Spec me a NAS..

Phill4321 · 21 Nov 2011 at 17:48

Ezah said:
There is some excellent info in this thread now, thanks all. and particularly to Phil and Razor for the idiots guide I cant believe I was considering an 800 quid NAS when this looks like a far better solution from all angles. I dont mind learning something new and experimenting if its going to save cash and be scale-able.

n.b I am probably more noob at this than Clipsey, so lets keep each other updated on our progress here

cheers

Thats ok mate, I was in the same position as you a few months ago. I didn't have the money for an off the shelf nas so had to look for alternatives. And this was the perfect substitute. It can be what you want it to be and expand as your data grows, and it doesn't cost the earth in terms of up front costs and even day to day running costs. The hardest part was finding all of the necessary information as most of it is scattered across various site's and thread's. But hopefully my post above will set you in the right direction. It has nearly everything you need to get running. If you need any more help then just ask, or even post in the massive microserver thread thats linked above. There are many people who will help you.

Update:-

Also forgot to mention to clipsey, with unraid you can choose whether to have a parity drive or not. With your two drives, one can be the parity drive and the other for data, or you can choose to use both as data but there would be no redundancy. Also unraid is free for use of up to 3 hard drives and works as normal. Its also pretty cheap beyond that if you want more drives.

monkeyspank · 22 Nov 2011 at 10:11

*hugs 4 bay synology*

DiCe! · 22 Nov 2011 at 14:09

Phill4321 said:
What I really like about unraid is the fact you can add hard drives as you go along, you could start with your two, and then just add more drive's as you need more. Also you can have different drives of different size's in you array as long as they are not bigger than the parity drive. The os is dead easy to use over a web browser and there is not much difficulty involved for novices like myself.

.

Question.

So Could I start with say
1x2tb
1x1tb
1x300gig
1x500 gig

then over time remove the 300 and add a 2tb and it would rebuild + add extra space? I asked this in the microserver thread but no one got back to me....if so.....ill be ordering one ASAP

Phill4321 · 22 Nov 2011 at 19:00

DiCe! said:
Question.

So Could I start with say
1x2tb
1x1tb
1x300gig
1x500 gig

then over time remove the 300 and add a 2tb and it would rebuild + add extra space? I asked this in the microserver thread but no one got back to me....if so.....ill be ordering one ASAP

Yup, thats exactly how you upgrade a hard drive in unraid. Heres what I got from their wiki page.

Replace a single disk with a bigger one
This is the case where you are replacing a single small disk with a bigger one:
Stop the array.
Power down the unit.
Replace smaller disk with new bigger disk.
Power up the unit.
Start the array.
When you start the array, the system will reconstruct the contents of the original smaller disk onto the new disk. Upon completion, the disk's file system will be expanded to reflect the new size. You can only expand one disk at a time.
If you are replacing your existing Parity disk with a bigger one, then when you Start the array, the system will simply start a parity sync onto the new Parity disk.
A special case exists when the new bigger disk is also bigger than the existing parity disk. In this case you must use your new disk to first replace parity, and then replace your small disk with your old parity disk:
Stop the array.
Power down the unit.
Replace smaller parity disk with new bigger disk.
Power up the unit.
Start the array.
Wait for Parity-Sync to complete.
Stop the array.
Power down the unit.
Replace smaller data disk with your old parity disk.
Power up the unit.
Start the array.

Here is a link to their manual that explains everything you need to know in more detail.

Ezah · 23 Nov 2011 at 07:50

I just got a couple of quotes locally for a Microserver.. not sure if there is cash back involved but its not a show stopper for me. If there is itll be a bonus.

N36L - 216 GBP
N40L - 295 GBP

Which would be the better option? Are these many advantages in having the N40L for purely storage and multimedia use?

Cheers

Tarqy · 23 Nov 2011 at 08:04

N36L has 1GB RAM and 1.3ghz processor
N40L has 2GB RAM and 1.5ghz processor

Shouldn't really make any difference for your needs but the N40L can be had for 239.99 inc vat from a popular etailer

Ezah · 23 Nov 2011 at 08:14

Thanks for that. etailers either wont ship here or will add another 100 quid onto the price.

HEADRAT · 23 Nov 2011 at 09:00

Just nabbed a N40L

Ezah · 23 Nov 2011 at 21:52

sorry for the noob question, but if I wanted to run a DLNA client and utorrent, for example.. wouldn't I need WHS installed rather than unraid?

Phill4321 · 24 Nov 2011 at 07:06

Hi, as far as I know there are plugins for both of these services but I have never looked in to them as I only use my microservers for file storage. If you go to the unraid forums or wiki there should be far more info there that could help, or even ask someone on the unraid forums.

Ezah · 29 Nov 2011 at 07:40

ok, So I ordered an N36L and 6TB storage which should be ready at the weekend.
Unless you advise against it, I was going to get WHS 2011 to run on there as given my failure of an experience with Ubuntu I feel safer to stick with Windows. They don't sell it here though so I will get it from OCUK.

Martynt74 · 29 Nov 2011 at 10:15

I've got WHS2011 and it works well at the moment.

Scan around though, i got mine from a competitor for around £10 less than OCUK

Ezah · 29 Nov 2011 at 10:33

Thanks for the tip.. the local shop tried to sell me Windows Server 2008 for 500gbp as WHS isn't available in region!! So with or without the tenner saved I will be happy. I'll ship it to a relative in the UK who is coming over next week.

Marv, how are you using yours and do you have anything else running on it or just storage?

Martynt74 · 29 Nov 2011 at 11:07

I've just got it running storage (and Squeezebox Server) at the moment although its my plan to set it running some form of torrent client when i sort myself out.

It can be quite faffy to set up to sharing side of things as i found and its still not completely right, i seem to get it working with my xbox but then it buggers up the connection with my laptop and then i'll sort that out and something else will fall over.

I used to run a Linux Fedora based OS called Vortexbox which had a built in cd ripper which i'm tempted to go back to as it was fantastic and did all i wanted, however i found that if something went wrong or i wanted to change a setting i had very little knownledge to fix it which wasn't ideal, so now i have to rip cd's (i buy around 10 a month on average i'd say) to my laptop and then transfer them over to the server. Not a huge issue but a minor annoyance when it used to be completely automated and i could just leave a stack of cd's by the server.

I have found that there are quite a few addins that are very well documented for the original WHS aren't available for the WHS2011 which can make it tricky to find exactly what you want when your searching and then find an add in that does exactly what you want (ripnas for me particularly) only to then find out its not supported and has no plans to be supported in WHS2011

Phill4321 · 29 Nov 2011 at 16:56

Ezah said:
ok, So I ordered an N36L and 6TB storage which should be ready at the weekend.
Unless you advise against it, I was going to get WHS 2011 to run on there as given my failure of an experience with Ubuntu I feel safer to stick with Windows. They don't sell it here though so I will get it from OCUK.

Yeah WHS should work very well. Its personal preference really. There are loads running WHS with the microserver and they work well together from what I have read.

Ezah · 6 Dec 2011 at 10:58

Got my Server today with 3 x 2TB inside.. and the WHS is coming on Thursday

My plan is now to transfer 2TB of data from the MyBook and then, once the server is fully functional, format the MyBook and strip the HDD out to add to the Server.

The guy in the shop was quite useless though and said I should be running Raid 0 or 1 to achieve a similar effect to Unraid (redundant drive), and that if I added an additional drive later I would need to format all of them!

I think (hope) this is BS.. any clue? or should I start heading to the server forum? :eek:

Edit: the IT dude at work said Raid 5 should do it.. is he right?

neil_g · 6 Dec 2011 at 11:59

raid5 is redundant disk.

in basic terms raid0 is just basically spanning with no protection (1 drive dies = bye bye all data) and raid1 is mirroring (half the space but you can lose half the disks)

Ezah · 6 Dec 2011 at 12:20

Thanks, Neil. Raid 5 it is then.

No issues with adding additional drives at later date or swapping a drive out I assume?

Demon · 6 Dec 2011 at 12:45

Ezah said:
Got my Server today with 3 x 2TB inside.. and the WHS is coming on Thursday
My plan is now to transfer 2TB of data from the MyBook and then, once the server is fully functional, format the MyBook and strip the HDD out to add to the Server.

The guy in the shop was quite useless though and said I should be running Raid 0 or 1 to achieve a similar effect to Unraid (redundant drive), and that if I added an additional drive later I would need to format all of them!

I think (hope) this is BS.. any clue? or should I start heading to the server forum?

Edit: the IT dude at work said Raid 5 should do it.. is he right?

The issue with RAID on windows is that it can be a PITA.. The onboard RAID isn't a proper RAID controller, so it's all done in software, you can't add to the Volume or grow it (AFAIK)..

I have 2 Microservers, 1 running WS2008, the other has run FreeNAS/Unraid, but is now also another WS2008 box..

My advice is to ask yourself if you actually need RAID?

RAID is about redundancy and possibly increased performance.. It's not a critical backup solution..

When I considered all my options, and tried quite a few solutions, I came down to the simple approach of using normal NTFS formatted single volumes with backup being a 'sync' style mirrorring to another drive (either internal, or eSata) scheduled at midnight. (I also now use Crashplan for super critical stuff like photo's/documents etc)

This gives me maximum flexibility
1. Growing a disk (or swapping a 1TB for a 2TB) is just a file copy exercise, I temporarily plug the new disk in via eSata and copy the contents over, then swap the disks..
2. I can take the disks to any PC, the contents are always there on a simple NTFS single partition
3. I can change OS when I like, it won't break anything

Performance wise, since it's a small home network, I can get 100MB+ easily between drives internally, and max out my gigabit network for external transfers..

Just food for thought, I'm not saying RAID is bad, or not the optimal solution, I'm just saying it can be a minefield, and it's not as straight forward in a lot of cases, and I don't think it's ultimately necessary for this kind of application..

Ezah · 6 Dec 2011 at 13:19

Thanks, so I would then treat it much as I do today with multiple internal and eternal volumes.. which at least I know how to handle

with this approach would I see, on the network, 4 separate 2TB volumes in the Server or 1 virtual 8TB volume, running WHS? As I can quite easily have overflow from a media folder which would use multiple volumes, but would rather just link to a single location in XBMC/DLNA etc

cheers