Which NAS Box to get??

[RaGe420]

I am trying to decide between the 2 and don't know which one to get. Any help would be appreciated.

Neatgear
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obi...ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance

or

Synology
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obi...ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance

 

[JackMDS]

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2278309&enterthread=y

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2276179&enterthread=y

 

[RaGe420]

I saw those but I am not looking to install WHS

With WHS to get for example 4TB of storage space that is protected I would have to install 8 1TB drives while on the other hand using a NAS box I can get 4TB out of 5 drives running RAID 5. Plus the speeds are far superior with the NAS boxes.

 

[ViRGE]

You can use RAID 5 with a WHS box. It's not an exclusive/XOR matter.

 

[oynaz]

I have a Synology NS-106j NAS box, a simpler single-disc solution than the one you are linking to, and I have been very satisfied with it. Good performance, very quiet, lots of nice features, and very good support.

So, without being familiar with the particular model in question, my vote goes to the Synology.

 

[lxskllr]

WHS or a Linux server. Your linked boxes cost too much.

 

[JackMDS]

I wonder what your rational for choosing the two devices that are mentioned in the OP is?

 

[RaGe420]

Because I need a little NAS server to server up a bunch of media that I can access and manage from any of my PCs.

 

[JackMDS]

Yeah, but this can be done with the same performence on a pre-owned PC with Windows 2000 Pro COA that can be found for less than $100.

The only thing that you would have to do is to stick $10 Giga network card into one of its PCI slots.

Of course if your Just a concern citizen that understand the importance of stimulating the economy, than buy the most expensive NAS that you can find.

 

[RaGe420]

But doing that is not portable or as reliable

 

[RaGe420]

Originally posted by: ViRGE
You can use RAID 5 with a WHS box. It's not an exclusive/XOR matter.

How do you do RAID 5 with WHS? Only way is to buy a RAID controller that I saw.

 

[narzy]

We have a readyNAS, the thing is reliable, little weak when it comes to AFP support but that only matters if you have Mac's on your network and you want to use it as a time machine source, then it is a pain in the ass. Rock solid SMB and FTP, haven't tried NFS. Also acts as an iTunes and other Media server...Might look in to building a small box w/ a lot of HD's and put your favorite OS on there...save yourself a lot of money.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: RaGe420

Originally posted by: ViRGE
You can use RAID 5 with a WHS box. It's not an exclusive/XOR matter.

How do you do RAID 5 with WHS? Only way is to buy a RAID controller that I saw.

That's correct. You'd need to buy a RAID 5 controller.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: RaGe420
Plus the speeds are far superior with the NAS boxes.

Hve you got hard data on the speed of the NAS boxes? Many lower-end NAS boxes are EXTREMELY slow across the network. I don't know how these perform.

This review of a similar model at Cnet.com gave 5 MB/sec data transfers. (5 GB in fifteen minutes)

One of the reviews at Newegg.com says 30 MB/s.

Either way, Netgear's claimed "300 MB/s" speed is pure fantasy.

In any event, speed across a network, either with these NAS boxes or with a server (WHS, Linux, etc.) is going to be limited by the speed of the network (assuming you are running a Gigabit network).

No matter what you decide, please consider keeping backups. I've seen many failed RAID 5 arrays and data recovery is VERY expensive. The last RAID 5 recovery I saw, with four SCSI drives, cost $15,000 to recover a single accounting database. That's one nice thing about RAID 1 or WHS' Drive Extender: every file is whole and not striped across three or more drives.

If uptime isn't a big consideration, I'd go with a non-redundant storage and keep ongoing backups. That's the cheapest way to store lots of data with the lowest possbility of data loss.

 

[JackMDS]

To my estimate over 80% of the RAID that are mentioned around here have No technical value.

In many cases what ever little value they had is gone with current Speed, Price, and capacity of 1TB Drives.

I have nothing about having a RAID in order to be Cool (I like to be Cool too), but to attribute to the RAIDs as used by many Enthusiasts functional value when it is Not really there is quite amusing.

As Rebate Monger said above Giga Network capacity is the Word.

Regular Giga provides at best 40MB/sec functional transfer.

 

[RaGe420]

A good RAID controller can run $400 plus


Also their are some reviews showing the speeds on the Synology

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews...isk-station-ds508.html

The hardware specification certainly made it presence felt in the performance stakes, with a copy of a 2.52GB video clip over gigabit ethernet delivering read and write speeds of 37.5MB/sec and 30.5MB/sec. FTP operations streaked ahead, with the same file copy returning read and write speeds of 54MB/sec and 31MB/sec.

 

[JackMDS]

The page states: 2.52GB video clip over gigabit ethernet delivering read and write speeds of 37.5MB/sec and 30.5MB/sec.

Yeah, it is on the slow side. that is part of the point that we tried to make with a computer and a good Giga card you can get better.

 

[MichaelD]

I used to have an old P3-550MHz/512MB RAM box that I stuffed with HDs; it was a great "NAS" and FTP box for many years. But that big case took up a lot of space. Also, the extra heat, noise and electricity to run it were negatives. But on the other hand, it didn't cost me anything extra in parts as I had all of them laying around already. It wasn't pretty...I wound up having about 4 different shares on the box in order to use all the drives...but it worked.

If you already have a spare system, especially if it has onboard RAID (any onboard RAID can do a RAID1 mirror) that would be the way to go. 1TB drives are incredibly cheap these days. Slap two 1TB drives in there, mirrored, plug the PC into a decent UPS with shutdown software and you're done.

That said, sometime back I decided I needed a true NAS. Something redundant for data protection and something small that I could put on a shelf, that wouldn't make a lot of noise or take up 3 square feet of space.

I bought this D-Link DNS-343 and put 3, 500GB Samsung HDs in it, RAID5. I had the HDs already, else I'd have bought 1TB drives.

The reviews on it were split 50-50% pretty much, but it seemed to be a good fit for me and I have two DLinks switches that have run forever, so I trusted the brand.

For my needs, so far it's been great. Very reliable and fairly quiet (not silent as it does have active cooling). AND I paid a lot more than it's selling for now...it always works out that way. :roll:

I have a wired Gigabit network at home but I don't get anywhere close to 100MB/s transfer speeds. I get roughly 20-30MBs to/from the NAS. Single large files (1GB+) seem to transfer a lot faster than a bunch of small files with equal total size. That may have something to do with the EXT3 file system the NAS uses, but I'm not sure.

The DNS343 isn't perfect and the web-based interface/config utility is not as polished as I think it should be, but the thing works. I have multiple shares with quotas set up on it and so far, so good.

Well, that's my $.02.

 

[RaGe420]

Well the Netgear dropped it retail by $500 today

http://www.netgear.com/Product...NASProPE/RNDP600E.aspx

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: RaGe420

Originally posted by: ViRGE
You can use RAID 5 with a WHS box. It's not an exclusive/XOR matter.

How do you do RAID 5 with WHS? Only way is to buy a RAID controller that I saw.

I don't know where the information that you can't do RAID with WHS come from -- WHS is essentially Server 2003 with some "stuff" thrown on top, and the underlying OS supports several different forms of RAID.

You can use on-board RAID if your motherboard supports it, and you can use Windows Server dynamic RAID if it doesn't.

The WHS development team was RAID hostile, so they said things like RAID is not recommended, and our solution rocks, so why would you ever want to do that anyways, but if you want to think and choose for yourself, you do have other options with their own pros and cons.

Windows Server RAID 5 sucks for write performance in every case that I've seen and tried, and so do many on-board RAID 5 implementations. There are some exceptions though, or you might just not t care about write performance and want more storage efficiency. They are available options. I've configured both Windows Server RAID and on-board RAID with WHS.

 

[JeffABCD]

Looking for a user friendly, secure, internet accessible, Media streaming to PS3, emule friendly NAS

Guys,

I'm new to the NAS world .. have my small home network (just a workgroup) of 4 XP Pro PCs ... mine, wife's and kids'. I currently use my PC as the file server, download client (emule) and media streamer for the PS3.

Since my PC has fallen over a few times (viruses), I am looking for a replacement solution and would prefer to go for the NAS option as opposed to a configuration similar to my existing setup. I understand that a big plus with NAS is they are purposefully built to multi task 24/7 - ie file serving, web serving, print serving, media streaming, etc..

My requirements are as follows:

1 Network storage - so my PC doesnt need to be on all the time
2 Multiple user access with a fast / good response time (all my PCs have a network card of 100mb or above). My router is delivers at 100mb as well.
3 Easily mappable as extra drive(s) in Windows explorer (via a login script). My kids are too young to work via FTP and my wife is not highly computer crazy to want to worry with FTP or other fancy front ends.
4 Security - something similarly to NTFS - for eg kids should be able to access a shared document directory, add or edit content but NOT delete
5 Able to stream media to my PS3 - video, music and photos
6 Accessible from the net via FTP for eg. with some sort of security in place
7 Able to be used as a standalone download client (for emule) so that my PC need not run 24/7
8 USB 2 connectivity for quick copy from pen drive
9 I'll probably move to Canada in a year - as such need something that can be down volted to 110v from UK's 240v

Could you please advise which would be the best choices able to handle all of the above satisfactorily. Whilst not constant, and not expecting more than say 10 users max on my network .. or via internet at a time, there are times when for eg all of us could be requesting files at the same time from the NAS, whilst it would be downloading stuff and streaming media (via RJ45 connection) to my PS3. So I do need something that is decent. Finally, my budget would be £300 or approx $450 US.

Many thanks for your help

Jeff

 

[Madwand1]

Originally posted by: JeffABCD
Could you please advise which would be the best choices able to handle all of the above satisfactorily.

Four suggestions:

1. Just get an external eSATA/USB drive enclosure + drive and attach it to one of the existing machines. This will be the easiest to maintain and transport. After you've moved, you could build or buy a better and/or cheaper machine.

2. Buy an inexpensive desktop without a monitor, and configure that for file sharing.

3. Buy an inexpensive desktop to replace one of your existing desktops, and use the old desktop for sharing.

4. Get a decent virus scanner and stop doing whatever risky things you're doing that are giving you viruses.

 

[JeffABCD]

Re: Four suggestions: by Madwand1

Hi Madwand1,

Thanks for your reply.

I see that you have steered well clear of any NAS solutions. I understand the cost effectiveness of your solutions in terms of investment, but since I will dump all our digital life on that .. I am not looking for it to be portable but rather accessible. Also, a USB enclosure leads me to the same thing .. whether it is being used or not, one PC will need to be on to allow ftp access from the net for eg ... let's say I need some stuff from work and want to ftp in.

So going back to my post above ... I feel a stand alone network device .. other than a PC is a good way forward as long as it can handle all of my crteria above .. I have seen a few NAS being advertised as able to do nearly all of the above (from WD, Buffalo, IOMEGA, Dell, etc ..) but dont know which is most suited to my requirements .. this is where you experts come in

Many thanks for your time in helping me out.

Jeff

PS: My requirements for anybody else looking at this is at the top of this page with the title 'Looking for a user friendly, secure, internet accessible, Media streaming to PS3, emule friendly NAS'

 

[Madwand1]

JeffABCD, SmallNetBuilder is a good source of reviews on NAS boxes of the sort you're apparently interested in. I personally recommend PCs/DIY instead because I think they're better, give better value, and can perform much better, but of course your choice is your own.

 

[JeffABCD]

Madwand1,

Many thanks for your time on this.

I read somewhere that the NAS solutions are preferred as they are actually designed to run 24/7 and handle simultaneous multi requests from several sources, and offer a better throughput than let's say my current PC which has an IDE disk (2gb of DDR running at seemingly 400mhz) with an AMD Athlon XP 3200 (runs at 2.19ghz not over clocked) on an ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe mobo, with 760 Gb storage (all IDE) at my disposal on my current machine. If I were to use this as a server / workstation server, could I do that on XP Pro or better to use as server alone on Win 2K server? I am only suggesting these 2 as I dont have other versions of windows to use as a server.

Meanwhile, I will check out SmallNetBuilder re NAS. If you know of something in particular that I could look at I would be very appreciative.

If any other gurus surfing this post are able to suggest anything that meets my requirements .. please do not hesitate. All help greatly appreciated.

Many thanks again.

Jeff

PS: My requirements for anybody else looking at this is at the top of this page with the title 'Looking for a user friendly, secure, internet accessible, Media streaming to PS3, emule friendly NAS'