Network-Attached Storage (NAS)

[venture37]

Re: Network-Attached Storage (NAS)

Hmmm that looks interesting, it seems to come with bittorrent. But software RAID? Is that slower than hardware RAID? Any cons?

Yes it is slower but depends on how many users you're going to hang off the NAS, if its just for yourself & your pr0n stash you're not really gonna see that much difference if the hardware that you're using is from the last few years.
If you have your heart set on going down the hardware RAID route don't forget to get a controller with a battery backup otherwise its a wasted effort but that will add a serious amount to the cost.

[feather]

Re: Network-Attached Storage (NAS)

Can't remember why I picked RAID5 when I was reading up on this stuff, isn't RAID5 faster??

The Thecus looks like it might serve my needs but it only holds one disk so I can't run any RAID on it ... ?

[venture37]

Re: Network-Attached Storage (NAS)

RAID 5 / 6 start showing their advantages in speed when the number of disks go past 6, you'd be better off using RAID 1 (2 disk mirror) or if you're hardware controller supports it RAID 10 (4 disks, mirror,stripe), don't forget its only writes which suffer on RAID 1 as the data is duplicated, where as reads are sped up as you read across the 2 disks.

[venture37]

Re: Network-Attached Storage (NAS)

as for the Thecus you have a esata port for your aditional disk. saying that be prepared for a steep learning curve to hack the box & get everything setup as you like.

[feather]

Re: Network-Attached Storage (NAS)

Hmm cool thanks for the info regarding RAID1. I was browsing around on forums and came across the D-Link DNS 323 which seems to have everything I want, for AUD268 ... that sounds like the simpler route

[venture37]

Re: Network-Attached Storage (NAS)

get hacking
http://wiki.dns323.info/

[feather]

Re: Network-Attached Storage (NAS)

Yeah the forum where I came upon the 323 linked to the site, and a forum with people using it. Seems like there are some stuf you can install on your own, including the Transmission Bittorrent client which I presume would be better than the bogstandard default, and I happen to use Transmission on my Mac as well so that would be good.

[venture37]

Re: Network-Attached Storage (NAS)

looks like all the essentials are there via the fun_plug script without having to resort to using a jtag & reflashing.

http://forum.dsmg600.info/index.php

[feather]

Re: Network-Attached Storage (NAS)

Yeah I'm assuming this fun_plug thing is a simple package thing like most *nix distros to update or install stuff ...

Good reviews and a good community around it, most likely give it a shot once I get some money together

[|Thrax|]

Re: Network-Attached Storage (NAS)

now im content with maybe buying a drobo.

[res0nat0r]

Re: Network-Attached Storage (NAS)

raid5 isnt overkill, its all based on how much space vs cost you want to spend your money on.

two 500g HD's in raid 1 = 500g in space.
or (3 or 4) 500 G HD's in raid 5 = 1TB or 1.5TB of space

its all about how safe you want your data and how much money you want to spend on it. if you arent going to be running a warez site with 50 people uploading and downloading movies I dont think software vs hardware raid is going to be noticeable.

i am trying to find a small form factor box that i can put 4x500g drives in that i can install a minimal linux distro on which will also run mplayer so i can play x264 movies from it to my 50" hdtv.

[venture37]

Re: Network-Attached Storage (NAS)

two 500g HD's in raid 1 = 500g in space.
or (3 or 4) 500 G HD's in raid 5 = 1TB or 1.5TB of space

My 4x500GB RAID5 Array in my workstation:

[venture37]

Re: Network-Attached Storage (NAS)

as for software vs hardware raid, software raid & pseudo raid controllers will always impact system performance because all the work is passed onto the cpu & onboard controller whereas with hardware raid there is a processor on the card + a large ammount of cache which if you don't have battery backup gets switched off along with the onboard cache on the disk, then see how long read & writes take from your disk!

as for data safety, like you said earlier you can only tollerate the failure of one disk, you only start to reap the benefits of RAID 5 & 6 once you get into arrays with more then 6 disks, for something as simple as a DVR/mediacentre where you're doing more reading then writing its a waste of money & resources unless you're planning to record multiple video streams simultaneously in which case you're idea of using a small form factor box will not stand up to the job.
PSU & Cooling in such a small case being one of the initial hurdles to get you going.

[res0nat0r]

Re: Network-Attached Storage (NAS)

My 4x500GB RAID5 Array in my workstation:

this wasnt accounting for all of the overheard involving the actual physical space you get from the drive plus the space loss from filesystem overhead etc...which unfortunately you cant get around. but you are right the actual space is going to be much less than 2*X number of drives.

[ddr]

Re: Network-Attached Storage (NAS)

now im content with maybe buying a drobo.

yea i am thinking about that myself...