NAS options for a home network

[itschris]

I've been on a mission the past few weeks to consolidate, organize, and most importantly... use my media. (began in another thread about ripping cd's). This led to the an entire new endeavor to create a new home network and look into all the various options and methods of storage, use, and control.

Righ now, I have about 3TB's of music, movies, videos, and pictures. It's not consolidated and is currently on 3 drives... two of which are external USBs.

I've been looking at an NAS solution, but they seems expensive for what they are and I'm not sure what the differences/advantages are... which is why I probably don't appreciate the cost.

1) How does it differ from just having two or more multi-TB drives in my desktop?

2) ...or having say a 3 or 4 TB external drive plugged into the USB port on my router?

3) Are these solely for backup, or can they be used as the source for streaming data?

This is what I'm looking at now:
Iomega 4TB StorCenter ix2-200 Network Storage, Cloud Edition 35430 in Hard Drives | JR.com

I don't know if this is redundant to what I already have, or if this is really an NAS or just an external drive.


Thanks for the help.

 

[Hocky]

The biggest reason to switch to a good nas (or upgrade your computer) is for data security. I would suggest finding something with RAID 5 support as you will make the best use of your available disk space (space lost is equivalent to 1 disk size rather than a 50% total loss with raid 1). If you have enough bays in your computer for the disks you want, just go buy a raid controller and put the disks in your computer. It will be cheaper and perform better.

 

[itschris]

The biggest reason to switch to a good nas (or upgrade your computer) is for data security. I would suggest finding something with RAID 5 support as you will make the best use of your available disk space (space lost is equivalent to 1 disk size rather than a 50% total loss with raid 1). If you have enough bays in your computer for the disks you want, just go buy a raid controller and put the disks in your computer. It will be cheaper and perform better.

If I just added that to my desktop box, for RAID 5, wouldn't I then 3-2tb drives to equal the 4TB Iomega unit I listed?

 

[Hocky]

If I just added that to my desktop box, for RAID 5, wouldn't I then 3-2tb drives to equal the 4TB Iomega unit I listed?

Correct, yes. Just remember, if you want more disk space in the future, you have to break the raid (losing all data) to add a disk. I would add as much space as you might want immediately.

 

[itschris]

Correct, yes. Just remember, if you want more disk space in the future, you have to break the raid (losing all data) to add a disk. I would add as much space as you might want immediately.

I don't know... that seems like a lot of hardware and work with limted flexibility. I think I'd rather buy two of the Iomega units or something like it.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I didn't like having so many external HDD. And the data transfer rate of external HDD is so slow.

So I built another PC just for storage and connect it to my router via CAT6 wire. I connect all my Denon and HTPC in my HT room, living room, and Master Bedroom to my router and switch via CAT6.

So my HTPCs and Denon AVRs are all connected to the NAS PC.

Data transfer fom HTPCs to my NAS is fast like internal HDD.

I can play movies on any PC in the house wired to the network - all PCs can access the NAS.

But I use PowerDVD to playback my Blu-ray ISO files. I'm sure there are better ways, but I've been doing this way so long I don't care to change.

All PCs connected to the Network via Windows 7 Home network can access the NAS.

 

[itschris]

I didn't like having so many external HDD. And the data transfer rate of external HDD is so slow.

So I built another PC just for storage and connect it to my router via CAT6 wire. I connect all my Denon and HTPC in my HT room, living room, and Master Bedroom to my router and switch via CAT6.

So my HTPCs and Denon AVRs are all connected to the NAS PC.

Data transfer fom HTPCs to my NAS is fast like internal HDD.

I can play movies on any PC in the house wired to the network - all PCs can access the NAS.

But I use PowerDVD to playback my Blu-ray ISO files. I'm sure there are better ways, but I've been doing this way so long I don't care to change.

All PCs connected to the Network via Windows 7 Home network can access the NAS.

So really, an NAS isn't a specific type of hardware, but more an description of some sort of large storage setup.

What sort of PC did you build? Can you give some specifics on the components/specs?

I'm not hung up on the IOMEGA box I listed above, but it seems to be a really solid solution that requires little effort, i.e., you're not building PC's, and all that. The feature set also seems nice to have as well and it's not terribly expensive for what you're getting. Opinions on that product would be helpful.

 

[Hocky]

So really, an NAS isn't a specific type of hardware, but more an description of some sort of large storage setup.

What sort of PC did you build? Can you give some specifics on the components/specs?

I'm not hung up on the IOMEGA box I listed above, but it seems to be a really solid solution that requires little effort, i.e., you're not building PC's, and all that. The feature set also seems nice to have as well and it's not terribly expensive for what you're getting. Opinions on that product would be helpful.

The iomega combo should work fine ignoring the issue of having to buy 2 of them and spend $620 to get 4tb that is actually redundant. I guess the fact that you won't be able to keep all of your media together is a bit of a pain, too.

 

[itschris]

The iomega combo should work fine ignoring the issue of having to buy 2 of them and spend $620 to get 4tb that is actually redundant. I guess the fact that you won't be able to keep all of your media together is a bit of a pain, too.

Hmmm... The one should be enough for all my data and then some. As I'm going through this exercise, I'm realizing I have a lot of redundant data. I just found that I had about 75 duped WMA Lossless copies of discs. I also have about another 150 duped in FLAC and WMA. I'm sure I can scale it back quite a bit once I get rid of dupes and unwanted stuff. So I think the 4tb IOMEGA would serve me well. I can buy a much cheaper external for backups... maybe just get some additonal 2TB drives... one for vids, one for music, etc. Maybe that's a dumb idea, but that's why I'm asking you guys.

 

[Grador]

Hmmm... The one should be enough for all my data and then some. As I'm going through this exercise, I'm realizing I have a lot of redundant data. I just found that I had about 75 duped WMA Lossless copies of discs. I also have about another 150 duped in FLAC and WMA. I'm sure I can scale it back quite a bit once I get rid of dupes and unwanted stuff. So I think the 4tb IOMEGA would serve me well. I can buy a much cheaper external for backups... maybe just get some additonal 2TB drives... one for vids, one for music, etc. Maybe that's a dumb idea, but that's why I'm asking you guys.

NAS is the term for any device that provides storage over a network.

Having a RAID setup is far less work than doing manual backups all the time, also it costs less. I currently have two pairs of 2tb drives one for use and one for redundant backup. Having to pull out the redundant drives every so often, plug them in, and let them run for a while is a huge pain. The only advantage is that I keep the redundant drives offsite which is great for data security.

If I were going to start over again I would build a cheap computer to host a raid array. Quicker file transfers, far simpler failure protection, most flexibility. Additional since you are looking at running specialized media serving applications you could install these on the server you built rather than another system that would have to act as an intermediary between the NAS and end user if the media.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

What sort of PC did you build? Can you give some specifics on the components/specs?

I got an Antec Twelve case for plenty of HDD room and fans.

Got a small motherboard, 2GB RAM, Intel CPU, Cooler Master CPU fan, Hitachi 2TB HDD since they were on sale, some RAID SATA2 PCI adapters since I needed more SATA connections for my HDD (the MB only had 4 SATA connectors). Installed Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit. Connected it to my D-Link 655 router via CAT6.

I didn't do RAID configuration since I didn't care to back up every single movie.

There are a few worth backing up, which I can do manually.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

For bang/buck and flexibility you can not match custom built box, but hardware nas boxes do have their advantages:
- Low Power
- Low Heat and Noise and smaller box
- Performance can be matched to custom box, but both will fairly easy will saturate 1 Gig network bandwidth.
- Hot Plug and replace of drives
- Typically easier setup and management (for models with lcd displays)
- some higher models will allow load balancing with several nics for additional performance

I'm looking at many vendors and so far the only one which without major hacking - Qnap seems to offer most flexible platform with tons of developed plugin which expand functionality of NAS.... on both x86 and Arm platforms

With hardware nas, lets say 4 bay - 3 disk raid 5+hot spare. Replacing a failed drive will take seconds and rebuilt will start right from failure.

Software raid is cheap (free) , but a it's bad option since if computer fails - good luck recovering the data
(true) Hardware raid cards are expensive
Getting hot plug cages on pc is possible, but it's additional expense ....

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Oh, did I mention I have twelve 2TB HDDs (24TB storage) and one 32GB SSD (Window7 OS) inside my Antec12 case?

 

[sholling]

As others have said NAS just just a storage device that sits independently on the network. The advantage of a NAS is that the device itself usually doesn't draw a lot of electrical power.The problem with them is the decent one are usually ridiculously priced. The other problem relates to RAID5 and in the nature of RAID5 - if the NAS device dies or it's RAID controller dies your data is likely gone. As a result any critical data stored an a RAID5 array still needs to be backed up.

Adding drives to your PC or building a home server is always an option but you'll still need to back up. External RAID5 boxes come in two flavors - software RAID and hardware RAID. Software RAID5 is dependent on the RAID software not becoming corrupted and you never formatting and format and rebuilding your PC and we all know Windows never messes up . I'm a hardware RAID only guy. Hardware RAID reliability and performance is entirely dependent on the quality ($$$) of the desktop RAID box. I have an very affordable hardware RAID5 box attached to my server and reads are really fast but it's cheap RAID controller results in dog slow writes. If you go RAID5 you should stick with RAID rated drives like Western Digital "Red" drives which are pretty affordable.

I've become curious about unRAID servers. I haven't tried one out yet but they theoretically offer the data redundancy of RAID without the risk of RAID5 data loss and without the wasted disk space of RAID1 and with far better expandability than both. Again I haven't tried one out yet and have no personal experience but it looks intriguing.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

The other problem relates to RAID5 and in the nature of RAID5 - if the NAS device dies or it's RAID controller dies your data is likely gone.

I've experienced this RAID5 failure. Bad bad.

 

[sholling]

I've experienced this RAID5 failure. Bad bad.

Fortunately it's rare with good quality hardware RAID devices but it sucks big time when it happens. I'm just glad to see support for RAID5 come back to affordable ("Red") hard drives, something WD removed from their Green and Black drives years ago.

 

[itschris]

I dunno... for $300 bucks, with that Iomega unit, you're getting 4TB of storage space and a pretty nice feature set. Also, I'm not terrible concerned with backups.. Once I get this all squared away, it's not like It'll be changing all that much... maybe just my picture folder. I have no problem backing that folder up once a month or so to an external drive. Same with the other categories. Also, I have a fairly large stand up fireproof safe in the house where I currently keep my backups. Even if I had a nice computer with a high end raid setup, it's not safe from that sort of thing and I'd still have to backup anyway.

I just don't see any disadvantages...especially at that price.

 

[Hocky]

Drives do not need to "support" RAID. They have no idea what is being written to them and they don't care. Those red drives are probably more marketing than anything, but supposedly they're built more robust for continual access in a business situation - unlikely need for a media server. Any disk drive faces potential failure, including those, so you should determine what lengths you want to go to in order to minimize the risk that comes with that problem.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I dunno... for $300 bucks, with that Iomega unit, you're getting 4TB of storage space and a pretty nice feature set. Also, I'm not terrible concerned with backups.. Once I get this all squared away, it's not like It'll be changing all that much... maybe just my picture folder. I have no problem backing that folder up once a month or so to an external drive. Same with the other categories. Also, I have a fairly large stand up fireproof safe in the house where I currently keep my backups. Even if I had a nice computer with a high end raid setup, it's not safe from that sort of thing and I'd still have to backup anyway.

I just don't see any disadvantages...especially at that price.

But is 4TB really enough? Actually, it's more like 3.6TB or 3.7TB.

Just music files and 480p videos, or any BD files in the future that are 20-40GB each?

If < 4TB is all you will ever need (Music), then $300 is great.

 

[itschris]

But is 4TB really enough? Actually, it's more like 3.6TB or 3.7TB.

Just music files and 480p videos, or any BD files in the future that are 20-40GB each?

If < 4TB is all you will ever need (Music), then $300 is great.

For now... I think I have about 3.1TBs of total media data... music, movies, tv shows. I don't anticipate adding all that much in the next year or so as I really haven't even watched 75% of what I already got.

Hell... even two of those units still seems a good deal.

I believe I have room for 2...maybe 3 more internal drives in my home pc which is a newish HP. Just to make things easy... holding convenient backups aside... should I just add 3TB drives into my box and call it a day?

Also I'm wondering how do you see the two drives in the Iomega? Does it show as one location on the network as opposed to seperate drive letters if I just add HDD's?