where RAID is concerned. Quick fixes for that take a small number of resources to "touch" the drives at intervals to keep them connected.
If someone wants a fun project, consider getting an external multi-bay enclosure that either connects via Thunderbolt or a faster USB such as 3.2 (3.1 gen 2 etc.). Set it up with the software RAID and you have your network storage.
Though you and I see things a bit differently, I fully agree that an M1 Mini can be a powerful option. I also find that some NAS units are amazing and offer little issues as they have matured over the years. My 2012 quad Mini has been retired and it was a very good dedicated media server for years. At that time I also ran a 5 bay NAS. The NAS contained both backup for the Mini (and other Macs) and served up the media files in common with the MAC to my home entertainment setup.
Today I still have Mac and still use NAS and find each have benefits and little negatives.
Hi there, thanks for the discussion. I used a couple of 2012 Mac minis for many years as a server streaming music and video and the other as a osx server while it was still available.
If you had a single channel like the old intel macs, you would have to use a multi drive housing and raid over those disks. The new m1/m2 macs, separate each TB port as it’s own channel, so what I would do is to build a raid 1 with 1 set of disks on 1 channel and their mirror disks on the other channel. If you have a channel issue, the set of disks on the working channel should be just fine. Since there is only 2 TB4 ports on a m1 mini, you would need to fix the server. If I was going to do this, I would get a m2 mini with 4 TB4 ports.
Not much difference if a nas server like a synology has a hardware issue inside their box. You would need to send that in to get repaired.
Back when EMC symmetrix had a configuration file that was difficult to modify, if you made a mistake, the whole San could come down, effecting many servers, which happened a couple of times back in the early 2000’s.
I wrote a few papers promoting getting rid of nas/San units and going all DAS. IMO, there isn’t much need for them these days. Back in the 80’s and 90’s when a few hundred MB disks cost a couple thousand $$$, it was expensive to have unused disks attached to a server not being used. Now, disks are so cheap, it doesn’t matter.
Is it via software raid? How reliable is software raid compared with hardware raid these days?
Well again it is about risk or for here, potential failure points in a system/hardware. I don't think that multi controller repair differs much from a single controller repair in terms of down time and swap of boards. I did mention using an external multi bay case as it has the advantage of single power supply, potentially better cooliing by larger fan and lots of other benefits when attached to a single "controller" on a Mac Mini. Incidentally, SoftRaid can mirror drives connect to different port or run as a stripe.
In a business scenario, a good array should be pretty much par for the course for SANS and generic fileservers. In my build a box day (PCs mostly) we loved having the ability to stuff 4 - 6 drives in and use SCSI raid cards to get some serious speed (back then) and set correctly one could get some good mileage off those drives if handled properly.
I would imagine with M1 Minis easy to find in refurbs would be a good actor and using an external enclosure would require just one port and have more than enough speed for serving up media. Late intel Minis should be fine too and if they go south, easy enough to replace and TB3 speed is fine, or USB 3.2. There are a few decent enclosures to be had and some consider OWC / MacSales to have okay choices. I think Amaz.. sells online enclosures and certainly can read the comments for additonal info, how well they have worked for those willing to comment.
I am just a modest home user now with not infrequent bursts of semi-pro activity. I wasn't aware of a serious case for large/corporate DAS servers. Fascinating. But, surely, for home use DAS appears to me to be the way to go.
For many years I have been streaming my own collection of audio and video content and I have never used a NAS. Always used direct attached and simple file sharing protocols. I started out using my Mac Pro cheesgrater beast in my upstairs office to feed content to my Mac mini downstairs directly attached to the HiFi/Video system. Worked great except for that power consumption issue. So then switched to an old PC that consumed much less energy but still a bit too much. Recently, with the availability of large, quiet single HDDs, I just put an 8TB server grade HDD in a fanless enclosure directly attached to my downstairs mini. It makes no noise, consumes little energy and is very reliable requiring no administration.
Now, just because I had it laying around, I have repurposed that old PC as an experimental NAS box using Unraid server, an open source NAS operating system that you boot from a memory stick. I have to say it works well, simple to set up and administer. But I ask myself why do I need it? And the answer is I do not. I could use it as an additional backup device putting those older, smaller HDDs to some use. I suppose it could be useful to those who want to run VMs and Docker containers on a server (assuming you have the hardware to do so). But, at present, I have no plans to do that. If I really want a more serious server, I would simply do as you suggest and use my new Mac mini M2 pro for that for which it would seem to be ideally suited: fast, powerful, expandable, supportable and extremely energy efficient.
So, I thank you for your very informative, brutally logical post. Mirrors my own thinking and experience.
[PS: Back when I used the old Mac Pro, I also used the divided mirroring method you mentioned. I had two 5 disk external enclosures connected via eSata and would use striped* mirrored pairs with the disks in the mirrored pairs each residing on a separate physical enclosure to guard against hardware failure (which did happen). Worked great with Apple's software raid (but don't miss those port multiplication issues) *If I recall, I pretty quickly switched to mirrored mirror pairs for safety rather than speed/capacity]
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I use this with a DAS instead of a nas because is cheaper
I guess because they got out of the hardware server business and it would compete with their own cloud service.
My guess would be that there just wasn't much market for it, and the most popular services that it offered are now part of the regular Macintosh operating system. See this:
About macOS Server 5.7.1 and later - Apple Support
As of April 21, 2022, Apple has discontinued macOS Server. Existing macOS Server customers can continue to download and use the app with macOS Monterey.
Thanks for that. Makes it even easier to use the mini as a server.My guess would be that there just wasn't much market for it, and the most popular services that it offered are now part of the regular Macintosh operating system. See this:
About macOS Server 5.7.1 and later - Apple Support
As of April 21, 2022, Apple has discontinued macOS Server. Existing macOS Server customers can continue to download and use the app with macOS Monterey.support.apple.com
Those who use the Mac Mini + external drive as a SMB server/NAS replacement to transfer and backup files from different OS (e.g. Mac, Windows, iOS and Linux, etc.), what is the recommended format to use to format the external drive connected to the Mini?