Do I need 10Gb networking for a back NAS?

[Supercookie]

i am building a backup nas so every pc in my house can be backed up nightly. but i don’t know if i need to add a 10gb card and switch. it theoretically (in my mind) allow multiple systems to backup at the same time if each system is 1gb. am i right and do i need 10gb?

 

[Chris Moore]

You have the right idea regarding your infrastructure.
Are you willing to consider purchasing components from eBay?
I picked up a sweet deal on a switch with four 10Gb port and a quantity of 1Gbe port so I can do this also. it's really nice.

 

[Supercookie]

You have the right idea regarding your infrastructure.
Are you willing to consider purchasing components from eBay?
I picked up a sweet deal on a switch with four 10Gb port and a quantity of 1Gbe port so I can do this also. it's really nice.

of course. but is it needed for my application?

 

[garm]

What you need is of course entirely subjective. You can base it on an arbitrary set of metrics. For instance is MacOS doing low system prio deduplicated backup, so 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep is usually way more then what it would need to run over an entire system. If you do file system copies from Windows and push 1 TB on each backup run all you need is 300 Mbps per client to run it in 8 hours, if you only have three clients you don’t need more then 1GbE in total.

Having said all that, when I rebuild my home network the switch to switch network will be 10GbE and select clients will have 10GbE al the way to WAN.

 

[Supercookie]

What you need is of course entirely subjective. You can base it on an arbitrary set of metrics. For instance is MacOS doing low system prio deduplicated backup, so 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep is usually way more then what it would need to run over an entire system. If you do file system copies from Windows and push 1 TB on each backup run all you need is 300 Mbps per client to run it in 8 hours, if you only have three clients you don’t need more then 1GbE in total.

Having said all that, when I rebuild my home network the switch to switch network will be 10GbE and select clients will have 10GbE al the way to WAN.

so it wouldn’t hirt if i could afford it

 

[Chris Moore]

so it wouldn’t hirt if i could afford it

Exactly.
Which is why I asked if you were willing to entertain the idea of purchasing used gear from eBay. I bought the switch I have for $150 and the network cards were around $45 each. I put three systems on the 10Gb connectivity, my two NAS systems and one workstation, and I am very happy with the performance.
I put a card like this in each system:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Chelsio-10...8-30-2x-10G-SFP-Tranceivers-HIGH/113233543113
and purchased a switch like this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Aruba-Netw...100-1000-Mobility-Access-Switch-/132135155050
The switch did need a firmware upgrade and the default configuration needed to be changed to take the 10Gb ports out of the stacking group, but I posted instructions on this forum about how to do that, you can probably find with a search, which includes links to the downloads.
The I used fiber like this to connect from the switch to the network cards:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/15m-LC-LC-...Fiber-Optics-Optical-Cable-Aqua-/222404280695
You just pick the fiber that is the correct length for you.
I did run into a couple of transceivers that wouldn't work in the switch. It flatly rejected Intel and Cisco transceivers but it worked with Arista and the generic transceivers I got from https://www.fs.com/

 

[kdragon75]

If that amount of data takes longer than your allowed backup window AND the backup target is the bottleneck, yes you need 10gbe. A LAGG (load balancing must be supported on the switch) may work just as well. Think it through. Are any two PCs backing up at the same time? How big are the backups? i.e. Are you doing full backups every night or just incremental? How often will you do full backups? Is it acceptable to have a long backup window every so often?

One you answer all of those questions, the answer to the need for 10gbe will be clear.

 

[Chris Moore]

of course. but is it needed for my application?

What @kdragon75 and @garm said is completely true and the answer is that you probably don't NEED it, but the only person that can actually answer that question is you. It is not difficult to make the change though, if you want it.

 

[Constantin]

Do you need 10GB connections to back up several PCs every night? Unlikely but possible (i.e. they're all doing multi-terabyte video processing for example).

Regardless, I would consider getting a neat switch like the CSS326-24G-2S+RM from Mikrotik at $139 (24GBit ports, two SFP+ cages, fanless, uses 9W of power), a SFP+ direct attachment cable of the right length, and a Chelsio 10GB/s network interface PCIe card with SFP+ ports on EBay. Combine the three and your NAS can now handle all your clients more easily at wire-speed (i.e. 1GB/s to each client). This is most relevant while transferring large files. Small files never saturate the connection in my very limited experience.

The premium for going 10GB/s has dropped to a level where for ~$300 you can make the trunks of your network really fat and help shift the balance towards the server and/or attached PCs being the bottleneck vs. the network. Faster trunks also benefit day-to-day stuff.

If saving money is a concern, I'd invest first and foremost in a good (ideally mirrored) SLOG such as

• S3710 SSD series from Intel if using SATA III interface
• P700 series from Intel if PCIe ($$$)
• Optane NVMe on m2 if your m2 slot is faster than x2

Then worry about adding a NIC later. Do consider what you want to use the limited number of open PCIe slots for (my board has 1!). My board is so slow that a PCIe-based SLOG is unlikely to make sense (and besides, I would not be able to mirror it). Thus, I use a SATA-based SLOG and use the PCIe slot for the NIC.

 

[Zredwire]

I did not see what drives you plan to put in your backup NAS. Will they even be able to write at multi Gigabit speeds?

 

[Chris Moore]

I did not see what drives you plan to put in your backup NAS. Will they even be able to write at multi Gigabit speeds?

Good point. @Supercookie , if you don't have a disk arrangement that is fast enough to support the transfer, you won't approach 10Gb speed. Will you share with us the rest of the hardware plan for this new server?

 

[Supercookie]

Do you need 10GB connections to back up several PCs every night? Unlikely but possible (i.e. they're all doing multi-terabyte video processing for example).

Regardless, I would consider getting a neat switch like the CSS326-24G-2S+RM from Mikrotik at $139 (24GBit ports, two SFP+ cages, fanless, uses 9W of power), a SFP+ direct attachment cable of the right length, and a Chelsio 10GB/s network interface PCIe card with SFP+ ports on EBay. Combine the three and your NAS can now handle all your clients more easily at wire-speed (i.e. 1GB/s to each client). This is most relevant while transferring large files. Small files never saturate the connection in my very limited experience.

The premium for going 10GB/s has dropped to a level where for ~$300 you can make the trunks of your network really fat and help shift the balance towards the server and/or attached PCs being the bottleneck vs. the network. Faster trunks also benefit day-to-day stuff.

If saving money is a concern, I'd invest first and foremost in a good (ideally mirrored) SLOG such as

• S3710 SSD series from Intel if using SATA III interface
• P700 series from Intel if PCIe ($$$)
• Optane NVMe on m2 if your m2 slot is faster than x2

Then worry about adding a NIC later. Do consider what you want to use the limited number of open PCIe slots for (my board has 1!). My board is so slow that a PCIe-based SLOG is unlikely to make sense (and besides, I would not be able to mirror it). Thus, I use a SATA-based SLOG and use the PCIe slot for the NIC.

well if every pc does an incremental backup everynight will the band width required be over 1Gb/s? the first night i would be writing 8.5TB from 8 different pcs but after that each night would just be incremental only a couple GB max each night.

 

[Chris Moore]

the first night i would be writing 8.5TB from 8 different pcs

Eight Terabytes from each of eight systems? Is that all unique data or can it be de-duplicated because 64 TB is a lot and you don't want your NAS to be filled, so you would be looking at needing at least 100 TB of usable storage.

This is for a home system??

 

[Chris Moore]

Please, use this as a guide and share your planned build:
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/updated-forum-rules-12-5-18.45124/

 

[Constantin]

I'd wager it's 8.5TB altogether. :)

That said, 1GB/s networking when done right will fine. I would consider that Mikrotik switch , however, if you ever need a new switch. Options are always great to have.

 

[Supercookie]

Eight Terabytes from each of eight systems? Is that all unique data or can it be de-duplicated because 64 TB is a lot and you don't want your NAS to be filled, so you would be looking at needing at least 100 TB of usable storage.

This is for a home system??

8TB total spread across 8 systems

 

[Jessep]

If you use a proper backup tool that does daily block level incremental's using changed block tracking you wont need much bandwidth.

This is widely used and free:
https://www.veeam.com/windows-endpoint-server-backup-free.html

The only limitation I'm aware of is you can't backup to Veeam repositories or control backups from the central Veeam BR console.

Clients we use it for at work do backups across 1Gb links in 3-4 min.

 

[Supercookie]

If you use a proper backup tool that does daily block level incremental's using changed block tracking you won't need much bandwidth.

This is widely used and free:
https://www.veeam.com/windows-endpoint-server-backup-free.html

The only limitation I'm aware of is you can't backup to Veeam repositories or control backups from the central Veeam BR console.

Clients we use it for at work do backups across 1Gb links in 3-4 min.

well i was thinking of ising EaseUS Todo

 

[Constantin]

As long as the tool works, that's all that matters. Off-site backups is another thing I'd think about, whether it's via Backblaze, Carbonite, AWS, a server in your basement, etc. or using physical media (a DAS like the Mobius 5 from Oyen Digital).