A NAS server for my home

[dluby]

Hi,

I was thinking of buying a NAS for at home but I've no experience with them and I'm looking for advice.

I'll give you some background on my needs:

I have a video, music and photograph collection that I would like to be able to share at home with my family (2 PCs,  three laptops and a smartphone).  I'd also like to be able to access the NAS from the internet (read/write).  I don't have eSATA or USB 3.0.

Ideally I'd like one that has 2GB+ storage.  ON my first search I came across this product from Seagate: http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/external/external-hard-drive/desktop-hard-drive/

If anybody has advice of what to buy (or look out for), I'd appreciate it.

Thanks

[40hz]

Take a look at PogoPlug.  

It's inexpensive, web-enabled, and works really well. Storage capacity is up to you. Just plug in one or two USB external drives with whatever capacity you feel you need.

There are a bunch of video reviews up on YouTube where you can see it in action.

Shop around for it too. Some places offer it at discount. The Pink version is an absolute steal if you don't need built-in wifi. It can always be added later for about $30 should you change your mind. If you already have a WAP/Router combo, you don't really need it.

I love this little gadget.  

[edbro]

Does the Pogo have a media server running on it? I've heard a lot of good things about the pogos.

I have an older HP Mediavault. I love it but my version is limited in it's expansion capability. It maxes out at 2 TB. Sounds like a lot until you start filling it up. There are newer versions that handle more capacity. They are Linux based and have media streaming capability. No wifi as far as I know.

[40hz]

^Yes, it does stream.  I've only played with that feature a bit so I can't vouch how good it works in a production setting. It is, however, one of their big marketing claims and I haven't read of any major problems with it. About the only complaint I did hear was a while back and concerned stuttering issues when streaming music and video to an XBox via wifi.

When I briefly noodled with it, steaming media worked fine for me. But I was also on a gigabit LAN connection so there shouldn't be any surprise there. My day-to-day use for Pogo is as a repository for software. That and my technical library in PDF format.

Kinda boring, but that's me. 

[4wd]

I just started playing with FreeNAS, (mainly for data backup - I don't have anything to stream to....yet), and I have to say that it was exceptionally easy to get going.

An unused EPIA SP8000EG with 1GB DDR, booting off of a old 1GB Flash drive with, (currently), an old 160GB SATA HDD as storage, (encrypted UFS for which it's using the dedicated AES hardware on the motherboard).  About the only time I had to refer to the docs was to find out what the default user/password was  

EDIT: Oh yeah, it's also equipped with a Gb LAN card so it actually gets 40MB/s transfer rate as opposed to my DLink DNS-313 Gb interface which gets 3MB/s and a friends QNAP Dual Bay NAS whose Gb interface manages to get 10MB/s.

[JavaJones]

No specific product recommendations from me, but a few warnings. 1: I've had bad luck with Seagate external drives, but good luck with Western Digital. 2: Bad luck with a Lacie RAID-in-a-box device. Multiple drive failure, poor support.

Just my 2 cents, anecdotal evidence at best.

- Oshyan

[cranioscopical]

steaming media worked fine for me

Smokin'! 

[40hz]

^How'd you know I was watching Angelina?. 

[dluby]

Thank you all for your input.

I prefer the idea of a having my own harddrives solution rather than the idea of PogoPlug (but isn't that a cunning solution?).

Another consideration I have is power consumption, I don't want to have something that chews up power!

The next problem I have is how to convince my wife that I need to buy one 

[Perry Mowbray]

I bought my Synology a couple of years ago now: Synology DS207+ NAS and have had no problems with it or the Seagate drives; in fact I'm pretty happy with it!

I was concerned with wasting power too, and I set it up to shut down overnight.

Convincing my wife was easy, it's set up as a RAID1 and is an important part of my backup strategy.

[Gwen7]

The next problem I have is how to convince my wife that I need to buy one  

i suggest you try, as best you can, to think like a woman:

first, contemplate why you need a new server. come up with sufficient reason to buy a new NAS.

next, convince yourself it is something that absolutely needs to be done in order to make things better and happier for everyone in your home. take your time getting there. this step is absolutely crucial so make sure you are completely convinced of the 'rightness' of what you want to do.

next, try having a rational discussion about the merits of upgrading and see if you can get her on the same page as you.

if that fails, wait a week...

then unplug it.

tell her it's broken.  ;-)

p.s. i own two pogoplugs. i can very much recommend them. one gets used for its intended purpose  the other has been rooted and reconfigured as a LAMP server. this way i can experiment with all my wordpress things before i use them to break my real website.  :-))

[edbro]

You don't need to convince the wife. Simply order it, receive tracking number, track shipment, send wife to spa on delivery day. Hide NAS behind bookshelf. bada bing!

[CWuestefeld]

I've had a D-Link DNS-321 for about two years, and I'm quite happy with it. It comes empty, with space for two drives, so you can easily get 2TB into it. I have 2 1TB drives in a RAID configuration for safety, because it's where I keep all my photos and that kind of irreplaceable stuff.

Its primary purpose was media storage, but I've had a heck of a time getting the whole system (including client-side) working the way I want. I only just recently got it right.

I started off using XBMC on an old XBox and a Netbook, but neither could quite handle H264 video at full framerate. My XBox died, which spurred me to replacing my DVR with a new DirecTV HR-24, but it turns out that this device can only do UPnP, not read from SMB. I tried using TVersity (running on my domain controller) to transcode and serve the media, but this didn't work very well, as TVersity has all kinds of compatibility problems.

My eventual solution was to replace both clients with dedicated hardware devices. I chose the Prodigi PD-100N because it's the only such device I could find that can read from SMB. This is now working wonderfully. It can play any kind of media I can throw at it (JPG photos; MP3 audio; H264 and DivX video, etc.) at full 1080p.

[johnk]

I just started playing with FreeNAS, (mainly for data backup - I don't have anything to stream to....yet), and I have to say that it was exceptionally easy to get going.

An unused EPIA SP8000EG with 1GB DDR, booting off of a old 1GB Flash drive with, (currently), an old 160GB SATA HDD as storage, (encrypted UFS for which it's using the dedicated AES hardware on the motherboard).

Another alternative in this scenario is NASLite, which I've used for years. It will run on more or less any old kit you have lying around. I didn't have any old kit when I built my first NAS five years ago, so I bought an old motherboard, a Celeron 700MHz processor (release date June 2000!) and 256MB RAM, less than £20 all-in, and it ran without problems until recently, when the power supply died. Rebuilding it now with slightly newer kit! NASLite is a bullet-proof, easy-to-use Linux-based file server OS for $29. Runs headless, so you can just stick it in a cupboard and forget about it.

[4wd]

Another alternative in this scenario is NASLite, which I've used for years. It will run on more or less any old kit you have lying around.

I had a quick look at NASLite2 when I was wondering what to play with for my own NAS, (which will hopefully work out to be a silent sub-60W w/ 4TB unit), but it didn't seem to support DLNA which a large number of media players support, (plus it costs money and I'm a cheapskate   ).

FreeNAS also had a BT client and I can install SABnzbd on it for Usenet so that kind of pushed me in that direction also.

[40hz]

MaximumPC published a step-by-step article about a year ago you might find helpful if you do go the DIY route and opt for FreeNAS.

Back in the day, the average nerd household had one or two computers, a printer, and a game console. If you were lucky, you had an Internet connection on one of those computers—forget about the printer; forget about the console. And forget about home networking. But now, the average geek household has a multitude of machines: desktop computers, laptops, netbooks, Wi-Fi-enabled smartphones, and networked game consoles—not to mention terabytes of ripped movies, music, and photos. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a central location where all of those files lived that was accessible to all your computing devices? A place where you could back up all of your computers, host your media files for streaming to your console or other computers, and use as a file share for your whole network? Yes. Yes, it would.

A few months ago, we showed you how to set up a Windows Home Server to enable such a scenario. But a Windows Home Server license costs 100 bucks, and doesn’t necessarily play well with non-Windows machines. FreeNAS, on the other hand, is a free, open-source FreeBSD derivative, and though it can be a little more complex under the hood, it’s as powerful as Windows Home Server and runs well on salvaged hardware. And FreeNAS plays well with Windows, Apple, and *nix systems.

We’ll show you what hardware you’ll need for a FreeNAS server, how to install and configure your server, and then help you choose between FreeNAS and WHS. 

Link to full article here. Printer friendly version here.


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You might also want to take a look at Lime Tech's website.

Lime Tech is the developer behind the unRAID Server. Their website is a trove of good info because they freely share specific details (i.e. mobo choice,  power supply, etc.) of their server products. Since they use off-the-shelf components, you could either duplicate their setups, or use them as the basis for further research for your own build.

Check out the spec for their RB-1200 Server which can accommodate up to 12 2TB-SATA/SATAII drives for a total of 22TB of usable storage in a standard midtower case. Scary!

[CleverCat]

dluby - if I was your wife  I wouldn't need convincing! I love organization....

[johnk]

I had a quick look at NASLite2 when I was wondering what to play with for my own NAS, (which will hopefully work out to be a silent sub-60W w/ 4TB unit), but it didn't seem to support DLNA which a large number of media players support

NASLite-M2 is the dedicated media streaming version of NASLite, covering UPNP, DAAP etc. Quote from NASLite-M2 product page: "UPNP streaming is enhanced by profiles targeting DLNA, XBOX, PS3 and Generic media clients directly".

[phitsc]

I have the Synology DS207+ as well and am also very happy with it. It works very well, is reliable, comfortable to set up and use. The company left a very good impression as well. They are providing regular SW updates, also for older models. And they seem to really care about reliability. If they release SW that still has a problem they usually fix it very quickly. There are only two problems I have with it: although I think it has the feature to shut down on a schedule, it can't restart on a schedule any more. The newer models do that though. The other is that I'd like to have a better network backup solution. And I mean backup from the NAS to some other server. Although it can do that and does it well, I'd like to have something more Time-machine-like.

I have the D-Link DNS-321 as well, but was very disappointed about the reliability and frequency of SW updates. I'm using it as a backup server now (i.e. I backup from the Synology to the D-Link). I can well imagine though that it is reliable now, as the product is already quite long into the market and I'd expect the initial problems to be fixed.

I was concerned with wasting power too, and I set it up to shut down overnight.

Perry, how do you restart it?

[Perry Mowbray]

I was concerned with wasting power too, and I set it up to shut down overnight.

Perry, how do you restart it?

It's got this nifty little thing at the front that glows blue when you click it on which I do when I boot my computer  ... I was thinking of leaving it on all the time but in the end I didn't use it's webserver, so don't need it on all the time.

I probably wouldn't use the scheduled restart, as I'm just using to store files mainly. Actually, when my wife boots the computer she never starts the NAS (is this evidence that there IS a thing between wives and NAS's  )

Though I did wonder about setting up the media streaming (as we get content free internet radio which is better quality than over the air). Have you looked into that?

[4wd]

I have the D-Link DNS-321 as well, but was very disappointed about the reliability and frequency of SW updates.

I concur with this, I have the DNS-313 and frankly it's put me off buying D-Link hardware.

Frequency of firmware updates is non-existent and introduce more bugs - they also depend on what version of the hardware you have but don't have the courtesy to tell you in the firmware notes which version it's for.
Emails to D-Link unanswered.

Also little things like not being able to power on to standby at power restoration after a power failure - it's a NAS for heavens sake.  One of a NAS' main functions is backups and the damn thing can't recover from a power failure to continue it's main function.

[phitsc]

Also little things like not being able to power on to standby at power restoration after a power failure - it's a NAS for heavens sake.  One of a NAS' main functions is backups and the damn thing can't recover from a power failure to continue it's main function.

Yes, that was a problem for me as well. I've actually modified the HW for it to auto-power on when mains comes back. I have it on an auto-timer now that powers in on once a week to do network backup from the Synology to the DLink. Then a cron-job powers it down again once everything _should_ be complete.

[phitsc]

Though I did wonder about setting up the media streaming (as we get content free internet radio which is better quality than over the air). Have you looked into that?

I use the media streaming to watch photos and videos via PS3 on my TV. I've also installed the official Squeeze Server plugin to access my music library from my stereo.

The reason for me to leave it running is that I have the NAS in the basement somewhere. And I don't want to go there to turn it on when I want to listen to music in the living room. I'm never listening between say 2 and 6 in the morning though (and also don't access any files), so it could be switched off during that time which I would do if the NAS could turn back on by itself. The NAS actually can turn on by itself when mains comes back, but only after a power outage, not after regular shut down, and I'd rather not cut power on purpose As I said, all the newer models can also turn on on a schedule.

[CWuestefeld]

Also little things like not being able to power on to standby at power restoration after a power failure - it's a NAS for heavens sake.  One of a NAS' main functions is backups and the damn thing can't recover from a power failure to continue it's main function.

This feature was added in the most recent firmware update for the DNS-321 (which I think was like a year ago).

I was concerned with wasting power too, and I set it up to shut down overnight.

The DNS-321 can be configured to sleep the hard drives when unused for a given timespan. However, they take a long time to wake up, so my client software would frequently timeout, so I disabled the sleep feature.

[4wd]

The DNS-321 can be configured to sleep the hard drives when unused for a given timespan. However, they take a long time to wake up, so my client software would frequently timeout, so I disabled the sleep feature.

Believe or not, but that feature actually worked OK on DNS-313 and SyncBack waited long enough for the drive to spin up, (~10s), when doing a backup.  Mind you, it took 2 firmware upgrades to get it to work reliably, (most of the time).

I've actually modified the HW for it to auto-power on when mains comes back.

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