Explain a network hard drive to me please

[Magic_x_uk]

HI, just got a PS3 and I have a Netgear DG834 wireless router.

How can I add a network hard drive.

I dont know anything about them. Basically I have a lot of films and photos etc on the computers HD and if I want to see them through the PS3 I have to have the main computer turned on.

So i was thinking of a network HD. I have just recently brought a 1TB external HD.

So what do I need etc ?

I dont know anything at all about all this.

I just would like a HD somehow (if possible) connected to my router that my PS3 can see and use without the computer being turned on if at all possible

thank you

 

[Skidilliplop]

What you need is a NAS box. You can use your USB drive. It might mean opening it up and stealing the drive from inside.

The NAS box does exactly what your USB HDs enclosure does only it converts it to IP over ethernet instead of USB.

 

[james.miller]

only downsaid is they are all very verrrryyyyyy slow. unless you cough up big bucks. I dont know what prevents them from producing a nas drive capable of sustaining the drives full transfer rate for anything under £200. it really cant be hard.

 

[Skidilliplop]

It's the network interface. They have to build in a Gigabit network card + drivers and the data backplane to cope with it. This comes at a cost. It's not that much when you consider the drives they put inside make up about £100 of the cost.

 

[james.miller]

It's the network interface. They have to build in a Gigabit network card + drivers and the data backplane to cope with it. This comes at a cost. It's not that much when you consider the drives they put inside make up about £100 of the cost.

ok show me a £60 barebones nas enclousre than reaches full speed then. gigabit interfaces are not expesive lol.

 

[Skidilliplop]

Not on their own no. But as i said creating a data backbone between the ATA interface and the Ethernet interface + developing an Operating system with management functions to configure it all costs lots of money, then you add a retail markup and £200 isn't hard to hit. For decent server Gigabit nics you can pay £170 just for the NIC.

 

[james.miller]

Not on their own no. But as i said creating a data backbone between the ATA interface and the Ethernet interface + developing an Operating system with management functions to configure it all costs lots of money, then you add a retail markup and £200 isn't hard to hit.

i dont buy that, im sorry. you can buy a intel atom-equipped pc, slap linux on it and achieve full speed for less than £200. drive included. it costs pence for the hardware in a nas enclosure. most of them run on linux, which will cost them nothing. it doesn't cost £100 per enclosure to develope the drivers.

For decent server Gigabit nics you can pay £170 just for the NIC.

which is more than a p35 motherboard that can handle that sort of thruput without breaking a sweat. comparing a server NIC to a nas drive isnt fair for a start but come on, a simple realtek 1gb chipset would do the job and they DO cost pence.

 

[Skidilliplop]

i dont buy that, im sorry. you can buy a intel atom-equipped pc, slap linux on it and achieve full speed for less than £200. drive included. it costs pence for the hardware in a nas enclosure. most of them run on linux, which will cost them nothing. it doesn't cost £100 per enclosure to develope the drivers.


which is more than a p35 motherboard that can handle that sort of thruput without breaking a sweat. comparing a server NIC to a nas drive isnt fair for a start but come on, a simple realtek 1gb chipset would do the job and they DO cost pence.

If you believe the above to be true, I suggest you send your suggestions to netgear, freecom etc.
However you're not helping the thread at all.

 

[james.miller]

If you believe the above to be true, I suggest you send your suggestions to netgear, freecom etc. .

it actually is true. people are using atom boards for EXACTLY that reason. Whats with the attitude?

im sorry, but im not happy with any of the sub £100 enclosures ive seen. none of them achieved >20MB/sec. most of them averaged below 10 (100Mbit interfaces). That makes trasfering 100gb of music a pain in the arse, let alone a Tb of films.

However you're not helping the thread at all

no? you dont think the OP would like to know about the issue with transfer speeds and alternative options? that not helping then?

 

[bledd]

Skidilliplop, you're talking utter balls

most pentium 2 pc's give better network throughput than most 'home' NAS devices, they're trash.

atom pc's or even an laptop with a usb2 external drive give far better performance, and functionality




OP

either..

build an atom pc, with gigabit ethernet
buy a gigabit card for an old pc and use that
buy a cheap shuttle and use that

 

[james.miller]

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=12939181&postcount=14

I was thinking it has to be a PC this time. What NAS were you thinking of? I like the drobo, that's a nice piece of kit but expensive and still less flexible than a PC.

I like the idea of a PC server because you can even change the OS if it makes sense to. Also it's is upgradeable from a hardware point of view.


After some more digging around, it's looking like the new Athlon 64 2000+ could be the way to go, the CPU uses more power than the Atom but the 780 chipset uses a lot less than the current Intel atom chipsets, so overall it's much lower power usage, and faster too. I'm thinking of a setup like this in a Lian Li V350 case

Why bother with the Athlon for the server. I guess its a home server? In which case the atom will do fine. I have it streaming 1080p across my network to my HTPC without a hiccup for instance. Also file copy, too and from the atom, across gigabit, is about as fast as hardrive to hardrive copy. So IMO the atom is fast enough

Tranquil SQA home servers use atom boards..... http://www.tranquilpc-shop.co.uk/acatalog/SQA-5H-1000sub.html

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/241623/tranquil-pc-sqa5h-home-server.html

As usual with home server appliances, setup is a breeze. The SQA-5H needs only two connections - a power cable and a wired Ethernet connection to your router. Once you've plugged these in and booted the system, you simply install the connector software on each client PC from the provided CD and from here you can configure backups, shared storage, remote access and so forth. The Home Server OS is designed to run completely headless, but if you unscrew the euphemistically-named 'service plate' at the back you'll find a VGA port {LOL - James}, along with serial and parallel connectors - so if you really want to tinker with the system you can.

The presence of these standard ports is no real surprise, as the basic SQA-5H-1000 is built on a standard Intel D945GCLF2 board, a mini-ITX package including a dual-core 1.6GHz Atom 330 with 1GB of RAM. There's also an SQA-5H-2000 model, with more RAM and a bigger hard disk, but we'd say 1GB is plenty for a Home Server and there are cheaper ways to add storage.

That happens to be the same board(with cpu) that you can find for £60 on the net.

http://www.tranquilpc.co.uk/images/SQA_WHT_REAR.jpg

^^^ and it uses the standard onboard NIC

http://www.wegotserved.co.uk/2008/11/20/hands-on-tranquil-pc-sqa-5h-home-server/

The SQA-5H (during our test routines) transfers files at the rate of 32-42 MB/s (subject to file type / size) over LAN - so transmitting multi-channel HD video files should not be a problem.

so an atom-based server will, at worse, trasfer 3-4 times faster than any nas enclosure you can recommend under £200. and the whole lot would come in at less than £200.

So the question to the op is: do you want to spend <£100 on a nas and live with 10MB/sec transfer speeds or spend more and get more. it is simply not true that decent rates cant be had for under £200, as Skidilliplop is suggesting.

I await your reply skiddliplop

 

[Skidilliplop]

I never denied that DIY NAS boxes are faster (infact i've posted on here advising people to build over buy), but that's not suitable for the OP.
He quite clearly wants an off the shelf device to plug into his Router and access files on his PC. The router is going to be 10/100 so transfer rates are somewhat irrelevant.

I have a home server with aggregated NICs and 4 disk RAID5, because I know how. Not eveeryone wants to or is capable of building their own. If it were the case then no one would bother to stock NAS boxes.

 

[james.miller]

What you denied was the cost of doing so. Without knowing the OPs budget or willingness to get dirty, its open game as to what we can recommend

 

[Skidilliplop]

What you denied was the cost of doing so. Without knowing the OPs budget or willingness to get dirty, its open game as to what we can recommend

He doesn't even know what one is? Is he likely to know how to build one from scratch. It's safe to assume not.

I didn't "Deny" anything. I threw ideas out there as to why they might charge what they do. If they could make them cheaper and undercut their competetors do you not thing they would? Personally I don't really care, I never use them.
As for attitude.... i'm not the one scouring google to prove myself right in a debate that means absolutely nothing to anyone anywhere bar yourself instead of trying to help someone out

 

[james.miller]

He doesn't even know what one is? Is he likely to know how to build one from scratch. It's safe to assume not.

I didn't "Deny" anything. I threw ideas out there as to why they might charge what they do.

ideas and yes he can build one. By his own admission, he's built pc's in the past. A little forum searching would tell you that

If they could make them cheaper and undercut their competetors do you not thing they would? Personally I don't really care, I never use them.
As for attitude.... i'm not the one scouring google to prove myself right in a debate that means absolutely nothing to anyone anywhere bar yourself instead of trying to help someone out

Well I know its possible. if you say it isnt i'll prove it. Ive given the OP another alternative anyway. There is no right or wrong in choosing which way to go, be it spend a little and live with the transfer speeds or spend more. if you think this is better suiting to a seperate thread then by all means start one, and we'll have a discussion there instead

Magic_X_UK, there is a third alternative. a usb harddrive. you loose the ease of use in transferring files to the drive - youd have to plug it in to the pc, but you gain in the transfer speed. USB2 is acceptable for transferring and would cost you half that of a basic nas enclosure (im talking one with a 10MB nic. There's another method for you to mull over

 

[Skidilliplop]

ideas
if you think this is better suiting to a seperate thread then by all means start one, and we'll have a discussion there instead

I'm not going to start a thread on something neither me or anyone else here is even vaguely interested in so you may feed your alpha complex and use google to extend your E-penis.

 

[james.miller]

Then leave it to the people who do know. we're here to help

 

[errata]

The level of technical knowledge to construct an atom based home built or reconfgure an old PC to serve files possibly including those with content protection or needing transcoding to standard media players or a PS3 is just a little out of the league of the OP

If of course the hardware costs pence, and its realy easy to build them then theres ebay to make lots of money.

The £60 atom board, needs an enclosure, psu, ram, hdd, disc operating system, software, cables, expertise and hours and hours of of config time (or someboy elses time).

Tranquil dont sell them for £200.

The NAS that pass muster invariably have faster processors, usually better hardware and lots more development time to implement the features that get asked about.

Submit your home brew atom nas for review and its shortcoming will be rapidly exposed (does it save power, can it wake up properly, does it serve this file/that file, what about the remote web configuration, can it ftp, can it usb, can it ...)

If he is watching movies on the PS3 he does not realy need really high transfer speeds, he needs enough to watch the movie.

Can someone not reccomend a cheap NAS that would work with the PS3?

 

[james.miller]

The level of technical knowledge to construct an atom based home built or reconfgure an old PC to serve files possibly including those with content protection or needing transcoding to standard media players or a PS3 is just a little out of the league of the OP

i had already thought this through. He's build pc's, so he can build an nas enclosure. It wouldnt need to transcode if its serving the ps3 directly. if it did, a nas drive wouldnt work anyway at the most basic level its a case of putting the operating system on and enabling network sharing

If of course the hardware costs pence, and its realy easy to build them then theres ebay to make lots of money.

Didnt think of that. that certainly is an idea. i could build something close to the SQA for sensible money and make a profit on it, if enough people were interested its actually a real possibility!

The £60 atom board, needs an enclosure, psu, ram, hdd, disc operating system, software, cables, expertise and hours and hours of of config time (or someboy elses time).

well, id be getting in to all sorts of different configurations and such if i starting listing possible ways of building one. but i do know a certain mini-itx specialising site does it all (case, board, cpu, ram, psu ect, just add drive) for about £145. mind you that makes the case/psu about £65. bit dear but mini itx cases are. there are cheaper options if you have space for a bigger case. something m-atc sized maybe?

Tranquil dont sell them for £200.

no they dont. but then they put the time in to designing the quick release case, which i assure you would cost the best part of £150-200 on its own. Then there's their software Tranquil are in it to make money at the end of the day. Thats no different to building yourself a top end pc and saving a wedge over a preconfigured machine. Everybody who wants to sell a product will want to make a profit, as much as they can. You should look at the pump and boilser service industry, they make OBSCENE amounts of profit on their work.

The NAS that pass muster invariably have faster processors, usually better hardware and lots more development time to implement the features that get asked about.

the atom board (theres only two intel branded boards that i know of currently) is the very same hardware thats in that case - a dual core 1.6ghz atom on an intel chipset. the combination itself is capable of 720p video at the very least - that SQA even has a vga output hidden behind a service cover on the back, show how standardized the hardware behind it all is

Submit your home brew atom nas for review and its shortcoming will be rapidly exposed (does it save power, can it wake up properly, does it serve this file/that file, what about the remote web configuration, can it ftp, can it usb, can it ...)

if you build it with the same hardware then the same hardware functions then its down to the software. and there are some very good free operation systems floating around for NAS enclosures. There are some people on the forums who are well experianced in this field, far more than me.

If he is watching movies on the PS3 he does not realy need really high transfer speeds, he needs enough to watch the movie.

if transferring speed is not a concern then no, as i said. but the OP needed to be told that he should expect 5-10MB/sec from the most basic nas drives. That is horrifically slow. people complain about putting music on an 8gb n95's internal memory, just imagine how long it would take to trasfer divx moves at that speed, let alone dvd rips or anything else. I used to own a 100Mb/sec nas drive and it took hours and hours to transfer my music over. in the end i got so frustrated that i just stuffed the drive back in the pc. i eneded up build a htpc dedicated to music and films.

Can someone not reccomend a cheap NAS that would work with the PS3?

sure. if you want the cheapest option get a usb enclosure. about £20 or so. if you want a nas drive, there are some very cheap 10MB enclosures around for £30 or so, but please just avoide them. Ive looked at a few major sites (inc overclockers) and i cant find a sata nas enclosure for less than £70 could you help out with that, without naming the retailers obviously

 

[Magic_x_uk]

Okay so I just got back from work and read this thread.

gee guys. Your not helping me here.

All I wanted was to know if I could somehow attach a HD to my router. one way or another. or what was best (and simplest for me)