ranjeetrain
New Member
Those are excellent drives. They drive much better than their Seagate and WD counterparts.
My Windows based NAS using Flexraid - haisaikat
- Thread starter haisaikat
- Start date
Those are excellent drives. They drive much better than their Seagate and WD counterparts.
I could not find the Red series either. I tried the WD 3tb ones (EZRX), and they seem to have a high failure rate. Two out of four failed for me. I am now going to try out the 4tb Seagate Hdd ripped from Backup Plus enclosure.
Here is some more update, although I do not do torrent downloading yet utorrent is my favourite in this case being lightweight and free of any spyware. If anyone is planning to build a Windows NAS and planning to run utorrent in it then there is no need to login to the NAS box (even via RDC) to add or control torrents. uTorrent has a setting in its Preferences to enable a lightweight WEB GUI which has practically all the feature support of the windows UI and can be opened from any browser on the same network may be another laptop or a tab or even a cell phone browser. Some screenshots below
Enabling the WEB GUI, note that I have posted the setting page from the WEB UI but first time one needs to do this from the window UI. The Web UI can be accessed as http://<host>:<port>/gui
Adding a Torrent from Web UI
Controlling a torrent by the context menu (right click)
Enabling the WEB GUI, note that I have posted the setting page from the WEB UI but first time one needs to do this from the window UI. The Web UI can be accessed as http://<host>:<port>/gui
Adding a Torrent from Web UI
Controlling a torrent by the context menu (right click)
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That is great to know manniraj, using this torrent downloader gives way above flexibility over the built in torrent add-on of my old DNS323 NAS where downloads could not be prioritized and no individual torrent level setting.
Another thing I forgot to mention is that for anroid devices there is a utorrent remote app which lets you monitor your utorrent downloads at home anytime from anywhere as long as you have a bare minimum GPRS connection
https://remote.utorrent.com/
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.utorrent.web&hl=en
Another thing I forgot to mention is that for anroid devices there is a utorrent remote app which lets you monitor your utorrent downloads at home anytime from anywhere as long as you have a bare minimum GPRS connection
https://remote.utorrent.com/
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.utorrent.web&hl=en
Here are the results of running the Intel NAS Performance Toolkit, ran from a GBLan connected Laptop via the router's switch with the NAS. I mapped a shared folder on the NAS drive on the laptop and began the test. Had only 82 GB free on the NAS drive.
HD Video Playback - 1 Stream
HD Video Playback - 2 Streams
HD Video Playback - 4 Streams
HD Video Recording - 1 Stream
HD Video 1 Stream Recording + 1 Stream Playback
Content Creation
Office Productivity
File Copy to NAS
File Copy from NAS
Directory Copy to NAS
Directory Copy from NAS
Photo Album
HD Video Playback - 1 Stream
HD Video Playback - 2 Streams
HD Video Playback - 4 Streams
HD Video Recording - 1 Stream
HD Video 1 Stream Recording + 1 Stream Playback
Content Creation
Office Productivity
File Copy to NAS
File Copy from NAS
Directory Copy to NAS
Directory Copy from NAS
Photo Album
I have finally settled with Serviio as the UPNP Media Server for my NAS since its free version serves almost all purpose including on the fly transcoding of video and audio and makes everything play on my Panasonic Viera Plasma TV (although Panasonic manual says Twonky but I faced some severe problems with Twonky for ffmpeg transcoding). Now I turn on my HTPC only if needed and for all casual viewing like TV Shows or Music Videos or SD Movies I am using the TV-s built in DLNA player.
I will post later (either here or on a separate thread) on the features of Serviio and its comparison with Twonky and Media Monkey that I had tried.
I will post later (either here or on a separate thread) on the features of Serviio and its comparison with Twonky and Media Monkey that I had tried.
So two people read the same forums and came to the same conclusion regarding an ideal NAS.
I built a NAS with the following config
AMD FX 4100 3.6 Ghz
Asus M5A88-M motherboard
WD Caviar Blue 500 GB HDD
Seagate Barracuda 3 TB HDD x 2
Corsair CMPSU-600CX
Corsair Vengeance DDR3 4 GB
NZXT Source 210 Elite
(all except for the NZXT bought from flipkart)
The NZXT was chosen because it has 8x3.5" drive bays. It also has 3x5.25" bays. Of course, the M5A88-M only has 6 SATA ports, so I am still figuring out how to accommodate more than 6 drives
I installed Windows 7 on the 500 GB and installed FlexRaid
I used one 3 TB as a parity drive and the other for storage. I already had 2x2TB drives from an older computer, which are also used for storage.
But I did not do storage pooling like haisaikat did. I wanted to keep drives separate - one for movies, one for tvshows and so on. All the 3 drives are shared
I have the NAS connected by LAN cable to my WiFi N router.
My HTPC is connected to the network using WiFi
The reasons for using a Windows based config was exactly the same as haisaikat's - no time or energy to learn Unix and the flexibility of Windows. You can use torrents or JDownloader or media server or an SQL server if you so wanted
My data speeds over WiFi are nowhere close to what you get over Gigabit LAN. I get about 6 Mbps between the HTPC and the NAS. It works perfectly for streaming 720p or 1080p
I had been toying with the idea of a media server. Thanks for the heads up on Serviio. Will give it a shot.
[Edit] Today morning I was copying something to the laptop and I got speeds of 8 Mbps [/Edit]
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Congrats grunthos, enjoy your new machine and do post some pics.
Regarding your other points my take below
1. You can expand for more sata ports b adding a separate pci e raid card with more sata ports. I guess you can also decide to keep some of the drives mobile by using usb ports. Also pay attention to hard disk temperature control.
2. If you are still using the trial flexraid then remeber that if you do purchase the license, it takes upto a week for them to email the key.
3. Remember that a media server should be chosen depending on the clients it needs to serve, in my case it was serviio since it was best in terms of making my pana tv play almost all videos. Otherwise twonky is also good. Same for plex.
Sent from my Veedee E10 using Tapatalk 2
Regarding your other points my take below
1. You can expand for more sata ports b adding a separate pci e raid card with more sata ports. I guess you can also decide to keep some of the drives mobile by using usb ports. Also pay attention to hard disk temperature control.
2. If you are still using the trial flexraid then remeber that if you do purchase the license, it takes upto a week for them to email the key.
3. Remember that a media server should be chosen depending on the clients it needs to serve, in my case it was serviio since it was best in terms of making my pana tv play almost all videos. Otherwise twonky is also good. Same for plex.
Sent from my Veedee E10 using Tapatalk 2
Hey,
I actually built my rig around end of Aug. Its been a sweet 4 months so far
1. Thanks for the info about PCI-E card with SATA ports. Right now I have used only about 4.5 GB out of my 7GB plugged in, so I dont need the extra SATA ports in a hurry
2. I bought Flexraid from day ONE. I lost two hard drives in crashes within 2 weeks of each other (I was being a cheapo and using the PSU that came with my old noname case, which wasnt able to power the 3 drives). Data from one was recovered at okayish cost. The other one needed to recovered destructively - platter by platter - which was working out too expensive, and I lost all the data on it. That spurred me to build the whole NAS with data backup built in - I am not taking chances with data again. (I also learnt my lesson and used good components and a powerful PSU)
3. Since my primary mode of consumption is an HTPC (running XBMC over Win7), I dont really need a media server. Its more a cool thing to try out - or maybe it will be a thing to show off to friends when they are over at our place. Fortunately me and wife are usually on the same page as to what to watch in the evenings
, so the HTPC works out really well Serviio is trawling through my library as we speak. Once its done refreshing, I will check it if it works as it should
What software do you use to track hard drive temperatures ?
For measuring hdd temperature you can use the options given in flexraid control panel. Those are more than sufficient. Check the last two images on my first post of this thread
However for read or write throughput tests try Intel NAS Performance Toolkit, my results are in this post
Sent from my Galaxy Pro Duos via Tapatalk
However for read or write throughput tests try Intel NAS Performance Toolkit, my results are in this post
Sent from my Galaxy Pro Duos via Tapatalk
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sam9s
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No question of hurting any sentiments Bro, absolutely valid points, and I support you on this all the way. Finally one member with me on the DIY NAS family. I have been waiting for like ages for some member from Hifi to join me in the DIY NAS catagory (DIY HTPC loads but not DIY NAS).
I would like to add or infact confirm few points in addition to what you wrote ...
1. Native USB drive support is not out of the box provided by unraid, so thats one supposedly questionable drawback. but for me it was not an issue as I used to connect my USB drive to USB 3 port of my laptop or PC and then access it via Unraid (on Cat5e), giving me blazing copy speeds.(50MBps + all the time)
2. There was no compatibility issue with any media server I installed. I used PLEX, Serviio and SqueezeBox server all worked in one simple go. However SBS is the one I stuck, coz of its performance and compatibility.
Video streaming is something I do not do on internet (i.e from out side my LAN), so PLEX and Serviio took a back seat. for Audio streaming SBS worked best.
3. Custom transcoding did require to install LAME on Unraid and yes it did require to run few commands on Unix command line, but tweaking was simple as that was done via SBS itself.
4. FTP and infact SFPT are natively supported by Unraid. no configurations required, but yes I agree with you on the other aspect of TP plgins requiring the same Unix familiarity.
5. Absolutely valid points, Unraid is headless server (infact most of NAS boxes are) so you cannot use it for anything else except for what it offers as a NAS media box (Synology Diskstation simply excels in this department.)
I am in the process of writing a comprehensive review and product dissection of my next NAS project which is a prebuilt NAS by Synology (DS 413j) and I must say, infact request and insist people looking for a NAS to build (who do not want to take DIY route), to wait for my insight on that product. It is simply mind-blowing. The level of things and out of the box customization DSM 4.1 on DS offers is purely commendable, and most of it would take ages n ages to configure on any DIY NAS.
Plus there are things you can do with DS, which I could not even dream of achieving on my Unraid. Wait for it ......
I was about to suggest you Serviio over Twonky, but I guess you found it. Do you use UPnP for video streaming?, I mean for audio I understand, but for Videos, I have always preferred my HTPC with XBMC. If over the internet (out side your LAN) is what you stream videos to, then my question would be, are you able to stream videos smoothly.? I couldnt...... even though my upload is 1mbps and 3G is 3-4Mbps, I still could not make even a low bit rate DVD rip stream flawlessly with either Serviio or PLEX from my office.
One more suggestion, if you are running multiple UPnP servers do try Bubble UPnp on your NAS. First It combines all UPnP servers running in one package. and second more imp, foobar supports UPnP streaming from internet (outside your LAN) with Bubble UPnP. So yo can stream audio via foobar on Bubble UPnP.
Manniraj, I seriously suggest to go for a prebuilt NAS like the diskstation, if you do feel a bit uneasy on all that configuration part. As I said I have been using DS413j extensively as I have to write a professional review on it, I now almost know the in and out of the product (very much like I know for Unraid), so ita very Unbiased, sincere suggestion, go for a pre built NAS.
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Yes Sam whenever I get the sufficient moolah :lol: will surely consider the pre-built NAS route. Eagerly waiting for your write up on the Synology.
Thanks
@sam, I too soon will be joining you guys on the DIY NAS. I am going with unRaid and I got all parts bought and delivered. Now, I need to find time to put all together between my work and son
Again thanks Sam for the wonderful write up on unRaid and @haisaikat thanks for this wonderful thread on flexraid. I thought about it a lot and finally went with unRaid , one reason being little bit more geeky
Again thanks Sam for the wonderful write up on unRaid and @haisaikat thanks for this wonderful thread on flexraid. I thought about it a lot and finally went with unRaid , one reason being little bit more geeky
Even I have found custom transcoding unless supported out of the box is time taking to get to working in these servers, I dropped Twonky since after hours of speding behind it to configure custom transcoding I found that it spawns several child ffmpeg processes and never terminates them, one for each playback and that too including previews. Serviio was way better in supporting these out of the box with ffmpeg (no seprate install required) but one thing that I found to be better in twonky was its speed of adding files in the library, kind of instant if I share a path with lot of videos / audio. But in Serviio it take around aminute for individual movies at least (2 GB files). So far I can live with that since this is one time. I have pointed the temp folder of Serviio to a 16 GB Pen Drive for the time being until I fully figure out how on-the-fly transcoding will impact SSD life.
I do not do any streaming outside lan. But the main reason to install a separate media server was to make my Panasonic TV-s in built UPNP player work since the TV was already on my LAN. I opted for this since to me for casual viewing of SD content like TV Series and Regional Movies or Cartoon it seems to me a lot putting HTPC on, along with keeping Denon AVR on standby to allow passthrough of the video signal (HTPC is connected to AVR directly). Hence I thought keeping going the media server option which would also imply using only 1 PC (NAS only) at these times instead of 2. I agree that PQ with XBMC is far better.
I have bubble UPNP on my Veedee tab and Adroid cell phone where I use it for browing contenst shared by NAS but never used it as a stand alone Server. Will use it surely. On tabs it is just media browser but does not play all things on its own and prompts to use another external player , I use Rock Player mostly for cell phone (in conjunction with Bubble-UNP) and aVia player stand alone on Tablet.
No question of hurting any sentiments Bro, absolutely valid points, and I support you on this all the way. Finally one member with me on the DIY NAS family. I have been waiting for like ages for some member from Hifi to join me in the DIY NAS catagory (DIY HTPC loads but not DIY NAS).
I would like to add or infact confirm few points in addition to what you wrote ...
1. Native USB drive support is not out of the box provided by unraid, so thats one supposedly questionable drawback. but for me it was not an issue as I used to connect my USB drive to USB 3 port of my laptop or PC and then access it via Unraid (on Cat5e), giving me blazing copy speeds.(50MBps + all the time)
2. There was no compatibility issue with any media server I installed. I used PLEX, Serviio and SqueezeBox server all worked in one simple go. However SBS is the one I stuck, coz of its performance and compatibility.
Video streaming is something I do not do on internet (i.e from out side my LAN), so PLEX and Serviio took a back seat. for Audio streaming SBS worked best.
3. Custom transcoding did require to install LAME on Unraid and yes it did require to run few commands on Unix command line, but tweaking was simple as that was done via SBS itself.
4. FTP and infact SFPT are natively supported by Unraid. no configurations required, but yes I agree with you on the other aspect of TP plgins requiring the same Unix familiarity.
5. Absolutely valid points, Unraid is headless server (infact most of NAS boxes are) so you cannot use it for anything else except for what it offers as a NAS media box (Synology Diskstation simply excels in this department.)
I am in the process of writing a comprehensive review and product dissection of my next NAS project which is a prebuilt NAS by Synology (DS 413j) and I must say, infact request and insist people looking for a NAS to build (who do not want to take DIY route), to wait for my insight on that product. It is simply mind-blowing. The level of things and out of the box customization DSM 4.1 on DS offers is purely commendable, and most of it would take ages n ages to configure on any DIY NAS.
Plus there are things you can do with DS, which I could not even dream of achieving on my Unraid. Wait for it ......
I was about to suggest you Serviio over Twonky, but I guess you found it. Do you use UPnP for video streaming?, I mean for audio I understand, but for Videos, I have always preferred my HTPC with XBMC. If over the internet (out side your LAN) is what you stream videos to, then my question would be, are you able to stream videos smoothly.? I couldnt...... even though my upload is 1mbps and 3G is 3-4Mbps, I still could not make even a low bit rate DVD rip stream flawlessly with either Serviio or PLEX from my office.
One more suggestion, if you are running multiple UPnP servers do try Bubble UPnp on your NAS. First It combines all UPnP servers running in one package. and second more imp, foobar supports UPnP streaming from internet (outside your LAN) with Bubble UPnP. So yo can stream audio via foobar on Bubble UPnP.
Manniraj, I seriously suggest to go for a prebuilt NAS like the diskstation, if you do feel a bit uneasy on all that configuration part. As I said I have been using DS413j extensively as I have to write a professional review on it, I now almost know the in and out of the product (very much like I know for Unraid), so ita very Unbiased, sincere suggestion, go for a pre built NAS.
Can you share where and how much you bought the DS413j for? I am thinking of adding another one, wondering if its available locally.
sam9s
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Sent you a PM for that .....
vizeta
Active Member
Could you please share the same with me?
I checked the price at Amzon.es. It is available for aprrox 22.2K. However per piece price is getting reduced when order multiple quantities.
sam9s
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^^ Would you be interested in a month old ds212j that I have on sale on this thread..
http://www.hifivision.com/sale-owner/32252-htpc-nas-synology-ds212j.html
http://www.hifivision.com/sale-owner/32252-htpc-nas-synology-ds212j.html
vizeta
Active Member
Thanks for the offer Sam !!!
But I am more interested in 4 bay NAS.
Researching to get a deal for 413J
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