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So I've been looking around for some NAS servers to move my files off their individual machines and into redundant storage.

Here's the kicker.. I'm looking for a dedicated NAS box that has at least 4 bays and supports RAID 5.. I'm looking to start with 4x250GB drives, and eventually upgrading to 1TB drives in the future..

It should have GB ethernet and at least one external USB port... the rest of the details I'm not too fussy about.

now, I also want to get this started for $1000 or less.

I've seen a coule of compelling units from Buffalo, but are there any other decent ones out there?

Not sure of any off the top of my head. I've been toying with getting one, just haven't started looking into them. I'll do some research tonight and see what I can come up with.

That Buffalo stuff used to scare me a bit, but they seem to make pretty decent quality items.

Tigerdirect has a whole section of NAS.

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/Sea...71781&CatId=207

Personally I have a Plextor 250 with a print server.

OAC_Sparky,Mar 29 2007, 10:02 PM Wrote:Tigerdirect has a whole section of NAS.

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/Sea...71781&CatId=207

Personally I have a Plextor 250 with a print server.
[right][snapback]232458[/snapback][/right] kinda wanted somthing with fiber ch so I c

ok soo I was just looking at NAS stuff today and WOW all I can say is that US robotics peice is perfect for my budget..

I was looking for something like this as well. However I'd like something with like 6 or 8 drives. But it seems cheaper to throw it all in a computer and run software RAID5. Then you also have added flexibility. So I can run a print server, website, download apps, MCE2k5 and record TV, all on my "NAS" freeing up the other machines in the apartment allowing me to turn them off at night.

Aka,Mar 30 2007, 02:21 AM Wrote:I was looking for something like this as well. However I'd like something with like 6 or 8 drives. But it seems cheaper to throw it all in a computer and run software RAID5. Then you also have added flexibility. So I can run a print server, website, download apps, MCE2k5 and record TV, all on my "NAS" freeing up the other machines in the apartment allowing me to turn them off at night.
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The thing I like about my NAS, (although it's a single drive) is that it's always on; no setting up WOL, no fans, no running upstairs to turn it on, etc. I can control security by creating access groups (right through the html interface, just like your router) for say, admin, parents, family to restric the kids from your document backups while allowing the kids access to the MP3 library.

The drive spins down to minimum power after 10 minutes of non-use then wakes instantly.

OAC_Sparky,Mar 30 2007, 06:35 AM Wrote:The thing I like about my NAS, (although it's a single drive) is that it's always on; no setting up WOL, no fans, no running upstairs to turn it on, etc. I can control security by creating access groups (right through the html interface, just like your router) for say, admin, parents, family to restric the kids from your document backups while allowing the kids access to the MP3 library.

The drive spins down to minimum power after 10 minutes of non-use then wakes instantly.
[right][snapback]232470[/snapback][/right]

exactly the reason I want one... and something that's not as big as a full tower would be perfect for me. I want redundacy because I still have 5 dead hdd I need to pull apart and replace the electronics to attempt data recovery... I'm tired of fixing dead hdd's every 4-5 years.

and a 4 bay is the perfect balance to avoid being stuck with mirroring only and getting maximum space using parity.

So yeah.. i've been checking out the stuff at tiger direct and canada computers... funny thing about tiger direct is that the price on the product listing page is $600, but go to the details page or add to cart, and it jumps up to the $900 price (same as canada computers).

I may end up going with the buffalo system... then see about setting up my webserver to boot from lan.

In that case, you'd need a PXE environment that also hands out DHCP addresses. Obviously you're running a Linux-based webserver if you're even contemplating it.

I'm running an old P3-550MHz as my DHCP/TFTP server that hands out my ISOLINUX image with my Folding clients on it. Everything else boots off the network. Well, except for our bigger AMD boxen for Windows gaming, etc.

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku...facture=INFRANT - check that out, it seems decent. Hot-swap SATA drives, RAID-5 capable. 4 500GB Seagate Barracudas is still 1.5TB of RAID-5ed storage.

NOS2Go4Me,Mar 30 2007, 10:30 AM Wrote:In that case, you'd need a PXE environment that also hands out DHCP addresses. Obviously you're running a Linux-based webserver if you're even contemplating it.

I'm running an old P3-550MHz as my DHCP/TFTP server that hands out my ISOLINUX image with my Folding clients on it. Everything else boots off the network. Well, except for our bigger AMD boxen for Windows gaming, etc.

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku...facture=INFRANT - check that out, it seems decent. Hot-swap SATA drives, RAID-5 capable. 4 500GB Seagate Barracudas is still 1.5TB of RAID-5ed storage.
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ooo..nice find!

supports dynamic volume resizing too... exactly what I'm looking for.

Too bad it's just bare bones at that price, but the extra couple hundred fully loaded is worth the functionality.

thanks for the link man.. this is on the short list for sure..

OAC_Sparky,Mar 30 2007, 06:35 AM Wrote:The thing I like about my NAS, (although it's a single drive) is that it's always on; no setting up WOL, no fans, no running upstairs to turn it on, etc. I can control security by creating access groups (right through the html interface, just like your router) for say, admin, parents, family to restric the kids from your document backups while allowing the kids access to the MP3 library.

The drive spins down to minimum power after 10 minutes of non-use then wakes instantly.
[right][snapback]232470[/snapback][/right]

I can do all that with a normal PC too... so what's the difference? Also I would like to have fans in something that has a few harddrives in it. They need to be cooled too. The only thing I can think of, is using a computer to do the same job would cost more in power, however it's considerably cheaper from the start, and you'd have to use a lot of power to make up the difference. I'm pretty sure you can build a PC to do the same job for less.

That link to NCIX, is that $800 for just the box? it doesn't advertise any harddrives! Buy some 500 gig IDE drives and get an old $100 computer and you'll have the same thing for like $600. Since it's over the network you'll never see much speed anyway. And if you must, buy an IDE controller and a GigE card...

anyway just my view on it... the NAS solutions seem nice until I factor in the cost of them... then they just seem stupid.

I'd still love to have one though.

I dont know anything about this stuff but I do know that NCIX is great to order from... Their pricing is usually cheaper than tigerdirect, the shipping is faster, and you only pay 1 sales tax which can be a bonus with a purchase that size.

Aka,Mar 30 2007, 04:33 PM Wrote:I can do all that with a normal PC too... so what's the difference? [right][snapback]232545[/snapback][/right]

This:


250GB Plextor NAS with print server. Price $210

As opposed to this:

Spare PC with Ethernet card and 250gb hard drive. Current price $300
*Mouse, keyboard and monitor not shown.

I guess after 5 years of making decisions and recommendations for IT-related stuff, I've learned some valuable lessons that really do cross over to my after-work world:

- Pay for what you expect to receive. Just like anything else, if you buy a Daihatsu, you get a Daihatsu. Low-cost alternatives do work and work well, but there are inherent risks to using them. We found that out on 2 older servers with software RAID. If the NAS appliance supports the RAID outside of the actual drives being present (hardware RAID), it's better than any OS-initiated RAID. Drives on a RAID card running any OS makes for a setup somewhere in the middle.

- Appliance? PC-as-appliance? Full-blown PC? Do you want to interact with it constantly or will the odd bit of web-based maintenance suffice (video rendering once source files arrive)? Can you make it a headless server with SSH/RDP access and just administer it like that? Do you have a need for desktop session-interacting applications at all? I have a SNAP Appliance NAS box at the office that does everything for our department except massive file storage. For everything else, a share on a Windows Server 2K3 box is fine with Symantec Backup Exec. Again, it's "enterprise" but it's an important point: how will you back up your data?

- Special considerations? Use a headless Windows / Linux box and backup from you to it to the remote DVD-RW? Data only with RAID redundancy? RAID-0 for massive scratch file storage over 1Gbps LAN?

I'm not trying to sound overblown or cryptic, but that Infrant box is a pretty ideal setup. So long as the box's BIOS recognizes the drives, you could potentially have well over 2TB of RAIDed storage on that box later this year. If it's hit lightly or even fairly lightly, that box is a lasting investment that grows with you. $800 now over 4 years is less than $1/day for what seems to be reliable storage for just about anyone. Hell, maybe I'll talk my boss into one to see how it does.

If Ive learned one thing in my years as a post production engineer it's cheap equipment=cheap work= cheap payoff... low budget studios do low budget films.. and pay low budget scales...


Get the good stuff once and build off it's efficiancy ... now knowing the diffrence between what you need and what you want helps too.

OAC_Sparky,Mar 30 2007, 09:48 PM Wrote:This:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y99/OAP_S...CF0026Small.jpg
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y99/OAP_S...CF0025Small.jpg
250GB Plextor NAS with print server. Price $210

As opposed to this:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y99/OAP_S...CF0024Small.jpg
Spare PC with Ethernet card and 250gb hard drive. Current price $300 
*Mouse, keyboard and monitor not shown.
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That's not a fair example given it's only a single harddrive. Look for a 4 or more disk box, then compare sizes. Yes the PC will be bigger, but not too much so.



I guess I'm just looking to reduce the number of PCs and appliances I have, instead of getting one to do a specific job, I want one to do as much as possible.

I understand that having hardware RAID is better, but to get 4 or more SATA drives on hardware RAID5 starts adding up REAL fast. So I was just mentioning alternatives that I thought could be a better idea, since they were cheaper and would put you just about in the same place as if you bought one of these devices.

I was recently researching RAID5 for 8 250 GB SATAII drives, so I could protect my data a bit more. But for such a card it was going to set me back $700 for a decent one. So I came to the conclusion that software RAID, while not supporting online capacity expansion was probably my best option. And given that all I needed to buy to do that was a $120 addon card* for my motherboard, it made more sense for me.

I just thought I'd voice an alternative solution. The NAS devices will almost certainly be a much much simpler solution to work with than my idea. But I believe you will be paying for that added simplicity.


*Yes, the motherboard that supports that is expensive, so perhaps my argument is somewhat flawed in that respect. Also the board has 4 SATA ports already, and that adds 4 more, the SAS part would cost more to use. Just thougth I'd clarify before someone pointed out that 8 drives on SAS would require more hardware or expensive breakout cables.

Unrelated Q for NOS2Go4Me, what folding project/client do you run? I recently stopped running ClimatePrediction.Net, the WUs are just too big now. So I'm considering other projects.

Aka,Mar 31 2007, 04:41 AM Wrote:That's not a fair example given it's only a single harddrive. [right][snapback]232591[/snapback][/right]

Sorry, at the risk of sounding argumentative (who, me? lol) when you asked what the difference was I had mentioned that it was a single drive (you even quoted me) which is why there were no fans, etc. The unit acts as one big heatsink.

Anyways, I personally have little use for a full-blown raid setup; all I wanted was a unit that I could use to backup documents on and share mp3s and pictures between the 3 pcs in the house.

I just meant what's the differences in features. Not really focusing on the single harddrive aspect of your example because the thread seemed more about multiple drives in an enclosure over a single.

Aka: I'm running S@H on my Opty dual-core and a F@H farm at home. Sara's running F@H on her Athlon64 3500+ as well.

If you read up on the new upload server for S@H that has the dual Xeons in it... I contributed the new Intel 7500 MB for it and some RAM. :) I believe they went with the name "Bruno" for it.

Sorry bout the threadjack. :)

Ah, cool. Ok I wasn't sure if you ran F@H or R@H. Also, nice of you to contribute hardware, I'm too greedy to do something like that. I'd use it for my farm instead.

Thanks

Anybody built there own using FreeNAS or something similar? I have an old Dell box I've been trying to figure out what to do with...

Ryan