Network Attached Storage (NAS)

[AcuDefTechGuy]

I'm definitely not a computer guru like some of you are.

But I've had a lot of fun building PCs the last 6 months.

Then one day I heard someone mention the word "NAS". I also heard the world “gigabit routers”.

I thought, “What the heck are NAS and gigabit routers?”

I found that NAS stood for Network Attached Storage. A gigabit router has a transfer rate limit of 1,000 mbps or 1gbps, as opposed to a regular Ethernet router which is limited to 100 mbps rate.

So I typed in “gigabit router” on Amazon.com and found a D-Link gigabit router that had great reviews. And it only cost around $75. Cool.

Then I typed in “NAS” on Amazon.com and it came up with an 8-bay (8 HDD) NAS that cost like $1,500! Not cool.

So my non-engineer, non-IT brain started clicking. How can build a cheaper NAS with even more HDD capability? How can I be different?

I did some searching on Amazon and found the ANTEC-1200 PC case for around $150. It comes with 9 HDD bays, but you can order another HDD cage ($25). This brings the total HDD capability to 12! So that’s a total of 4 HDD cages w/ 4 fans = 12 HDD bays.

The ANTEC-1200 also comes with three front 120mm fans, one 200mm top fan, and two 120mm rear fans. I bought 2 additional fans (one for Side of Case + one for Bottom of Case). There is a slot for the optional side case. But I also tied a 120mm fan to the bottom of the case blowing upward.

I would also need a motherboard ($50), 2GB RAM ($50), CPU Cooler w/ Dual 120mm fans ($50), & a PSU w/ 120mm fan ($75).

Oh, and 12 hard drives require 12 SATA ports! Yikes. I better get 2 SYBA SATA cards ($30). Each card has 4 SATA, and the MOBO has 4 SATA, which brings the total to exactly 12 SATA ports.

And since graphics cards are so cheap these days, I might as well get a $50 RADEON 5450. However, I could do without a graphics card to keep the temperature even lower since this would be used as a NAS.

So the total comes out to be $480. It’s basically another PC, but it does the job.

After the build and everything was connected to the gigabit router, it was time to do some casual testing. I copied a 45GB BD ISO file from one HDD on my primary SilverStone Crown PC to another HDD on the Antec NAS. It started out at 135 mbps and went down to about a 110 mbps!

Wow! I was impressed. I didn’t see how that was possible because the fastest rate I’ve seen from one internal HDD to another internal HDD was around 80 mbps on the same SilverStone PC!

Next was the temperature test. I left the Antec-1200 on for 48 hrs straight. All 12 HDDs were around 30 C degrees. Cool.

Including the PSU fan, this Antec has 12 fans. So how loud or quiet is it? From across the room, I cannot hear it running. My Optoma projector is the only noise I hear when I’m not watching a movie.

After I moved all my BD ISO files to the 12 HDD on the Antec, I created a shortcut for each ISO file and placed them in a VIDEO folder on the desktop, which was fast and easy. There are around 400+ shortcuts.

Now all my 400+ BDs are in alphabetical order and on ONE folder!!! All I have to do is double-click on any of the shortcuts and the BD would start on my Power DVD10 Ultra.

I'll have to take some pics and post them on my photobucket site later this week.

 

[dalessandro12]

Sounds like a monster!

How do you like PowerDVD 10 Ultra? I am debating on buy it. I don't really have that many Blu Rays yet but am building my system to be 3D compatible and ripped all my DVDs and the few Blu Rays I have to my WHS.

Also, when creating your BD ISO files, how long does it take?

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Sounds like a monster!

How do you like PowerDVD 10 Ultra? I am debating on buy it. I don't really have that many Blu Rays yet but am building my system to be 3D compatible and ripped all my DVDs and the few Blu Rays I have to my WHS.

Also, when creating your BD ISO files, how long does it take?

I use DVDFab and I usually rip only the main movie (no extras). I would say it takes about 35-45 minutes to rip a 2 hr movie to ISO.

I like PDVD10 Ultra a lot more than PDVD9 & TMT3. The DTS-HD MA & Dolby TrueHD is great on PDVD.

 

[dalessandro12]

I use DVDFab and I usually rip only the main movie (no extras). I would say it takes about 35-45 minutes to rip a 2 hr movie to ISO.

I like PDVD10 Ultra a lot more than PDVD9 & TMT3. The DTS-HD MA & Dolby TrueHD is great on PDVD.

Thanks! I use DVDFab and AnyDVD and have had good results but I usually transcode DVDs to around 1.5GB to save on disk space. Blu Rays I won't shrink because it is kind of defeating the purpose of HD (in my opinion).

Glad I didn't buy PDVD9 last year when I had issues with my OEM Blu Ray PDVD8 (or 7, whatever it came with).

 

[its phillip]

My computer is in an antec 1200. I don't really like it. It's too cramped - not as wide or as long as I would like, but that's mostly because I've got a bunch of other poop in there since it's my only complete computer. Also, the filters are a pain in the butt to clean because of all the thumbscrews on each drive cage...although I bypass that issue by only using two screws on each cage on the windowed side of the case. The window is also ugly, in my opinion.

Anyway, not really wanting to rag on your purchase, I'm just letting my experience with it out. I'm glad it's working out for you, but I would never recommend it.

For one of the nas builds I've got in mind, I'm thinking about a CM590 along with an additional pair of CM 4-in-3 drive cages, so it would also fit 12 drives - I currently have 9 hard drives in my 1200 along with 2 optical drives, 2 in my d-link dns-323, and 1 in a thermaltake blacx dock. The 590 is only $70 and the drive cages are $25 apiece. I also wouldn't mind getting a norco case and 20 drives or whatever. Either way, I can't afford either of these for awhile so they're just dreams

I definitely agree with you about going with a decent gigabit router and/or switches and all that good stuff though.

edit: i just noticed we have profanity filters, so i edited my post accordingly

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

For one of the nas builds I've got in mind, I'm thinking about a CM590 along with an additional pair of CM 4-in-3 drive cages, so it would also fit 12 drives...The 590 is only $70 and the drive cages are $25 apiece. I also wouldn't mind getting a norco case and 20 drives or whatever.

I think the Norco RPC-4220 looks interesting only because it is huge and can hold 20 HDDs. But it only holds six 80mm fans? And 4 of those 80mm fans are blowing at the 20 HDDs? Not good.

The Cooler Master Centurion 590 looks kind of like the Antec 1200. But it's only $75, as opposed to the $150 Antec? Besides the money, why would you favor the CM 590?

What would you guys put into a NAS build?

 

[its phillip]

The main reason why I favor the 590 over the 1200 is that it's toolless. The drive bays alone make it much more user-friendly. An added bonus is that if I got it just for nas purposes it can fit just as many drives as the 1200, but in a smaller case. Also, if you get 5-in-3 bays, you can fit 15 drives. You might not be able to just slide them in like you can with the 4-in-3 bays though. I'm sure you can get other bays for the 1200 as well, but you'd have to do some modifications as well.

About the norco, you can always replace the fans with better ones, but I'm pretty sure they're fine. Plenty of people at the hardforum and avsforum use it for server/mediaserver/nas builds.

 

[GlocksRock]

Please do post pics... this is something I may be interested in doing at some point. I'm also very surprised at the transfer speeds you are getting, I never really get above seventy something megs per second on my network... of course my whole gigabit network is also wired with cat5e, but I don't think that should make too much difference since my runs aren't all that long.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Please do post pics... this is something I may be interested in doing at some point. I'm also very surprised at the transfer speeds you are getting, I never really get above seventy something megs per second on my network... of course my whole gigabit network is also wired with cat5e, but I don't think that should make too much difference since my runs aren't all that long.

I uploaded some latest NAS pics on my photobucket link.

I wish we had more space to post them here, but I think I'm out of room unless I delete all my previous pics.

I plan on making my NAS a 24TB size. I need 5 more 2TB HDDs. So in about 2 months, I should complete my mission.

I guess I'll put most of those 1TB HDDs into my external HDD enclosures and back up some of the BDs.

But with a 24TB NAS, I just don't see myself needing anymore space.

I'm using cat6 cables, but I was told it wouldn't make a difference either.

 

[GlocksRock]

Can you add all those external drives to the network too via the new PC?

 

[krzywica]

I uploaded some latest NAS pics on my photobucket link.

I wish we had more space to post them here, but I think I'm out of room unless I delete all my previous pics.

I plan on making my NAS a 24TB size. I need 5 more 2TB HDDs. So in about 2 months, I should complete my mission.

I guess I'll put most of those 1TB HDDs into my external HDD enclosures and back up some of the BDs.

But with a 24TB NAS, I just don't see myself needing anymore space.

I'm using cat6 cables, but I was told it wouldn't make a difference either.

So you have all your drives spanned across one partition in JBOD or do you have each drive with its own partition?

Also what OS did you use?

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

So you have all your drives spanned across one partition in JBOD or do you have each drive with its own partition?

Also what OS did you use?

I have each drive with it's own partition.

I'm using Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Can you add all those external drives to the network too via the new PC?

Yes, I've tried/done that, but they just don't "look" very good.

Just having one 24TB NAS looks much better.

 

[jinjuku]

One thing to consider when going Gbit Ethernet is to make sure that you have a Gbit switch that supports jumbo frames (either 4096 or 8192K).

The traditional packet of 1500 bytes at Gigabit speeds creates a ton of processing overhead. Jumbo frames reduces that overhead roughly 3-6 times.

Check out my server. I am consolidating 5 existing servers to this one with a Hypervisor. It will run the phone system, Exchange/Sharepoint, Web, Customer email, File servers. That leaves me with 2 more cpu cores and I plan on running Windows Home Server on one of them. One box to run them all

8 Core AMD 6128, 16GB RAM, 8 bay SATA hotswap...

Unfortunately it looks as if the EEPROM for the IPMI (lights out management) was not programmed at the factory. Supermicro has an overnight policy for problems in the first 30 days.

IPMI is cool because it is a KVM over IP and is OS independent.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

One thing to consider when going Gbit Ethernet is to make sure that you have a Gbit switch that supports jumbo frames (either 4096 or 8192K).

The traditional packet of 1500 bytes at Gigabit speeds creates a ton of processing overhead. Jumbo frames reduces that overhead roughly 3-6 times.

This grasshopper (that's me ) has much learn.

But can using a Jumbo-Frame supported Gigabit Switch (9,000 bytes) increase the speed of file transfer (copying files)?

What is the major advantage for getting a Gigabit Switch?

I must now go to google and read about Jumbo frames & gigabit switch.

 

[jinjuku]

This grasshopper (that's me ) has much learn.

But can using a Jumbo-Frame supported Gigabit Switch (9,000 bytes) increase the speed of file transfer (copying files)?

What is the major advantage for getting a Gigabit Switch?

I must now go to google and read about Jumbo frames & gigabit switch.

Pure speed. For my home stuff DVD/BR it doesn't matter since that amount of data isn't going to saturate even a 100Mbps pipe.

I assume that there would be a marginal improvement in xfer since there is less overhead to deal with (error checking and packatization of data). It's CPU cycles that you are preserving.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

Pure speed. For my home stuff DVD/BR it doesn't matter since that amount of data isn't going to saturate even a 100Mbps pipe.

I assume that there would be a marginal improvement in xfer since there is less overhead to deal with (error checking and packatization of data). It's CPU cycles that you are preserving.

Okay, so I have a D-Link 655 Wireless Gigabit Router (for 5 other wireless PCs). I assume this does not support Jumbo Frame (9Kb).

So I should connect one of the ethernet outputs from the D-link router to a Jumbo-Frame Switch and then use the output ports on the Switch to connect to all my wired PCs?

Oh, wait. Or should I connect the original ethernet cable directly from the modem to this Switch, then send one of the output to my Wireless Router and the rest to the wired PCs?

 

[jinjuku]

Okay, so I have a D-Link 655 Wireless Gigabit Router (for 5 other wireless PCs). I assume this does not support Jumbo Frame (9Kb).

So I should connect one of the ethernet outputs from the D-link router to a Jumbo-Frame Switch and then use the output ports on the Switch to connect to all my wired PCs?

Oh, wait. Or should I connect the original ethernet cable directly from the modem to this Switch, then send one of the output to my Wireless Router and the rest to the wired PCs?

The first question to ask: What is Gigabit Ethernet going to do for you day to day that 100mpbs ethernet isn't?

Most likely that D-Link doesn't support jumbo frames. I would put the Gigabit switch at the hub of everything. You should be going Modem->Router->Switch. With all the computers wired to the switch.

 

[AcuDefTechGuy]

The first question to ask: What is Gigabit Ethernet going to do for you day to day that 100mpbs ethernet isn't?

Most likely that D-Link doesn't support jumbo frames. I would put the Gigabit switch at the hub of everything. You should be going Modem->Router->Switch. With all the computers wired to the switch.

Thanks!

Inexperienced computer grasshoppers like me need a flow sheet of EVERYTHING.

Next question:
I was looking at these Jumbo Frame Gigabit Switches:

http://www.amazon.com/SMC-Networks-SMC8508T-Unmanaged-Mountable/dp/B0000AKA95/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_cart_1

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000AKA94/ref=ord_cart_shr?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER

What do you think?

 

[GlocksRock]

I have the d-link DIR-655 as well, it's a great router... I'm also using 2 8 port d-link gigabit switches, with d-link gigabit cards in my 2 media pc's... everything runs great.