DonasaurusRex
Online Ho Champ
...isnt it network attached storage?
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It's the NAS (Network Attached Storage) Thread, yo.
- Thread starter Jill Sandwich
- Start date
What do you mean by upgrading? Talking about disk sizes?
It's all an in-place upgrade. As you move and replace the disks the system will take care of the volume expansions.
HDD In itself doesn't add that much more to heat as you might think. HDD's runs at about slightly higher than ambiance temperatures and at full load doesn't really increase. Cooling is a lot more efficient these days then what it was a couple of years ago. Sure, with more drives, more hdd trashing sounds would come through but all of these issues would be in a NAS solution as well.
Yeah, it would not make sense storing a HTPC in a closet which you could do with an NAS.
How much options do you get if you're going the NAS route? Wouldn't it basically just mean adding drives to a NAS case with a prebuilt chipset from [insert manufacturer here]?
You are given the option of mix and match several manufacturers when building a HTPC (just like building a regular pc).
Sure, a NAS with several drives wouldn't be small either. You could go as big as a full on ATX Case in horizontal mode, which would be as big as an A/V reciever, or it could be as small as a wii. The larger it gets, the more options of hardware comes available.
A NAS would not be able to handle anything better than a HTPC with similar price tag would be. Sure, a NAS might have some optimization going on, but i still would question if the price tag would be worth it? A S775 core 2 duo is dirt cheap and would handle all tasks perfectly fine even if there would be several clients.
Sure, if you want to be able to stream 1080p to your tv while three other computers are doing full backups to the other drives in the HTPC, it would make a lot more sense to have a NAS for the backuping and the HTPC for the streaming. But this is a power user scenario anyhow.
a HTPC with a full duplex 1gbit network card would perform the same as it would in a NAS.
A NAS is basically a small footprint, closed down PC system (meaning you could only upgrade its drives and not much else), with "optimizations" (i need to check this out) for handling specific tasks.
Yeah exactly, i will continue monitoring the thread for a while and answer anything, but we're basically just arguing our own personal preferences at this point
File operations?
For example, having the NAS mounted as a volume and deleting a file. Some folks were saying that took ~30 seconds.
Bboy AJ
My dog was murdered by a 3.5mm audio port and I will not rest until the standard is dead
Not in my experience.
kurtrussell
Banned
I've spent the last 18 months building my dream movie server / audio streamer / household backup system.
I have a solaris box in the roof that runs ZFS over 6 x 2 tb hard drives. This gives me around 8 TB of space, but means that I can have two drives fail and still not lose a single byte of data... ZFS is to all intents and purposes bulletproof and the only way to go if you're serious about this NAS stuff.
I drilled through the floor of the roof and hard wired the server to my switch. Now, I can pretty much access all of my movies and music in any room - Solaris supports cifs/samba natively, so it's pretty compatible.... I run a Boxee Box in my living room and it streams bluray ISOs with no issues at all.
If anyone is serious about keeping their data, it's certainly worth considering ZFS / RAID-Z2. It's a far superior file system option to vanilla RAID configurations, and has a bunch of features to ensure your data integrity. It'll even perform "scrubs" periodically, where it goes through all of your data bit by bit to check integrity and guard against bit rot, silently correcting errors as it goes.
For anyone interested in finding out more, this is a great article to start with.. it guides you through the whole process with screenshots (it's surprisingly easy though!) - http://dsc.sun.com/openstorage/articles/opensolaris_nas.html
I have a solaris box in the roof that runs ZFS over 6 x 2 tb hard drives. This gives me around 8 TB of space, but means that I can have two drives fail and still not lose a single byte of data... ZFS is to all intents and purposes bulletproof and the only way to go if you're serious about this NAS stuff.
I drilled through the floor of the roof and hard wired the server to my switch. Now, I can pretty much access all of my movies and music in any room - Solaris supports cifs/samba natively, so it's pretty compatible.... I run a Boxee Box in my living room and it streams bluray ISOs with no issues at all.
If anyone is serious about keeping their data, it's certainly worth considering ZFS / RAID-Z2. It's a far superior file system option to vanilla RAID configurations, and has a bunch of features to ensure your data integrity. It'll even perform "scrubs" periodically, where it goes through all of your data bit by bit to check integrity and guard against bit rot, silently correcting errors as it goes.
For anyone interested in finding out more, this is a great article to start with.. it guides you through the whole process with screenshots (it's surprisingly easy though!) - http://dsc.sun.com/openstorage/articles/opensolaris_nas.html
Absolutely agreed. My fileserver is my previous desktop (Phenom II X3 720) running FreeBSD 8 and ZFS/RAID-Z with 6 x 2TB drives, and I would not consider using an off-the-shelf NAS instead for even a second.
I do intend on replacing the hardware with something more efficient (a low-TDP Ivy Bridge Pentium, likely), and I'll definitely need a new case with more expandability for it for the next time I add 3 drives (it's currently housed in my nearly decade-old CoolerMaster WaveMaster), but I'd like to do so at the same time as I do a full OS migration. Which bring me to the only downside to a ZFS setup: Solaris (plus variants like OpenIndiana) and FreeBSD are fine OSes in their own right, but they just aren't easy or painless enough to setup and configure for the vast majority of people, even the technically inclined ones. FreeNAS does serve as a decent alternative, but my tests with it left me quite wanting in terms of features and control. Because of that, I'm still holding out hope that Linux will get a mature and reliable ZFS implementation soon - Linux (or rather it might be more accurate to say Ubuntu specifically) has reached the point where it's almost as easy to install as Windows. I mean, I consider myself very technically savvy, but even I would honestly much prefer to run it off Ubuntu Server than FreeBSD or Solaris.
tfur
Member
Seagate Constellation
Too much money for those at the moment. I only use the NAS as storage and backup.
tfur
Member
Yeah. More expensive, but super reliable...
Yeah, I figure I will be ok though and I really don't have the money to spend around $500 on two drives. Appreciate the help though.
So my original question still stands, which of the two should I grab?
tfur
Member
I like Seagate.
i know next to nothing about this stuff but i happened across this box that seems like it is a solution for the non super nas tech inclined. thoughts?
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10597
http://www.lacie.com/us/products/product.htm?id=10597
Have a WHSv1 setup. Today is the end of life date.
Looking at alternatives.
What are my options?
1. Upgrade to a Windows Home Server 2011 which eols in 2016.
2. Upgrade to a Windows Server 2012 Essentials setup. Problem is one license is super expensive.
3. ???
Suggestions? I'm looking for a machine that can centralize backup clients and make backups of shared data on a network.
Looking at alternatives.
What are my options?
1. Upgrade to a Windows Home Server 2011 which eols in 2016.
2. Upgrade to a Windows Server 2012 Essentials setup. Problem is one license is super expensive.
3. ???
Suggestions? I'm looking for a machine that can centralize backup clients and make backups of shared data on a network.
Valkyr Junkie
Member
I'm in a similar boat. Considering going with a Synology setup in the near future, but I like having a full-blown Windows box to RDP into when away from home.
Which model did you end up getting?
I'm thinking of retiring my old readynas, and moving to a more active NAS for work.
Bboy AJ
My dog was murdered by a 3.5mm audio port and I will not rest until the standard is dead
Ds411j. It's a bit slow, which I thought wouldn't matter. But it matters when moving files, unzipping or compressing. It's fine, though. Pretty happy with it.
You can also use windows 8 as a home server. I think this is the route I'm going to take when my WHS1 box dies
I thought about this one for a while.
The details for this are a bit unclear for me though.
Does that mean I will have to create a local user or Windows account user for this machine?
I'm not entirely sure. Unless you have all win 8 machines you would to keep your files centrally located on the windows 8 box to use storage spaces/file history. If you're not using windows 8 on the clients you could just run nightly backups.
Currently rocking a ghetto nas on a raspberry pi. It should be able to handle sick beard fine.
HP Microserver, slap some drives in and install unraid or your choice of OS.
How would you backup though? There is no active directory since it's not a server.
Seems like you would have to use a tool like SyncToy that runs on a schedule to the storage pool.
I've been looking at this board as my new server setup. I won't do any transcoding, so CPU power is not a big deal. The focus is a system that is always on 24/7 that uses a lot less electricity than a light bulb.
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_CPU_on_Board/C60M1I/
6 SATA ports. Low idle and power use states (15 watt max). Passive cooling.
Maybe I should wait for AMD Kabini or Temash and build this later.
My current server setup uses 100 Watts at all times.
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/AMD_CPU_on_Board/C60M1I/
6 SATA ports. Low idle and power use states (15 watt max). Passive cooling.
Maybe I should wait for AMD Kabini or Temash and build this later.
My current server setup uses 100 Watts at all times.
There's a trial of Windows Server 2012 Essentials.
Works for 180 days and supposedly is upgradeable and can be rearmed.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/windows-server-essentials/default.aspx
Now to build the server.
Picked out this case. Will be using mostly 2.5" drives with a few 3.5" drives. The case is actually just as big as my 2007 desktop microATX build.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119261
Works for 180 days and supposedly is upgradeable and can be rearmed.
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/windows-server-essentials/default.aspx
Now to build the server.
Picked out this case. Will be using mostly 2.5" drives with a few 3.5" drives. The case is actually just as big as my 2007 desktop microATX build.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119261
Bboy AJ
My dog was murdered by a 3.5mm audio port and I will not rest until the standard is dead
Bboy AJ
My dog was murdered by a 3.5mm audio port and I will not rest until the standard is dead
I think the model I own is the older version. All I know is that Synology is very well respected and the software support is great. Installing stuff on the NAS itself and getting apps for your phone is awesome.
I have been thinking about a NAS for a fairly long time now. Mainly because I'm very annoyed by the noise my HDDs produce. So putting them in the cellar, where I almost never am and being able to access the contents sounds like a reasonable idea.
What I'd like to do:
-) Cost less than 300 (I'm not averse to assembling it myself, but what OS to use?)
-) Allow certain people to only access certain folders/drives.
-) Accessing it by Windows XP, Vista, 7, Xbox 360, PS3, Android, Sony Smart TV and in the future an A/V Receiver.
-) Have it spin down the drives when not in use, and go in complete standyby when nothing is connected to the NAS.
-) Use the 6 SATA HDDs of varying sizes I have right now
-) BitTorrent Client
-) Backing up certain folders/files to an external USB/eSATA HDD.
Thank you for your input.
What I'd like to do:
-) Cost less than 300 (I'm not averse to assembling it myself, but what OS to use?)
-) Allow certain people to only access certain folders/drives.
-) Accessing it by Windows XP, Vista, 7, Xbox 360, PS3, Android, Sony Smart TV and in the future an A/V Receiver.
-) Have it spin down the drives when not in use, and go in complete standyby when nothing is connected to the NAS.
-) Use the 6 SATA HDDs of varying sizes I have right now
-) BitTorrent Client
-) Backing up certain folders/files to an external USB/eSATA HDD.
Thank you for your input.
Marty Chinn
Member
Do they have one with an eSATA port on it?
PjotrStroganov
Member
Don't NAS manufacturers provide their own recommendations?
WD Reds are designed for NAS environments, and by most indications are quite good in that role. They're fairly new though, and so doesn't have quite the same amount of data to determine reliability, but the first rule of any HDD used to store important data is and always will be that you should always operate with the assumption that they can die at any given time regardless of what brand or model, and set up proper redundancy and backups based off that assumption.
What are recommendations for a 4-bay NAS, ideally something that is easy to admin and can run a sabnzbd client
I have an unraid 5-bay microserver and one drive is on the way out, but its a pain to administer because its all command line stuff and I often get issues with permissions. Can't be arsed with it all any more, I'll pay more to have something that needs less effort
I have an unraid 5-bay microserver and one drive is on the way out, but its a pain to administer because its all command line stuff and I often get issues with permissions. Can't be arsed with it all any more, I'll pay more to have something that needs less effort
D
Deleted member 1235
Unconfirmed Member
What are recommendations for a 4-bay NAS, ideally something that is easy to admin and can run a sabnzbd client
I have an unraid 5-bay microserver and one drive is on the way out, but its a pain to administer because its all command line stuff and I often get issues with permissions. Can't be arsed with it all any more, I'll pay more to have something that needs less effort
what is sabnzbd?
I have this bad boy
http://go.iomega.com/en/products/ne...4-px6/px4-300d/?partner=4735#overviewItem_tab
and it's hilarious because I had a 250 euro model that had 2 drives and kept crapping out. they sent me this thing and it's worth almost 3x as much. it's AMAZE. it's powered by EMC tech as well apparently and those guys know what they are up to.
An automatic newsgroup binary downloader.
And I'd be shocked if there were (m)any strictly NAS devices (as opposed to more generalized server appliances) that supported it.
Enter The 36 Chambers
Member
Hahahahahahahahaha
I'm thinking about getting a NAS and a HTPC soon. Or maybe only the HTPC, but I'd prefer a modular setup of independent components.
I have no idea about which NAS to buy, though. I need at least 2TB, preferably 3. I want to use it for Time Machine backups and streaming media to my Mac. (As I've said, I'll get a HTPC anyway so I can stream to my iOS devices and watch stuff on the TV as well)
Also, I'd like to have secure remote access (reading/writing).
What about the Synology DiskStation 112+? Seems to be decent?
I'm just confused about this:
Why only ext4? Can't I reformat the disk?
I have no idea about which NAS to buy, though. I need at least 2TB, preferably 3. I want to use it for Time Machine backups and streaming media to my Mac. (As I've said, I'll get a HTPC anyway so I can stream to my iOS devices and watch stuff on the TV as well)
Also, I'd like to have secure remote access (reading/writing).
What about the Synology DiskStation 112+? Seems to be decent?
I'm just confused about this:
Why only ext4? Can't I reformat the disk?