NAS advice

[Greboth]

Hi all, wall of text incoming, tl:dr at the bottom.

I consider that I have an above average knowledge of computers however this knowledge is limited to building, fault finding etc on desktop PC’s. When it comes to things outside of this, especially networks I hold my hand up to being an utter noob so I have some questions.

My current set up is using virgin media superhub which acts as the router also and then cat5 cables run throughout the house. Which leads to a couple of questions:

1.Does anyone use a Virgin superhub with NAS or is it advisable to get a stand alone router? I have tried to find info on this but all my weak Google skills seem to find is routers which allow usb hdds to be attached and used as NAS which isn’t what I want.

2. Either way, what is the best way to test transfer speed over a network? I am aware I could simply share a file on one PC and copy it to another timing it then file size / time gives transfer speed but I don’t know whether this is actually the best way to calculate it. From my limited knowledge though being cat5 cable throughout then transfer speeds should be pretty reasonable though.


Now for the actual NAS box,
My current htpc is running 2 x 2Tb drives, roughly about 3.5Tb full, it needs a good sort out but I doubt it will reduce in size too much. I was looking at getting a 4 bay NAS, but if I fill it with 2Tb drives if I consider using any RAID set up then the NAS would be almost full just by what is on my htpc now. So I am considering running the NAS with just the drives in, it doesn’t give me any security on drive failure but I don’t really need that as the important docs are already backed up and I could just rip blurays again if need be (bit of a PITA but would rather have the extra storage).

So another question, from reading around it would seem that data transfer rates from a NAS are lower than the rate achievable if the hdd was local. Obviously a local hdd can transfer data quick enough to watch HD content / Blu ray rips but is this possible streaming from NAS? Or is RAID my only option for this?

I was looking at getting an off the shelf 4 bay NAS box, either QNAP Turbo NAS TS-412 or Synology Diskstation DS413J. They seem like decent enough enclosures and searching this forum get good reviews but for that sort of price I could get an HP N45L Micro-server (running MS Home Server or FreeNAS). Using the HP server seems a more complicated option to set up but ultimately gives more options once up and running so really leaning towards that unless someone can suggest why it isn’t a valid option?

Thanks for any advice, Greboth.

TL;DR
Questions
1. Virgin Superhub modem router combo ok for NAS?
2. Best way to test transfer of a home network?
3. Leading from question 2, without running a RAID array can NAS transfer enough data for streaming HD content.
4. Which to buy - QNAP Turbo NAS TS-412 or Synology Diskstation DS413J or HP proliant microserver N54L ?

 

[memyselfandi]

I cannot comment on the Virgin Superhub as I haven't used one (never lived in a house which has had the option of cable) but most people I know who have a NAS have it connected to a gigabit switch, along with their other devices including their router. If the Superhub also has gigabit ports then this may not be needed.

As for storage and RAID. If you populate a four bay device with 2TB disks then you will lose 50% of the space if you use RAID1 (mirroring) or approximately 25% if you use RAID5, (which can be slower for writes but fine for reads). So with RAID1 you would just about fill up available capacity but with RAID5 you would still have free space. Note that if you are reusing your existing disks then the NAS would format them as part of the setup process so you would need to back up your existing data.

A gigabit network should be able to transfer data fast enough to allow the playback of HD content.

Of the options you have listed ... personally I would probably go for the QNAP, as I have had other QNAP NASes previously and been happy with them, but the Synology device would get serious consideration as well. The HP microserver is a valid option if you want to get your hands dirty and have more customisation options with what you do with it (see the big thread in the servers subforum for details/help/ideas). It really does depend on whether you want a turnkey solution where you can plug in the disks and once it's setup you can basically "forget" it or if you want something you can fiddle with. Personally at the moment I want the former, having done a lot of the latter in the past.

 

[JonJ678]

The superhub works fine with a NAS plugged in. Probably not at wire speeds, but good enough. As Andi suggests, I've plugged everything into a gigabit switch, so only internet bound traffic makes it to the virgin box.

Gigabit is easily capable of supporting HD content. Any vaguely reasonable computer will be able to send data down the wire fast enough - the microserver mentioned above has no trouble at all.

On the topic of turnkey vs messing around - I set up FreeBSD, which was sufficiently new to me that it took a couple of days. That was mostly trying to get Dropbox running and automating backups. Something like FreeNAS would be rather quicker. But since that first install, it's sat quietly in a corner in set-and-forget fashion. At one point the OS disk died and it took about an hour to reinstall things on a new drive. Learning curve and all that.

 

[Greboth]

Thanks for the comments

As for storage and RAID. If you populate a four bay device with 2TB disks then you will lose 50% of the space if you use RAID1 (mirroring) or approximately 25% if you use RAID5, (which can be slower for writes but fine for reads). So with RAID1 you would just about fill up available capacity but with RAID5 you would still have free space. Note that if you are reusing your existing disks then the NAS would format them as part of the setup process so you would need to back up your existing data.

A gigabit network should be able to transfer data fast enough to allow the playback of HD content.

I looked into the options of running raid, I considered RAID0, RAID1, RAID1+0 and RAID5 which all have their own advantages. 99% of the stuff that will be stored on the NAS will, while being a PITA to replace, will be replacable and the 1% is important and is backed up in multiple places anyway. So my conclusion was, if I get transfer speeds for HD streaming without a RAID array then I would rather have the space as hdd failure rates are so low I am happy to risk it. Though in saying that RAID5 is still a possibility as I might need it to get high enough read speeds, depending on my math below.

Trasnfer rates don't make sense to me, maybe I am just being dumb. I was looking at some of my rips last night, was compressed to a 2.2GB file and was 92 minutes, which 2.2Gb = 2252.8Mb, 92 mins = 5520 secs so 2252.8 / 5520 = average rate of 0.41 Mb/s. Now I know this varies depending on the scene so watching the bitrate on VLC, it peaked at just over 32000 Kb/s which is 31.25 Mb/s. So either video bitrates alter by a lot more than I thought or I have made a balls up somewhere.

Even taking the higher 31.25 MB/s, then most hdd's can exceed that in constant read scenarios so I think I would be OK as stream would either be to the tv downstair or the tv upstairs but not both.

Of the options you have listed ... personally I would probably go for the QNAP, as I have had other QNAP NASes previously and been happy with them, but the Synology device would get serious consideration as well. The HP microserver is a valid option if you want to get your hands dirty and have more customisation options with what you do with it (see the big thread in the servers subforum for details/help/ideas). It really does depend on whether you want a turnkey solution where you can plug in the disks and once it's setup you can basically "forget" it or if you want something you can fiddle with. Personally at the moment I want the former, having done a lot of the latter in the past.

My dilema is that being new to all this I much prefer the option of turnkey however my end idea is that the NAS wont be used during the day so should enter sleep but power up at say midday so sickbeard/sabnzbd can do its thing. From research, it doesn't seem either turnkey solution I listed has a task scheduler which if go microserver with MS home server on it seems to be possible.

The superhub works fine with a NAS plugged in. Probably not at wire speeds, but good enough. As Andi suggests, I've plugged everything into a gigabit switch, so only internet bound traffic makes it to the virgin box.

Do you know ofa way to test it the speed? a lot of wiring, though cat5, is in channels in the wall so trying to find a way to test it to be sure speeds will be fine instead of just 'should' be and then find once I have the NAS find I have to rip the walls apart.

When you say wire speed, you mean the theortical limit of gigabit networking? If so, obviously not looking for anything like that speed but if the superhub causes problems then a switch would be necessary. This is more of a network question so wrong section but as on the subject, surely if data travels through gigabit switch and only internet bound traffic goes to virgin hub how is that different from using a gigabit router?

On the topic of turnkey vs messing around - I set up FreeBSD, which was sufficiently new to me that it took a couple of days. That was mostly trying to get Dropbox running and automating backups. Something like FreeNAS would be rather quicker. But since that first install, it's sat quietly in a corner in set-and-forget fashion. At one point the OS disk died and it took about an hour to reinstall things on a new drive. Learning curve and all that.

Going on from what I said above, the microserver seems to be the more ideal solution for me to be able to achieve my ultimate aim but I think I would be like you, mess around getting things working but once they are then it would just be left in a corner.

 

[memyselfandi]

My dilema is that being new to all this I much prefer the option of turnkey however my end idea is that the NAS wont be used during the day so should enter sleep but power up at say midday so sickbeard/sabnzbd can do its thing. From research, it doesn't seem either turnkey solution I listed has a task scheduler which if go microserver with MS home server on it seems to be possible.

Well looking at the manual for the QNAP device you listed on QNAPs website it does have the ability to schedule system power on, off and restarts with a total of 15 scheduled evens possible over the course of a week. So you could set it to power off at 1am and then turn it back on again at midday (say only on weekdays with a different schedule at the weekend).

I would expect the Synology device to have a similar function.

It should be possible to run things on it when it is booted. Also if the device isn't being accessed then it should spin down it's drives and hence be using minimal power until it needs to spin them up again to perform a task.

 

[JonJ678]

I mean 1000mbit by wire speed - 120mbyte/s or so depending on overhead. The superhub might be able to pass data at that rate but it would surprise me. If all the data goes through a separate switch the hub can't slow it down much.

There's code you can run which sends data across the network but I can't remember it offhand. I'd probably write random numbers down a ssh tunnel, but that's not very real-world. I thought I'd run a simple file copy test for you but it appears I'm on 100mbit right now. I suppose I'll add diagnosing that to the to-do list (windows seems to be progressively falling apart).

Iirc it sat happily at 80-90 mbyte/s over NFS and in the 60-70 range over samba.

You can probably do whatever you want to with qnap or the hp. Some things will be easier/harder, but most things should work ok on either.

 

[Greboth]

Thank you again for the replies.

Well looking at the manual for the QNAP device you listed on QNAPs website it does have the ability to schedule system power on, off and restarts with a total of 15 scheduled evens possible over the course of a week. So you could set it to power off at 1am and then turn it back on again at midday (say only on weekdays with a different schedule at the weekend).

I would expect the Synology device to have a similar function.

It should be possible to run things on it when it is booted. Also if the device isn't being accessed then it should spin down it's drives and hence be using minimal power until it needs to spin them up again to perform a task.

Hmmm interesting, that does muddy the waters some more I opened the manual but at 160 (180?) pages I didn't read it. I assumed that something like that would be listed as a 'feature' by OCUK/competitors/QNAP website but apparently not.

I mean 1000mbit by wire speed - 120mbyte/s or so depending on overhead. The superhub might be able to pass data at that rate but it would surprise me. If all the data goes through a separate switch the hub can't slow it down much.

There's code you can run which sends data across the network but I can't remember it offhand. I'd probably write random numbers down a ssh tunnel, but that's not very real-world. I thought I'd run a simple file copy test for you but it appears I'm on 100mbit right now. I suppose I'll add diagnosing that to the to-do list (windows seems to be progressively falling apart).

Iirc it sat happily at 80-90 mbyte/s over NFS and in the 60-70 range over samba.

I was checking and my network does register on each PC as gigabit so, assuming the superhub can cope with gigabit, it should all be fine. Though I plan on transfer some files to get an idea of speed but adding a gigabit switch isn't a big deal.