Networked Hard Drive Solution? (NAS)

[dclee012]

Hi All,

I was wondering if anyone has had any good experience with any networked hard drives? I am speaking of hard drives which connect directly to the network via Cat5. Looking to get one sometime this year.

Some options I've seen are by WD, Maxtor, Buffalo, Linksys, Netgear, and other brands. I've read some reviews that address compatibility issues with NTFS and slow read/write times. I'm not sure if this is just a fact of the technology or because it is still an early generation product.

Comments?

[bill bolton]

Many of the existing NAS devices have Ethernet connections that top out at 100Mbbps, which soon becomes somewhat limiting in my experience (YMMV). There a few, higher end, Domestic level NAS devices that have gigabit Ethernet ports but they are not yet common or particulaly economic.

At this point in time I don't feel that the plug-and-play NAS devices are good value for money for any one into serious domestic level NAS. IMO its still a better proposition to use an old PC and something like Free NAS or ClarkConnect (or whatever) for most serious home NAS solutions. That will change undoubtably change over time.

Cheers,

Bill

[christopher_wolf]

Many of the existing NAS devices have Ethernet connections that top out at 100Mbbps, which soon becomes somewhat limiting in my experience (YMMV). There a few, higher end, Domestic level NAS devices that have gigabit Ethernet ports but they are not yet common or particulaly economic.

At this point in time I don't feel that the plug-and-play NAS devices are good value for money for any one into serious domestic level NAS. IMO its still a better proposition to use an old PC and something like Free NAS or ClarkConnect (or whatever) for most serious home NAS solutions. That will change undoubtably change over time.

Cheers,

Bill

I second this; unless you are into seriously heavy data transfer, dedicated NAS isn't going to help much. Best to use an older system then adapt it to the traffic, you will have much more diversity and horizontal growth (information diversity, where it is stored, how to get at the most oft used the fastest, etc) in a home network than vertical (storage, storage speed, etc).

HTH

[nikemen]

I just put in a 500GB drive in my desktop, set it to run all the time.

it is on the network with 1000MBS, gigabit, so in the living room, offices etc I am going 1GB of file transfer.

works great, and is accessable over a small network VPN I setup on the machine.

[daeojkim]

I third with bill_bolton. You can just get an old PC, even a pentium I or II, and use free NAS softwares to get excellent storage capabilities.

JK

[dclee012]

Thanks for the input. What exactly are the NAS softwares? Running an FTP protocol? Sharing folders?

[schen]

I had the same questions regarding putting storage on line. I have an old server that I could have used, but decided to find an alternative to putting a big box online that did nothing else. Recently I ran across the D-Link DSM-G600 (bring your own disk) NAS. It has Gigabit NIC and the ability to do wireless. Best Buy had a sale on it down to $100. Since I had a $100 gift card and a 200Gb HDD sitting around I figured what the heck? I bought it, installed it, set it up pretty much without fuss within 1 hour. Both our ThinkPad attach to it without problems. So far, so good. The only thing I don't like is that there's no "spin-down" function. Hopefully, that can be fixed in a future firmware upgrade.

[bill bolton]

Best Buy had a sale on it down to $100

Great price!

[schen]

Best Buy has it regularly at $129 which is already a pretty good deal since the list is $189 and online stores seem to sell it around $169. I walked in last weeked just to see if my local BB had one and saw that they had a special "instant rebate" (whatever that means) for $30!

Although I have no intention of using it wirelessly or as an Access Point, it's kinda neat that it has those features. I must admit though, the fan is fairly loud and I'm a little concerned with the lack of "spin-down" feature for inactivity.

[carbon_unit]

Thanks for the input. What exactly are the NAS softwares? Running an FTP protocol? Sharing folders?

Check this out. http://www.serverelements.com/naslite.php

[DIGITALgimpus]

I just run Samba... if it's good enough for many corporate IT depts... good enough for me.

[revolutionary_one]

I think the MAJOR advantage to a NAS device is the shear size and power consumption variables.

Even if you find a decent 500mhz p3 box to run as a server, you're still dedicating about 300W of power to that device, plus the amount of money you spend in cooling the heat that it outputs. Secondly, with an NAS device you've got basically no noise to deal with other than the HD's.

Other than that you've got a bulky, loud, ugly box sitting under you're desk that's not exactly great to deal with. That being said, I'd never use an NAS because: Its not powerful enough (usually ARM), its not flexible enough, its not cost efficient. But hey, its your money and your space


Cheers.

[bill bolton]

Even if you find a decent 500mhz p3 box to run as a server, you're still dedicating about 300W of power to that device

Very unlikely! A minimally configured desktop PC, which is all you need for a basic NAS box, wont draw anywhere near 300W.

got a bulky, loud, ugly box sitting under you're desk that's not exactly great to deal with

From a software point of view its little different from a commercial domestic grade NAS unit. From a hardware point of view, well PCs come in a whole range of shapes/sizes/configurations. My own PC based NAS is neither bulky, loud or ugly and sits on a bookshelf.

Cheers,

Bill

[DIGITALgimpus]

Indeed. I don't think there are many systems that draw 300W. Just because you have a 300W power supply, doesn't mean you draw that much power. That's just the max.

You can pull out most of the garbage too. Just need a HD, motherboard, ram, processor.

Mine sits under a table in another room. Has been doing so for years without incident.

[egibbs]

I'm going to buck the trend and say that I like dedicated NAS - I have 2. I also have a couple old PCs that I could convert to servers, but the NAS boxes are very small footprint, near silent, lower power consumption, and require virtually no care and feeding.

Now to the reviews.

Box 1 is a Buffalo Linkstation (160G). It runs embedded Linux and one big advantage is that it is emminently hackable - you can use it as is, or you can hack the kernel and make it a web server, add remote synch, etc. I got it a couple years ago and the firmware it came with at the start had issues - kept dropping off the network and requiring restart. A patch a month or two later fixed that and it has been rock solid since. The only problem is that it seems to have intermittent issues with Rescue and Recovery. Specifically, once you hit the limit on the number of incrementals and R&R has to concatenate the oldest backups it is hit or miss if it will work or hang. I suspect this is something to do with R&R using file handling tools that are not fully supported in Samba, but have never been able to track it down. The 160GB drive is upgradeable and you can attach up to 2 USB drives if needed.

Box 2 is a [/edit] Netgear SC-101 [/edit] - an enclosure that holds up to 2 IDE drives. I currently have single Seagate 300 GB in it, and the firmware the NAS shipped with had issues with the Seagate - it kept hanging trying to sleep the drive, which would cause every computer connected to it to hang as well. An update a couple months ago fixed that and it has been reliable since. One thing I don't like - instead of appearing as a network drive it runs some protocol which causes it to appear to be a local drive on every machine. This means you need to install the drivers on every machine, which adds complexity and leaves the machines unstable if the drive hangs. Personally I'd much rather access it as a network drive through straight TCP/IP. I'm not sure if it is hackable. The big problem with this device is speed - it is S.L.O.W. The manual that comes with it even warns about this - says the design was optimized for ease of use, not speed. They ain't lying. It takes about 30 minutes to copy a 2 GB video file to it (1 hour of broadcast TV mpeg encoded). But it's still fast enough to play the file back in real-time with no skips or pauses.

Both of my devices are on wired ethernet. Don't ask me about wireless, I don't believe in it.

Ed Gibbs

[schen]

Ed,

Have you had any heat related problems? Everything I read seemed somewhat concerned about that issue on this box.

[egibbs]

I have not had any noticeable heat problems on either box, but to tell the truth I don't really check them often. I have them tucked away in the corner of the living room, and as long as they ain't complaining I just ignore them.

Ed Gibbs

[schen]

I was looking at this box pretty seriously for a while (which is why I kept reading reviews), particularly because of it's ability to connect 2 drives internally. I was concerned about the heat issue especially if it had 2 drives inside since it doesn't have a fan. But I'd have probably bought it if I hadn't have come across the D-Link box so cheap and the fact that it has 2 USB ports that allow some expandability, plus it had a fan.

[egibbs]

I think there are definitely better choices out there now.

Ed Gibbs