In Need of a NAS

_TubbZ_

_TubbZ_

_TubbZ_

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I don't really think this is the right place to ask but i am going to anyway :p

I am thinking about adding a NAS in my home as i am running out of storage and would like to share movies and TV series and music in my student house later this year. I would also possibly like it to be able to download stuff from it. Now what i am thinking of doing is getting a NAS box but when i saw the prices i thought i could probably do an atom build for that and stick ubuntu on it and have something a lot more flexible.

What do people reckon? Would i be better off with a NAS for power consumption and overall price or do an atom build and make a proper job of it :)
 
I had the same choice, and went for the Atom option (about a year ago).
Specifically, I ended up with a D945GSEJT with 1GB RAM and 2x 1.5tb HDDs (and booting off a 4GB CF card).
It's powered by a laptop-style PSU, and consumes ~25w at idle.

I installed Debian on it, as that's what I know best, and have been very happy with it. It's current uptime is around 6 months, so I'd say it's certainly as stable as a regular NAS box.
 
What did you go for case wise? Ideally i want a small case with 4 * 3.5 drive spaces but most mITX cases only have room for 1 drive. I am not too sure what route i want to go down still, I am looking at keeping it really cheap and having it as a NAS only or spending more and using it as a NAS and a Media PC.

I am looking at going with a:

Gigabyte GA-D510UD Intel Atom D510 about £70

or a

ZOTAC IONITX-G-E Intel Atom 330 about £110

For an extra £40 i get a PCIe x1 slot as opposed to PCI, HDMI port and the better Atom 330 processor. I guess the PCIe should be more useful if i want to add extra sata ports in a few years time. So i could use it as a NAS + Media PC and stick it in the front room or spend less and just go for the NAS.

They both has 4 Sata ports, but only 2 can be configured in as RAID on the Gigabyte mobo. Power wise they both draw around the same too.

Will have to have a nice long think :)
 
Case wise I just used a (very) old full ATX case - I wasn't particularly concerned about space, and all the small cases that could take >=4 drives were expensive, so I didn't see the point (and a big case should mean everything stays a bit cooler).

I did consider combining it with a media PC, but wasn't too keen on constantly power cycling the data drives, or having the additional noise in the lounge (although to be fair, the drives I've picked are very quiet).

I'm pretty sure the board I've got only has two SATA ports, so when I want to add more drives, I'm going to have to use the only PCI slot for a SATA card (they way I use it, I can't imagine I'll notice the performance difference between PCI-E and PCI, as it'll still be plenty fast enough... the HDDs will still be the bottleneck).

RAID wise, if you install Linux, that can do software RAID quite well (that's what I'm using).
 
MD-RAID? *shudder*. If you can get a cheap RAID card that works well with Linux do it hardware OP, software RAID gives me sleepless nights.
 
Proper job of it, no question.

Windows Home Server is always worth looking at for this kind of thing, drive pooling and all sorts. Plus being able to pull 'dead' drives out of the server and plug them into your desktop to salvage data is very handy.

For more SATA ports, take a look at one of these - http://www.supermicro.com/products/accessories/addon/AOC-SASLP-MV8.cfm
They should be available for less than a RAID card, and if you're using software RAID / Drive Extender that's fine anyway.
 
SMN said:
MD-RAID? *shudder*. If you can get a cheap RAID card that works well with Linux do it hardware OP, software RAID gives me sleepless nights.
Click to expand...
It's probably worth mentioning that a lot of cheap SATA RAID cards actually rely on software RAID implemented in the drivers.

So unless you're going to go for a true hardware RAID card, then mdraid is probably a good bet. It has the advantage that if the PC/controller fails at some point down the line, you can put the drives in pretty much any other Linux PC and still be able to read the array, instead needing to find a very similar RAID card to get it working again.
Not to mention that if it does all go horribly wrong, you've got more tools (+documentation online) to help you out than what little would be available from the BIOS of a cheap controller card.
 
I'm just rebuilding my file server at the moment. I will be installing unRAID (http://www.lime-technology.com/) as the OS due to it's flexibility. It's all sitting in a X-Case 420/Norco 4020 case. Combine that with with 2 x Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 cards and a Asus P5Q Premium motherboard and I have a system capable of growing to over 20 drives. That is a potential 40TB+ which should be enough to keep me busy for a while. :)
 
Messiah Khan said:
I'm just rebuilding my file server at the moment. I will be installing unRAID (http://www.lime-technology.com/) as the OS due to it's flexibility. It's all sitting in a X-Case 420/Norco 4020 case. Combine that with with 2 x Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 cards and a Asus P5Q Premium motherboard and I have a system capable of growing to over 20 drives. That is a potential 40TB+ which should be enough to keep me busy for a while. :)
Click to expand...

For me i think thats a few too many drives :)
 
On scale this small software raid shouldnt be an issue. If there are only going to be a few clients and a relitivly small amount of traffic the proper hardware raid cards would be overkill.
 
I'm in the process of knocking up my own NAS at the moment, I'm going to go the Freenas route with software RAID5, looking at 7.5TB of available space once all is said and done.

Do some reading on FreeNAS, it looks like an option worth considering.
 
If you're a linux nerd there is a lot to be said for something ultra low power like a mybook world. Open it up with SSH and whack a few optware packages on it like sabnzbd for usenet - it supports torrents and http downloads out of the box, and has twonkymedia server built in for streaming to the ps3/xbox 360/whatever.
 
After a lot of price checking and working out the time it would take me to set up a NAS box I decided on a Synology 209 with gigabit Ethernet with 2 x 2TB drives.

Job done, does everything straight away, auto set up, quiet enough to have in the room when watching TV/Movies, low power, can't fault it.
 
Rids said:
I'm in the process of knocking up my own NAS at the moment, I'm going to go the Freenas route with software RAID5, looking at 7.5TB of available space once all is said and done.

Do some reading on FreeNAS, it looks like an option worth considering.
Click to expand...

Yeah I have read about it and it does seem feature rich :) gunna wait till i move into my New place before i get it tho :(
 
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