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AFryia · Posted: Fri Sep 03, 2010 10:06 pm Post subject: Home Network Storage

What in your opinion is a better home network server solution and why?

1) FreeNAS OS network storage PC/Server.

2) Dedicated network server like a BlackArmor NAS 440 or similar.

3) other?

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5320

AFryia · Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2010 6:58 pm Post subject: Re: Home Network Storage

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5320

ecrabb · Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2010 7:33 pm Post subject:

A RAID 1 (mirroring) NAS is fine... Just keep in mind that RAID 1 is primarily redundancy to facilitate uptime, NOT data integrity. RAID 1 is NOT a backup mechanism because any sort of accidental deletion or data corruption is mirrored across both drives simultaneously. Treat the NAS/RAID volume just like you do any other volume (make offline backups) and you'll be fine.

WHS = Windows Home Server, like the HP MediaSmart...
http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/mediasmart-server/index.html

I've been considering how to share my media across the house, too and I keep coming back to a small NAS. I have several desktop computers laying around I could redeploy to server duty, but just the power consumption keeps me from doing it. Even if it's only drawing 100w, a desktop machine sitting there running 24/7/365 is going to run nearly $75/year at my electric tariff. Most desktop machines will be easily 100w, so you're probably looking at over $100/year for a box to just sit there running. Which is why I keep coming back to a NAS.

Yes, most of the economical NAS boxes take standard SATA drives. I've been looking at the Netgear MS2000 diskless NAS. It supports a whole Macs, Windows, UPnP, iTunes, and you can buy it for under $100. Throw a couple of 2TB drives in there for ~$120 or so, and for <$350, you have a pretty small, quiet, efficient 2TB media server available to a variety of devices and platforms.

http://www.netgear.com/products/home/storage/simplesharing/MS2000.aspx

There are lots of other options, of course.

SC

AFryia · Posted: Sat Sep 04, 2010 11:16 pm Post subject:

Thanks guys, I didn't know you could get diskless NAS/WHS boxes.

That solution is exactly what I'm looking for, small size and upgradeable.

Cheers!

WanMan · Joined: 19 Mar 2006 Posts: 10270

ecrabb · Posted: Sun Sep 05, 2010 2:39 pm Post subject:

No, Wan... I mean a corruption induced on the client side (operating/file system, application, network) and written to the disk. That, or accidental deletion. Oh, and there's power surges or lighting - I believe you have some experience with that Wink

. RAID-1 protects you from none of those scenarios.

Bottom line is there's no way in hell I'd put any irreplaceable data like personal photos on a RAID volume without a backup.

SC

WanMan · Joined: 19 Mar 2006 Posts: 10270

I use to use RAID-1, but then I found it better to keep separate volumes across multiple disks and computers. For instance, the digital photographs, aside from also being on DVD-R's, are on at least three different computers and six hard drives.

Zebu Fellenz · Joined: 21 Dec 2006 Posts: 2567

Are there any economically priced NAS boxes that I could put 4 hard disks in? Something like the box that Ecrabb linked to but with more drive bays. I checked the Netgear site looking for something but the price seems to climb dramatically as the number of bays increases and I can't justify +$500 plus the cost of drives for a NAS.

My other question (targeted at Ecrabb) relates to the Apple Airport Extreme and the possibility of using it as a NAS. I have the Airport Extreme and have never had much luck with it as a router, but was curious about hardwiring it into my network and plugging a 2TB drive into the USB port. Would this be easy to setup so I could access the shared drive on my Mac and also on several PC's?

Thanks,

Erik

greg_mitch · Joined: 03 May 2006 Posts: 5320