A NAS server for my home

[phitsc]

I saw that hack but since it's going to be retired in favour of a FreeNAS solution I haven't bothered doing it.

-4wd (December 08, 2010, 08:43 PM)

Mind you, it wasn't a hack. I've implemented my own nice (though not very cheap) solution involving a PICAXE I actually had to put everything into an external casing because it didn't fit into the NAS case . But at least I now have a nice blinking LED telling me that everything is ok and that the NAS will actually power on 

[4wd]

I saw that hack but since it's going to be retired in favour of a FreeNAS solution I haven't bothered doing it.

-4wd (December 08, 2010, 08:43 PM)

Mind you, it wasn't a hack. I've implemented my own nice (though not very cheap) solution involving a PICAXE I actually had to put everything into an external casing because it didn't fit into the NAS case . But at least I now have a nice blinking LED telling me that everything is ok and that the NAS will actually power on  

-phitsc (December 09, 2010, 01:16 AM)

I was going to implement this one - 3 components, all internal.

Here's a selection for the DNS-323, if you were fortunate to have Rev.B1 hardware all you needed was a single capacitor - how easy would it have been for D-Link to include it as standard?

[dluby]

I am clearly out of my depth here with all your solutions 

So if I need my NAS solution to be able to stream videos, music & photographs to PCs, laptops, Xbox 360, PS3 (or yeah and perform backups), what protocols to I need to watch out for?  I see terms such as SMB, UPnP, DLNA, DAAP being mentioned by you, is there anything else that I should ensure whatever I buy supports it?

Thanks again.

[4wd]

I would think that the bare minimum for media streaming would be:

SMB/CIFS - Samba^w for normal network shared folder access, most likely what you'd use for normal backups.
DLNA - Digital Living Network Alliance
UPnP^w - Universal Plug'n'Play

Most Digital Media Players should support SMB/CIFS, DLNA or both - if you go for a Apple device then you'll probably have to add DAAP, (Digital Apple Anal Protocol - Bend over and take it ...errr....I mean Digital Audio Access Protocol), or iTunes Server capable, (which DAAP is a part of).

eg. Here's the configuration screen for my DNS-313 showing what protocols it can do:



Network Access = SMB/CIFS for local mapping/shared folder access.
FTP                  = FTP server, access your files from anywhere you've got net access.
UPnP AV Server = For those players that support UPnP (DLNA should fall under this).
iTunes Server    = For Apple devices.

As you can see, not much in the way of services just the necessary basics.  At the other end of the scale is something like FreeNAS which adds a few more:

[4wd]

In case you were interested in my FreeNAS setup so far:

A NAS server for my home

1 - 1GB flash drive with embedded FreeNAS OS, takes almost exactly 5 minutes to boot to a working system, probably because there are no EHCI USB drivers loaded so it's stuck at USB1.1 speeds until the OS is running.
2 - Old LiteOn IDE DVD-ROM initially used for loading FreeNAS onto the flash drive.  Could probably replace it with a HDD or just remove it.
3 - Old 160GB WD SATA HDD being used until I can afford or scrounge a bigger HDD.
4 - VIA SP8000EG EPIA motherboard with embedded 800MHz Eden CPU.
5 - Cooling fans, basically a HDD cooler cut down and then stuck in place with double-sided tape.  Also has the power input from a 44W 12V external PSU.
6 - 120W Wide Range PicuPSU, handles 12-25V input.  Probably the smallest ATX PSU you'll find, plus it's silent.
7 - Aywun MI-008 Mini-ITX case.  Normally has a 200W SFF PSU but that's a bit of overkill since the case is designed for EPIA or Atom based boards.
8 - Empty coffee cup.
9 - The PicoPSU has 1xMolex, 1xSATA and 1xFloppy power connector, I'll be changing the floppy one for a SATA connector.
10 - Power plug for the fans, I'll be changing it to run them off of 7V so they'll still be silent.
11 - A second HDD can be fitted vertically in the rails here.

The SP8000EG only has 2 SATA ports but I already had it sitting around, power usage for it is 12W idle and 18W full load.  So adding in a pair of 2TB, (or even the new 3TB HDDs), will add 12W - so the total system power will be approximately 12-14W under the power rating of the 12V external PSU.  Not bad considering the D-Link DNS-313 comes with a 36W 12V PSU.

If I was starting from scratch then I'd probably go for an Intel Atom based board like the GIGABYTE GA-D525TUD for more SATA ports and internal Gb LAN.

[Midnight Rambler]

Just to give you some ideas, I network three boxes (Win98, WinXP and Vista) using the following components:  Linksys NSLU2, Linksys WRT54GL, Zoom 5651 DSL modem, Rosewill R2-JBOD,  WD Caviar Green 1TB, WD Caviar Black 1TB, and Brother HL-2070N.

All rather old stuff now but good when it was introduced and still good now.  Bought all piecemeal over time never at full retail so cost was also reasonable. 

Linksys NSLU2 is an especially interesting network appliance that runs Linux.  It allowed WD HD's NTFS formatting.