Question if you have a NAS

[jana519]

How much storage do you have in the NAS? What do you use it for?

I've always wanted to know how people use over 2TB. I can barely even use my 160GB, so I am genuinely curious. Thank you.

 

[tsupersonic]

I have a Synology DS213 (2 bays, 4 TB of storage) where all my media is stored. Media includes music, pictures/videos, movies, eBooks, software (ISO's), and finally backups. Backups include images of older drives, Time Machine backups, and general document backups.

The media can be streamed to my Xbox 360, or through Chromecast.

Out of the 4 TB of storage, I'm using about 1.3 TB. I got 4 TB, because I wanted to future proof myself for a couple years. Just the pictures/videos I have taken equate to almost 200 GB alone. I have a lot of unedited 1080P videos from my GoPro, and whatnot. It adds up fast, especially if you get into any sort of content creation!

 

[dave_the_nerd]

6 HDDs. 9TB total usable space.

3TB iSCSI LUN, single drive, dedicated for my desktop machine. I use it mostly to dump DVD rips and torrent downloads. It's basically working like an external HD, but networked. It's about half full, but if the data disappeared I wouldn't care.

The other 5 drives are RAIDed into a 2TB share for all the computers in the house to back up to, which is half full, and a 4TB shared folder for general file-storage purposes (movie and music storage for PLEX server, scan-to destination for my scanner, etc.) which has about 1.5TB of data on it.

The 4TB volume is backed up to Crashplan too.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I've watched my data-storage needs grow.

I remember my cousin -- 1,000 miles north of here -- had his QuickBooks and other business files accumulated between 2001 and 2003: I counted less than 10GB of business data.

In my case, I keep a document archive of PDF and related files, which continues to grow. Every appliance or computer part I acquire get's its documentation either downloaded or scanned to PDF. Those files total just over 90GB, which means 180GB because I have file duplication switched on for those folders in my drive-pool to provide redundancy.

The family in the house shares a vast audio collection. I think one could add another 200GB to cover that, and the files are not duplicated.

I'd begun to take advantage of the "media archive" capability of WHS-2011 and regularly move DVR captures from my flagship workstation which provides HTPC function through my AVR and HDTV. These files total about 600 GB, although they are constantly being trimmed when they've served their function and I don't want to view them a 3rd or 4th time.

Then there are the WHS backups of all the Win-7-64-bit OS/boot/system disks of the household workstations. There are currently four such PCs. The backup configuration must be given some initial attention to assure that any PC which loses its system disk can be successfully restored. The client-backups must include the "system reserved" volume as well as the "C:" drive for each computer. Incremental backups occur every day between 12AM and 6AM. Those files are now greater than 500GB and are duplicated -- 1TB of effective storage usage.

My server has four 2TB drives in a drive pool for ~ 8TB storage. I'm using about 20% of that capacity for the file categories I mention here and any folder duplication.

I previously only had about 3TB of server storage, didn't duplicate my client backups. I simply decided to expand the server's capacity with ample room for the future.

 

[blastingcap]

How much storage do you have in the NAS? What do you use it for?

I've always wanted to know how people use over 2TB. I can barely even use my 160GB, so I am genuinely curious. Thank you.

I have 6 HDDs at 3TB per drive. That's 18TB of mirrored disks, so 9TB of storage, or more like 8TB after formatting. Photos, videos, important documents like tax records, etc. You never want to be anywhere near 100% for performance reasons. Stay at 50% or lower capacity for good performance and fewer issues with fragmentation. Ideally sub-30%.

 

[aigomorla]

Akihime - FreeNAS with 6 x 4TB on RAID-Z, Movies + Pictures + Anything media related.
Kurohime - Windows Server 2008R2 - Dedicated Controller (ARC-1680ix) - 6 x 3TB , split into 2 x 3 Raid-5, PC is map'd to all my other PC's as a dedicated map'd network drive.
Senhime - Windows Server 2008R2 - DNS/DHCP - has 2 x 4TB drives mirrored. Used for family members to store important files, not map'd.
Shirohime - Windows Server 2008R2 - Dedicated Controller (LSI 9261i) - 8 x 4TB - R5 - used to backup files on all my -hime.

 

[Anteaus]

Digital media takes a ton of space, especially for those of us that are future proofing our entire audio/video libraries. Going from lossy to lossless for audio means a 5-6 fold increase in data requirements per album. HD video, especially noisy video, can take up lots of space once encoded.

Myself, I maintain a simple file server with 10TB available for files and another 10TB in external drives for backup. The raw files from my DSLR take up almost 1TB by themselves. My Steam game backups are a few hundred GB. It all adds up.

 

[jana519]

Cool, thanks for the answers guys. If I was more with the times and had a digital recording device like a GoPro, I'd probably look into a NAS as well. Thanks!

 

[JimKiler]

Mainly photos. i have a DSLR camera that shoots in RAW mode so those files are ~10-20MB each and i have photos for over 10 years. I do move the RAW files to disc at some point but i still have JPG's of every photo too. I really need to delete the 5 files for every one worth keeping.

But i keep finding pictures months and years later that i think are awesome yet at the time they were taken i could care less about them.

 

[tential]

14TB of Movies/TV shows.

Will hit 30TB by the end of the year though.

After this year though I'll only purchase 2 of the largest drives available each year.

 

[Cerb]

Around 2TB. I can't recall exactly, as it got put together with mostly spare parts and just runs. But 160GB? That can't even fit the most important thing the server is for: music. At 350-400MB per album, the GBs increment quickly, though growth is somewhat slow.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Around 2TB. I can't recall exactly, as it got put together with mostly spare parts and just runs. But 160GB? That can't even fit the most important thing the server is for: music. At 350-400MB per album, the GBs increment quickly, though growth is somewhat slow.

I think High Definition Audio would certainly have that size or increment. I have a lot of analog-to-digital conversions accumulated over the years, and my brother brought his own library to the server.

A lot of that stuff is simple two-channel stereo. Even so, it seemed that most of my conversions would leave me with a set of album files that would fit on a 650MB CD. In other cases, I was simply able to dump CD content into folders on hard-disk.

I guess the decision point on expansion would occur when you exceed 50% of capacity, and the truth is -- you can discipline server or NAS usage and the persistence of files. I think I had 4TB until I shelled out ~$100/disk and bought 4x2TB. Now I have to make backups in 1TB increments, but I don't back up the video captures. I can burn unencrypted content to DVD. Encrypted channels eventually get deleted and replaced.

Other than the 4 Seagate NAS 2TB drives this year, I hadn't really purchased any new HDDs since maybe 2012. I have enough to build a 3 or 4TB NAS for some scheduled routine purpose, and I'll still be able to take simple file-copy backups in 500GB increments.

My workstations have plenty of unused capacity and only the totally freak catastrophe of coincidences would mean a partial data loss of anything. There will always be backups of priority "serious" stuff on 500GB hot-swap or external drive eSATA -- to grab if I ever have to evacuate my house for fire or earthquake.

 

[Ayah]

One NAS:
8*4TB raidz2
10*2TB raidz2
6*3TB raidz2

I have about 35TiB of data total.

 

[Cerb]

I think High Definition Audio would certainly have that size or increment.

44.1kHz/16b stereo takes an average of just under 370MB/disc, for me.

 

[chusteczka]

I keep an image of every computer system I build. This makes restoration very easy. My fileserver is shutdown most of the time.

 

[Carson Dyle]

I have 32TB on my home file server, all JBOD.

- One 2TB drive is dedicated to my music library in FLAC, some 4000 or so albums.

- One 2TB drive is dedicated to files like software installation packages and hardware drivers, plus an Mp3 copy (for portable players) of the FLAC library.

- One 2TB drive is dedicated to backups of PCs on the network.

- The remaining 26TB of storage is all video. Movies, TV shows, pr0n.

The most important, most frequently used files are kept in a Dropbox folder that is duplicated on the server plus three additional computers, and in the cloud. The most important files, including the music library and Dropbox folder are backed up to an external 4TB drive once or twice each month. In addition, the FLAC music library is mirrored on another 2TB drive on a spare PC on the network, so that it has two backups.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

I keep an image of every computer system I build. This makes restoration very easy. My fileserver is shutdown most of the time.

I guess the issue might be -- for any clone or image -- how often is it done? Backup-imaging software provides for incremental backup after the initial full backup.

I could easily make my server sleep except for some period of time when those backups are made. but a lot of the files I create and use get stored directly to the server in drive-pool duplication. I want access at any time, and that could be most of the time -- without having to raise the server from sleep or power it on. More important, waking the server remotely is easy for me, but would stymie others in the house.

I HAD Lights-Out installed on my server until I undertook maintenance and upgrade over the last few months, but haven't reinstalled it. It would keep the server "on" when any other client system was awake and sleep it when those machines are all "off," asleep or hibernated.

 

[easp]

I have two NAS boxes, each with ~4TB. Most of the space on the first one are (unused) backups of my DVDs and CD collection. Together these take a bit more than 2TB. Next biggest use is 700GB or so of Time Machine backups for the household macs. After that, probably copies of our digital photos and misc video files, then a copy of my iTunes library.

The second server basically has snapshots of the non-backup files on the first, for backup purposes (because RAID is not backup)

 

[Doomer]

This question comes up often. There are some who barely use any storage at all and are baffled by those who use terabytes worth. All I can say is get a clue. If you don't understand the concept of data storage, maybe you don't need a HD at all. Hell, maybe you don't need a computer at all.

Sorry but the OP's question just seems incredibly lame to me.

 

[hal2kilo]

How much storage do you have in the NAS? What do you use it for?

I've always wanted to know how people use over 2TB. I can barely even use my 160GB, so I am genuinely curious. Thank you.

For data hoarders, this is a touchy subject. I think they have meetings about the cloud deficit anxiety.

 

[Carson Dyle]

For data hoarders, this is a touchy subject. I think they have meetings about the cloud deficit anxiety.

I'd never heard the term "data hoarder", but it fits. Instead of throwing even more storage, and larger and larger drives, into my file server, I made a goal recently of deleting 20GB a day. As I said above, most of my stuff is replaceable, so doesn't matter much in either case.

I mean, am I _really_ going to want to rewatch 'Meet the Robinsons' in the foreseeable future? Do I _really_ need every single episode of 'Greatest American Hero'. Damnit. I just can't bring myself to delete 'Greatest American Hero'. I need help.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I'd never hear the term "data hoarder", but it fits. Instead of throwing even more storage, and larger and larger drives, into my file server, I made a goal recently of deleting 20GB a day. As I said above, most of my stuff is replaceable, so doesn't matter much in either case.

I mean, am I _really_ going to want to rewatch 'Meet the Robinsons' in the foreseeable future? Do I _really_ need every single episode of 'Greatest American Hero'. Damnit. I just can't bring myself to delete 'Greatest American Hero'. I need help.

I've seen too many download services come and go to trust that I'll be able to get my Steam library of iTunes downloads in ten years.

I have 20 year old CDs.

Since we pay for bits and bytes now, it only makes sense to safeguard those purchases just like you safeguard your physical stuff. Does that make me a hoarder or just a paranoid cynic?

 

[Carson Dyle]

Some data is much more valuable than other data, and that will vary quite a bit from user to user. If you can't replace something, you'd be fo4olish not to back it up and do everything in your power (within reason) to preserve it.

There are number of things that go into making some data valuable. Off the top of my head:

1. It can't be replaced. Photos, home videos, email correspondence.

2. Something you paid for and may not be able to download again.

3. Something that has a lot of work invested in creating it.

The last one is the reason I value my music collection so much. Although it's replaceable - I can just re-rip the CDs - I have many hundreds of man-hours invested in properly tagging the files and downloading (and often editing) album artwork. It would take me several years to recreate the library from scratch.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Some data is much more valuable than other data, and that will vary quite a bit from user to user. If you can't replace something, you'd be foolish not to back it up and do everything in your power (within reason) not to preserve it.

There are number of things that go into making some data valuable. Off the top of my head:

1. It can't be replaced. Photos, home videos, email correspondence.

2. Something you paid for it and may not be able to download again.

3. Something that has a lot of work invested in creating it.

The last one is the reason I value my music collection so much. Although it's replaceable - I can just re-rip the CDs - I have many hundreds of man-hours invested in properly tagging the files and downloading (and often editing) album artwork. It would take me several years to recreate the library from scratch.

Amen.

 

[jhu]

2 x 2TB ZFS RAID1. I've had this thing for about three years and it's not even half full yet! It's mostly full of anime.