NAS options

[teky]

It is not the backup, but the usage convenience that I am worried about. You remember the days when Sony made 500 disc players? You load it with 500 dis and you don't have to move your backside for a year at least. All you need are your fingers working on the remote. FLAC, AVIs, etc., give us that convenience on a larger scale.

If we go on collecting music and movies, we are going to run out of HDD space very quickly and very often. The question is how do we make some 10TB of HDD data available to us without too much effort?

Cheers.

Sorry if it had gone offtopic but I was purely replying about the data theft.

Interesting question there about managing 10 TB data, I'm thinking about setting up a NAS as well and will start exploring more about one's having more expandability and features.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[santhosh]

Here is another VFM 4 bay NAS by Intel which supports various types of RAID(for backups):
Amazon.com: Intel Entry Storage System SS4200-E - NAS - Serial ATA-300 - RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 - Gigabit Ethernet: Electronics

Not sure about how to protect from theft. But if it is about priceless data in the form of theft, then backups is the way to go. But then we are talking terabytes here and backups of our data would cost a lot. So George and I have decided we will share our data with friends. For Eg: I will have a copy of George's collection and he will have a copy of mine. This way, we can sleep in peace assured that our data is safe in another geographical location.

Squeezebox can run on etrayz as per below link and others in the xtreamer forums:
Squeezebox Server - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[GeorgeO]

I think the only way to avoid a catastrophic loss of data for people like us is to have the audio backed up elsewhere. With regard to video, in general once you watch something you can delete it, which is not true of audio.

George

 

[venkatcr]

With regard to video, in general once you watch something you can delete it, which is not true of audio.

George, I am one of those unfortunate few who likes to see a movie many times. Each time I see the movie, I discover something new, and believe me, I do really enjoy the movie as if I am seeing it for the first time.

Maybe I need my head examined. Sigh!

Cheers

 

[GeorgeO]

Venkat

Wow! I thought that was only true of music..

George

 

[santhosh]

Venkat

Wow! I thought that was only true of music..

George

George, it is true of videos as well. Check out this thread:
http://www.hifivision.com/movies/73...-movies-scenes-audio-pq-repeat-values-16.html

 

[stevieboy]

Not sure about how to protect from theft. But if it is about priceless data in the form of theft, then backups is the way to go. But then we are talking terabytes here and backups of our data would cost a lot. So George and I have decided we will share our data with friends. For Eg: I will have a copy of George's collection and he will have a copy of mine. This way, we can sleep in peace assured that our data is safe in another geographical location.

i selflessly volunteer to keep a backup of both your music safe and sound at my place. i shall even check it out regularly to make sure things are working ok

 

[GeorgeO]

Muchos gracias..:

George

 

[santhosh]

Lol...Sure thing Stevieboy

 

[grunthos]

Sorry if I sound like a noob, but why cant you build a regular computer with extra cooling and keep adding HDDs as and when you need it ?
The hardware costs between a 2 bay and a 4 bay model doesnt fluctuate - unlike dedicated NAS's. And there is the backup of being able to tinker with it when needed.

And if you decide to go with Windows OS on it (works fine for home usage, really) - you have the entire suite of windows applications available to run on it. Contrast with something like FreeNAS where the range of applications is arguably limited.

The downside is the larger size. But I am sure you can find some nook corner in your house where you can hide it.

I recently built myself such a computer - it works rather well
I started with a 1.5 TB drive first - have 3 more drive bays to go ...

 

[anm]

exactly. I was thinking the same. Only this with windows OS is that you have worry a lot about virus etc. what would be the price of a legitimate home server copy? Plus av?

Sorry if I sound like a noob, but why cant you build a regular computer with extra cooling and keep adding HDDs as and when you need it ?
The hardware costs between a 2 bay and a 4 bay model doesnt fluctuate - unlike dedicated NAS's. And there is the backup of being able to tinker with it when needed.

And if you decide to go with Windows OS on it (works fine for home usage, really) - you have the entire suite of windows applications available to run on it. Contrast with something like FreeNAS where the range of applications is arguably limited.

The downside is the larger size. But I am sure you can find some nook corner in your house where you can hide it.

I recently built myself such a computer - it works rather well
I started with a 1.5 TB drive first - have 3 more drive bays to go ...

 

[GeorgeO]

I'm curious-what would be the cost of a NAS based on a regular computer, adding on the cost of the WinXP license?

George

 

[teky]

It's not just the cost is it - I would think the NAS has stripped down OS just to serve the Storage purposes. Agreed it doesn't actually offer the flexibility but for what we need it serves the purpose.

We are talking around 25 K for a Mid end PC including Anti-Virus & Home Server license probably. Wouldn't this money be more wisely spent on NAS? Also I'm not sure of the power consumption & the heat generated by a Standalone PC compared to a standalone NAS

 

[GeorgeO]

Yes, I agree. A NAS is designed with limited capabilities for a specific task, so it has limited cost implications, unlike a full fledged computer. I find it extremely good for my application( audio server and backing up critical data), but then again, I dont use it as an entertainment centre or a HTPC.

George

 

[grunthos]

I'm curious-what would be the cost of a NAS based on a regular computer, adding on the cost of the WinXP license?

George

I built my system just two weeks back
Its got a Dual Core E5400, 2 GB RAM, 1.5 TB Caviar Green - on a Gigabyte GA EG41M-S2H (wanted a SPDIF/HDMI out option)

The hardware cost came to shade above 20,000 (does not include LCD, keyboard or mouse)

 

[hifiashok]

conceptually, purpose built over general purpose.

each has pros and cons, the way you approach the decision.

like, a general physician and a specialist doctor.

also, when looking at NAS, competition in the market keeps prices in check.

some brands : seagate, buffalo, iomega, linksys, lacie, etc.

questions : SATA, IDE, SCSI, iSCSI, SSD, RAID/no RAID, Mirror, etc.

 

[santhosh]

Sorry if I sound like a noob, but why cant you build a regular computer with extra cooling and keep adding HDDs as and when you need it ?

I would say the reasons are the same as to why one would rather buy a media player like Xtreamer or WD TV instead of building an HTPC. Apart from cost, some of the advantages that I see in having a NAS is that it is purpose built, consumes a fraction of the power required by a PC, smaller footprint, less noisier, does not require constant tweaking etc. Thought about all these and just bought the etrayz NAS.

 

[anm]

so basically to build a nas ourselves, we need
=> open source stable linux distro specialized for the task
=> regular tower cabinet that can house multiple hard disk, or a smaller one, as per requirement. Can be changed later as well
=> cheap/ less memory consuming motherboard+cpu combo

This micro vortex box seems interesting. It also seems to have a distro to be installed on your own machine, besides buying their appliance.

 

[NetFreak]

Even without LCD / keyboard/ mouse, cost of such a config would be around 20k.

And if you use Linux, you would not be able to use GPU in video card for movie playback. E.g. if you use VLC, it will depend on CPU for decoding and playback.

On my system (AMD Athlon XP 2400) , a 1080p movie works just fine in Vista since decoding is off loaded to GPU. CPU utilization stays near 20%. In Ubuntu, CPU utilization stays at 100% and playback is jerky.

 

[GeorgeO]

This is a most interesting thread, never imagined so much useful input could be generated from so many points of view.

George