I think it's time to go NAS

AsSiMiLaTeD

So I think I've decided to go with the Synology 213j, it's inexpensive and looks like it'll do what I need. Thanks for the advice everyone.

nguyendot

Lasareath wrote: »

It's HP SAN, Yes Fibre channel. I'm using VMWare & VEEAM. I use VEEAM to make my backups.

What model SAN? I use Veeam, Datto, AppAssure depending on backup frequency requirements.

billbillw

Well, my 4-year old WD Black drive that I was using to store all my photos and documents started to flake on me a couple weeks ago. Luckily, I was able to pull all of the important files off of the drive. I lost a few applications, but nothing that I couldn't get again. Got me thinking, maybe now IS the time to jump into a simple two disk RAID1 NAS. Started looking around, compared prices, features, and reviews. I decided to go the el-cheapo route and picked up a Buffalo Linkstation 421e and I'm going to put a couple of WD 2TB drives in it. I snagged the Linkstation from Amazon for $120 and the WD drives are only $69 from Microcenter now. They are the green drives which are not perfectly suited for NAS, but as long as you change the head-park setting with WDIDLE, they seem to work fine for most folks using these software RAID NAS devices. So, for about $260, I will have a 2TB of redundant storage. Should get me by for a few years and I'll get my feet wet with the whole NAS concept.

I know the Linkstation isn't thought of quite as highly as the QNAP and Synology models, but it reviews show it to be just as fast (or faster) than most of the other single SOC servers and it has some pretty good features like built in bittorrent (will work well for seeding my Waffles music), Itunes library sharing, webaccess from Android, and it includes 5 NovaBackup licenses.

It will probably be a week or two before I get it all setup. I'll post back after I see how it works.

ViperZ

Billbillw, NAS is about ease of access to files on the network, it's not a backup solution by any means. Having RAID can help you increase speed, etc, but if your NAS drives will start failing/corrupting slowly like your Black, all NAS RAID will be doing is copying corrupted information from one drive onto another.

Zentish

I also use Synology, the Ds411+ii

The add-ons are less useful than they at first seem, but the idea of having a stand-alone, simple storage stack that you don't need a complicated OS or custom filesystem for, regardless of the brand.

I've built my own custom Linux fileserver and used netgear and synology NAS devices, I chose the Synology for the speed, and wish I had the 412 with the second Ethernet port, but I make do

I mount the NAS directly to XBMC on my HTPC or DLNA connect to my networked J.River mediaserver PC, but the final location of the music is alway the NAS, about 90GB of ripped CD's, my entire collection of 16K tracks.

billbillw

Finished setting up the Linkstation this weekend. I ended up using a pair of Toshiba 7200rpm 3TB drives in RAID1 mode instead of the WD Green. Took a little more than a day to sync the RAID1 array. So far, it seems to work nicely. It manages about 55MB/s writing from my PC to the NAS. A little faster reading. So much faster than my WDTV Live Hub which only manages a pathetic 7.5MB/s. Streaming video from the NAS to my LG Bluray player is much snappier now. I haven't setup some of the other features like Itunes library support, Bittorrent client, or the Novabackup. After pulling all my videos, all of my music, documents, etc, I still have about 2TB of space left. Maybe I'll rip all of my remaining HD-DVDs to MKV and be done with them...

nguyendot

I will say do not buy any of the iOmega NAS. They're terrible. I had them at a few clients with both iSCSI and NFS and the max rate was 22MB/s. Even worse the RAID5 was absolutely worthless. If a drive died the entire array died - defeating the purpose.

I will say the TS-869PRO I got to replace them is wicked. 220MB/s with gigE x 2 load balanced as a Veeam target is amazing for a non enterprise level device. I will be getting one for myself very soon. 8 x 4TB Seagate NAS drives.

billbillw

Did some more testing with the Linkstation 421e. The speeds I mentioned before were just the write speeds. I guess I hadn't looked close enough at the read speeds. Tested again and found it keeps a pretty steady 100MB/s on large video files. Not bad for a single SOC dual bay RAID1 setup. I think that actually comes in faster than the comparable Synology units.

VCoak

I'm at the point of looking to a NAS for audio only. I just tipped the scales of my music 1.1TB and growing. I do have a few unknown on a NAS. My system is in for complete make over. I want to convert my system to digital. As I'm learning I am using an old HP laptop that is stripped of all software and only has basic OS of Windows 64-bit and iTunes.

Will a NAS run on this laptop ok? Looking at the Synology 412+
Laptop is connected via ethernet and does the NAS need to run through the laptop?
DAC- looking at one of two W4S DAC2 or PS Audio MKII

Running extra cat 6 for my home is easy if needed.

mco

billbillw

VCoak wrote: »

I'm at the point of looking to a NAS for audio only. I just tipped the scales of my music 1.1TB and growing. I do have a few unknown on a NAS. My system is in for complete make over. I want to convert my system to digital. As I'm learning I am using an old HP laptop that is stripped of all software and only has basic OS of Windows 64-bit and iTunes.

Will a NAS run on this laptop ok? Looking at the Synology 412+
Laptop is connected via ethernet and does the NAS need to run through the laptop?
DAC- looking at one of two W4S DAC2 or PS Audio MKII

Running extra cat 6 for my home is easy if needed.

mco

NAS doesn't run on a PC/Laptop per se. NAS (Network Attached Storage) is the actual Synology/Linkstation/QNAP box. It is a standalone server. Once hooked to a network and setup, all the computers on that network can see it and map drives to it. The computers on the network do not need any special software to access the files. As for iTunes and NAS, I know my Linkstation has an added 'iTunes Server' feature that allows up to 5 computers to use the NAS stored files in iTunes and transfer them to devices. I do not know how it would work without that feature. I don't know if Synology that feature as well. Worst case, you use another software like Foobar to play the files. I'm pretty sure Foobar will play the files from any location.

VCoak

Thank you sir, Then has does the music make it to the DAC? I don't seem to understand that part. ughh

gce

VCoak wrote: »

Thank you sir, Then has does the music make it to the DAC? I don't seem to understand that part. ughh

My Synology is in my network and my Marantz (in my network) plays the files from the NAS through my system.

billbillw

VCoak wrote: »

Thank you sir, Then has does the music make it to the DAC? I don't seem to understand that part. ughh

The NAS is just like having a drive hooked to your computer/laptop, but its through a fast network connection and is shared with the other computers on your network. Software reads the music file from the NAS and spits it out to the DAC just like any file that was on your C: drive. NAS is really only worth the effort if you have files (music, video, photos, documents, etc) that you want to be able to access from multiple locations.

VCoak

I currently do not have a cdp to run through. Was looking in the future for a marantz sa-8004. But many months away.

VCoak

It would be just for audio but maybe in the future blue-ray. If I am correct the NAS would feed into my laptop>DAC>pre>amp>speakers.
Would this be correct?
Thx

gce

VCoak wrote: »

I currently do not have a cdp to run through. Was looking in the future for a marantz sa-8004. But many months away.

You don't need necessarily need a cdp to run lossless files through. I'm running my NAS through my Marantz SR-7008.

VCoak

My laptop has both usb and s/pdif output. The usb is 2.0. Which would be better to use?