New Buisness: Network Attached storage

[naviworks]

i do not understand your question

i wanted to connect wifi N router to the NAS through physical connection (wired) and then connect other devices like media player, pc, laptop, xbox 360 wirelessly, so that these devices can access data from the NAS...any suggestions?

i have this wifi card

fitted on my popcorn hour c-200 specifically for wireless streaming only...

No you cannot. ZFS is not supported by windows, atleast not natively

so if i want to add a new hard drive to the nas how to format it in ZFS? or is it like straightaway plug the new drive into the nas and it will get automatically formatted in ZFS?

I will inquire. give me some time

take your time and when you are ready just PM me a quotation for the setup, in the mean time i ll start refreshing my contacts to explore the possibility of getting the enclosure and mobo from USA...

 

[vaibhavyagnik]

i wanted to connect wifi N router to the NAS through physical connection (wired) and then connect other devices like media player, pc, laptop, xbox 360 wirelessly, so that these devices can access data from the NAS...any suggestions?

Perfectly doable. Please PM me all the the list of devices and their models including router so that i can get a better idea of you network

i have this wifi card

fitted on my popcorn hour c-200 for wireless streaming only...

so if i want to add a new hard drive to the nas how to format it in ZFS? or is it like straightaway plug the new drive into the nas and it will get automatically formatted in ZFS?

you first have to connect the drive. The drive will appear in GUI (web interface) of freenas. From here you can format and use it as you like. One thing to note over here is that you cannot swap connect this drive to your windows machine. windows wont recognize the file system and will ask you to format

take your time and when you are ready just PM me a quotation for the setup, in the mean time i ll start refreshing my contacts to explore the possibility of getting the enclosure and mobo from USA...

ok

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Other options are powerline networking, but they are very much dependent on electrical layout in your specific home, so you won't know if it will work for you unless you try it.

On a quick Google I couldn't find any statement of what wiring topologies this will, or will not, work with. It seems it is capable of propagating signals to neighbouring houses, so I guess it will spread via the connections centred on the distribution box.

Bear in mind, though, that Indian houses are routinely connected to three-phase power supplies. It isn't going to work over more than one phase, surely! This is not a problem that would be considered for domestic kit in UK, as residential houses are just-about-never connected to more than one phase, and I suspect the same is true of USA.

Interesting, but not very positive review from Tom's Hardware here (but it's 2 years old, so may be outdated). There is an Intel Network Storage test tool, referred to in the final pages, that people here might find more interesting and useful than the review itself. Interesting things that turn up when looking for something else

 

[naviworks]

theITWares are dealing with that cases and you can shoot your request for the above mentioned cabinet.

TheITWares - One Stop for all Gizmos!

thanx srini but this particular case is not available with them and they are not interested in getting me one :sad:

 

[sarge_in]

On a quick Google I couldn't find any statement of what wiring topologies this will, or will not, work with. It seems it is capable of propagating signals to neighbouring houses, so I guess it will spread via the connections centred on the distribution box.

Bear in mind, though, that Indian houses are routinely connected to three-phase power supplies. It isn't going to work over more than one phase, surely! This is not a problem that would be considered for domestic kit in UK, as residential houses are just-about-never connected to more than one phase, and I suspect the same is true of USA.

Interesting, but not very positive review from Tom's Hardware here (but it's 2 years old, so may be outdated). There is an Intel Network Storage test tool, referred to in the final pages, that people here might find more interesting and useful than the review itself. Interesting things that turn up when looking for something else

Interesting results indeed. Yes, specs on wiring for it to work were not available last time I checked (>2 yrs ago), looks like not much has changed since. Which is why I mentioned it is difficult to say if it will work in a specific case without actually trying it.

And like you said, working across phases is out of the question. In US, outlets are arranged by circuit, and like the review mentioned if the two ends are on different circuits it is anybody's guess how much the signal deterioration will be. All I can say is it didn't work for me when I tried both Belkin and Netgear a couple years back when they were on different circuits, but worked ok when they were in the same room (and hence same circuit). However, that time I had only tested with streaming regular DVD as HD rips were not prevalent then. Don't know how much the tech has come along since then and if it supports HD streaming now, but given a choice wired GB is the best foolproof method (well, almost ).

 

[vaibhavyagnik]

thanx srini but this particular case is not available with them and they are not interested in getting me one :sad:

I too talked with rahul He said that this particular case was launched recently and he did not have it in stock. He also has no plans of importing it as the demand is pretty low. he suggested LIAN LI PC-V351B. Its a uATX cabinet with only 2 hard disk capacity. 3 if you do not install a DVD drive. do you have any other cabinet in mind? how about the panache cabinet: Panache. I have talked with them. The cabinet is readily available. It can house 4 hard disks and its a mini ITX Form factor cabinet

 

[anm]

for powerline ethernet devices to work on 3 phase, I think you need to add 3 more units with an ethernet switch connecting all 3 phases for data but not for power. this setup can go in the mcb box

 

[deepakgang]

Vaibhav - Please can you tell how will the config 2 be used as an HTPC? Will you add HBMC and HDMI as well?

 

[vaibhavyagnik]

Vaibhav - Please can you tell how will the config 2 be used as an HTPC? Will you add HBMC and HDMI as well?

i think you mean XBMC and HDMI. Well config 2 already has HDMI. It only needs an OS to run XBMC and take other file sharing responsibilites. I meant that the hardware can be used either as a HTPC or a NAS. however i see a possiblity of running AMAHI on this config and installing XBMC on amahi. So in short you have a home server which can be used for file sharing as well as XBMC running on same machine. I will have to read up more on this though.

 

[deepakgang]

Yeah XBMC .. was a typo.
I can see here that xbmc can be installed on Amahi. Would using it as HTPC add more complexities? Like the need to add graphics card, decoding the audio (or pass-through to my AVR) etc. But a NAS+HTPC would be great

 

[gras4]

Vaibhav,

Jumping in late but hopefully it'll be a useful input to the configuration choices people might want out there (including myself) ...

I have a Seagate GoFlex Home which is falling well short of meeting my following needs:
1. File Serving
2. DLNA including Full-HD videos support
3. Internet Browsing including Full-HD streaming
4. Basic computing like Office
5. Expandable Storage with RAID capability for some portions of it and some of it should be hot-pluggable
6. Optional monitor - want to use my TV as a monitor when required;
7. HDMI output for both Audio+Video to AVR
8. Connectivity - Wifi-n and Gigabit, USB 3.0
9. Wireless keyboard+Mouse combo

I know it combines NAS+HTPC features but i wouldn't want to have two pieces of hardware if i can avoid that.

Hope to see a no-frills configuration for this.

 

[sam9s]

Not to demoralize anyone but I am surprised to see such high prices quoted for a NAS. After all it would an assembled one and not a factory/company fitted/branded. Without the HDDs the max spending one needs for a 24x7 running NAS should not exceed 10-12K. Even if you add some fancy accessories like LCD display ...and few others it should not at all cross 15K. That should be the upper limit. Also .....
Most of the people I see have a more HTPC/Media server kinda requirement and less of NAS, like no RAID, no hot swapping.....these are the quintessential features of a NAS BTW. And no body seem to be taking about the protocols it would support. Who is gonna be setting up the NAS on the network (internal as well as external). Assembling NAS hardware is no big deal. Setting it up for RAID, and putting it up on network to support protocols like FTP, UPnP etc and making it available on internet is,......... specially with NFS......... I see the OP is assembling it with FreeNAS , fine ... but is he also going to configure it per the requirements ..... like as I mentioned the FTP or making it available online. Did anyone even bother to give a thought that one of the important purpose of having a NAS is to be able to access any where across the world (ofcourse if it running 24x7, which usually NAS does). And what about the security, specially if I want the NAS online, and only through VPN, say through SSH, coz data floating on net is unsafe always. Who is gonna configure NAS to use SSH. ........ ??????? ...... I can add lot more, anyway.....

All these are the actual requirements of a NAS......not Bit streaming, or USB 3 or XBMC. Those are strictly HTPC requirement and NO you cannot or shall I say shoudl not make an HTPC and run it like a NAS...... different hardware, different requirements.....different purpose all together ......... anyway good to see the venture ........

People .....I am not saying that you should not opt for this offering, but you need to be clear and know what you actually need, what is the difference between HTPC, a NAS, a windows media center, windows media server ...etc etc .....what actually does these machines intend to do .....and what actually can you achieve/expect from these............. only then you would be able to know what hardware requirements are actually needed and actually not needed as well ....... anyway just my small input incase anyone did bother to read the entire post ....

Regards
Sammy

PS :: BTW I am building up my own NAS (after my HTPC), for some time now, it should be completed pretty soon. Will share the details and pics with you all ......

 

[vaibhavyagnik]

Vaibhav,

Jumping in late but hopefully it'll be a useful input to the configuration choices people might want out there (including myself) ...

I have a Seagate GoFlex Home which is falling well short of meeting my following needs:
1. File Serving
2. DLNA including Full-HD videos support
3. Internet Browsing including Full-HD streaming
4. Basic computing like Office
5. Expandable Storage with RAID capability for some portions of it and some of it should be hot-pluggable
6. Optional monitor - want to use my TV as a monitor when required;
7. HDMI output for both Audio+Video to AVR
8. Connectivity - Wifi-n and Gigabit, USB 3.0
9. Wireless keyboard+Mouse combo

I know it combines NAS+HTPC features but i wouldn't want to have two pieces of hardware if i can avoid that.

Hope to see a no-frills configuration for this.

Config 2 should work ideally for you. Your requirements are similar to Deepakgang. HTPC and a NAS. I think Fedora + Amahi + XBMC will best suite your requirements. I haven't tried Amahi yet, but intend to test it tomorrow if the download gets complete tonight.

@deepakgang,
XBMC and amahi are both repositories (software) for fedora. shouldn't be a problem in my opinion. But i will be able to absolutely tell only after i try it myself

@Sam9s,
Quoted prices are QUOTED after a quick estimation of prices from online sites like ebay, They are not street prices. If i find a particular build is quiet cheaper for me then the price i have quoted, i will ask for less/give back the extra money. Moreover all configs are with maximum number of harddisks the motherboard can handle. Each hard disk is 2TB. In all the configs, the cost of hard disks alone is far more than other computer hardware. As far as configuration is concerned, if you read my first post, things should get pretty clear but let me repeat it. I shall get a list of all devices and routers of the buyer. study the existing network, (DHCP/Static IP or not, Router is wifi N/G/B etc, QoS is possible on router or not, if yes then is properly configured or not?). I will dispatch will all necessary software configurations done. Last moment or on-site configurations where ever needed will be done through teamviewer.

Diverting from topic, why is it so criminal to want more out of your computer hardware? I mean look at the specs of current computers, even the E350 (i will say E350 because currently it is lowest Power consuming, even lesser then Intel atom D510) has full HD playback capacity with HD bitstreaming. Even while playing HD content on E350, E350 cpu usage remains less than 25% (actually its between 13-15%) why not harness this power of the hardware to do other stuff?. It is this quest that has transformed things right from the Nokia 5110 to N8 if i may say, and you will see this transformation all around you.

"I can add lot more, anyway....." You are welcome to add more features, it helps me build a checklist of things i should offer as a bare minimum

 

[sam9s]

convergence can only be done with a hardware that has a like minded end purpose. Just because we have a mobo, proc and ram does not mean we mix the objectives of the machine. I already have listed lots of very NAS specific requirments which have no place in an HTPC. An HTPC will use a NAS to pick up all the media. I have not even started on the backup part yet. Nobody was bothered to ask what kind of backup we will have on our NAS. Again one of the other NAS purpose is to have all you media files (movies. music, videos, pictures), your documents (offical, non official) and any other files you want universal access to, on to a one single location, so that the data is organized/maintained easily and more often available 24x7 across the world. In this kind of design, a NAS without a backup is foolish and out of question, or else you are not building something that is called a NAS.
About the price your high end config, is 62K. I am not sure why do we need a high end config for a NAS at the first place ....... you wanna play high end games on it as well.....loz....okie what about making it a domain and add visualization as well, so that we can also use it as a server (talk about convergence)............ no thats not the way it works. With 62K I can built a high end Xeon based server!!! ........... As I said 15K is the max you need to build a quality NAS, that would run 24x7 and have all the specific features one needs in an actual NAS. Add 16500 to it (4, 2TB HDD ) and the price should not exceed 15+16.5=31.5K .. period!

Now shall I start on the monitoring part of the NAS........I'd leave it here .....

BTW .... you should not configure a machine for a network, without actually placing it, on to the network, yes you can do the troubleshooting via online RD tools (like teamviewer), but configuration should only be done via onsite visit, specially with the specifics I have discussed for the NAS here. ......

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

People .....I am not saying that you should not opt for this offering, but you need to be clear and know what you actually need, what is the difference between HTPC, a NAS, a windows media center, windows media server ...etc etc .....what actually does these machines intend to do .....and what actually can you achieve/expect from these............. only then you would be able to know what hardware requirements are actually needed and actually not needed as well ....... anyway just my small input incase anyone did bother to read the entire post ....

Diverting from topic, why is it so criminal to want more out of your computer hardware? I mean look at the specs of current computers, even the E350 (i will say E350 because currently it is lowest Power consuming, even lesser then Intel atom D510) has full HD playback capacity with HD bitstreaming. Even while playing HD content on E350, E350 cpu usage remains less than 25% (actually its between 13-15%) why not harness this power of the hardware to do other stuff?

No reason at all. It begins by trying to understand what the machines we are all sitting in front of are actually capable of. Having been out of the business for ten years, I'd be taking a blind stab in the dark if I wondered how many people my machine would support, as a file server, if it were in an office. Fifty? A hundred? two hundred? Perhaps they wouldn't all be able to listen to music at the same time, and I wouldn't be offering them video streaming. The only point of a NAS, to me, would be if I didn't want to turn my PC on.

But if vaibhavyagnik wants to produce well-specced machines and include a lot of storage, and give valuable configuration and support (what some people call the "value-added" bit of the service) I'm 100% in favour. As Sammy says, assembling the machine is no big deal; setting up all those details is.

I don't recall NFS as being a big deal. Between two Unix/Linux systems it is probably the native and easy way to share/mount file systems. I do, on the other hand, recall kicking it out and going for Samba to cater for Windows machines accessing Unix "shares".

Access from outside the LAN ("one of the important purpose of having a NAS is to be able to access any where across the world") I would have thought would be a specific requirement for a few people (wait... why not access you NAS from your phone? ) and, surely, the VPN is a relationship between the remote machine and the firewall. Did all this once, but my memory is dim.

Similarly, hot-swapability is for business continuity, where pressing that red button has a very tangible cost which increases fast until you turn stuff on again. Disks don't die very often anyway. It does, of course, rank high on the scale of geek desirability --- and, believe me, I suffer from as much of that as anyone here . Stuff does slow down while a raid controller rebuilds that new disc, but, it doesn't stop. There would be a horrible desire to demonstrate to one's friends .

 

[sam9s]

I don't recall NFS as being a big deal. Between two Unix/Linux systems it is probably the native and easy way to share/mount file systems. I do, on the other hand, recall kicking it out and going for Samba to cater for Windows machines accessing Unix "shares".

Its not big deal if you know what you are doing, and the CUI nature of most the OS that uses it makes it a bit "out of the usual" stuff ....

Access from outside the LAN ("one of the important purpose of having a NAS is to be able to access any where across the world") I would have thought would be a specific requirement for a few people (wait... why not access you NAS from your phone? ) and, surely, the VPN is a relationship between the remote machine and the firewall. Did all this once, but my memory is dim.

Well it might not be a requirement for few people, but NAS as a device is usually accessible across networks and platforms, that is why we usually make it a single point location for all of our files .(making backup even more imperative ... )
VPN is another way of securing our "outside" connection with our NAS

Similarly, hot-swapability is for business continuity, where pressing that red button has a very tangible cost which increases fast until you turn stuff on again. Disks don't die very often anyway. It does, of course, rank high on the scale of geek desirability ---

errrrrrrr no, I would have to disagree here , the business requirement for a NAS to have hot swap ability is for the scalability part, where we have the rack and we can just add the HDD when ever needed to increase our disk space .... OR yes as you said disk failure. But with ALL the data at one location (dont say that we wont keep all the data at one location ............. ...no......then whats the point of having a NAS), would you take the risk of a disk failure. Its rare but it does happen and I am sure our data (specially collected/downloaded over a long period of time) is pretty precious to all of us. Not to forget those family/friends snaps and pictures.
Hot Swap ability for Home NAS is......if you have more disks than your case can support and you want to use them on the fly. Just open the enclosure take out the "Movies 1" HDD and insert the "Movies 2" HDD and you are good to go. (Just like a thumb drive) All these are very particular NAS functions.

 

[sam9s]

BTW few posts that I missed reading at the back that deservs a re read ...

Once a "NAS" grows in size, power, components, etc, to the size of a PC, how can you can it an "NAS?" It's a PC!

Something that is often forgotten: all PCs do file sharing. Does that make all PCs NAS?

True and my post might clear what NAS actually is ...

Terminology. I just like things having the right names, and a full-on computer that just happens to be spending its life providing storage for other users on the network is a file server, and has been called such for a long, long time before manufacturers invented very specialised boxes called SAN and NAS.

I wonder, too, why the domestic user should ever require a file server or an NAS. Cynically, I think that, like a DAC, it has become a must-have, and the market will always rush to encourage and fulfil such things

Uncynically, in partial answer to myself, I reply that the user who has ripped a large CD collection, let alone a DVD collection, probably has more data than my ex-employer collected in their accounting and business databases over a decade. I also reflect that the streaming of a single movie from one device to another involves a huge amount of data, the delivery of which is very time-critical. Domestic users who want a NAS for their media collection, tell me that the reason is that they want a small box, that runs cool, draws little power, and needs no monitor etc, and they do not want to keep their PC powered up --- which is fair enough: they want a NAS, not a file server. I don't know how much they save with their NAS's: My PC, which does everything, is about the same spec as your last mentioned machine and draws as little as 120 watts with a 22-inch monitor.

Then again, some tell me that they need a NAS, because they simply want to share music and general files. They seem not to have noticed that even Windows will do that.

It's just the view of an old-fashioned sysadmin and IT manager that dogs are called dogs, cats are called cats, and neat little boxes that contain a pile of disks and do nothing but read and write them are called NAS --- big boxes that could do anything you throw at them, are called file servers.

Does it really matter? To me, yes, or I wouldn't be wasting my time writing this. To anybody else, particularly outside the IT industry? probably not...

I quibble. Sincerely, good luck with your machines.

Couldnt have agreed more on this post ....... well said!!

 

[Thad E Ginathom]

Sammy. if one is going to do RAID, then hot-swapping for content becomes a matter of not only having more discs, but having slots that are not in the RAID array --- and then those discs are not included/protected in a RAID array

(sorry, RAID array is tautological. a RAID is correct, I suppose)

All these terrabytes of data, as you mentioned, require backup. CDs/DVDs on the shelf, of course, can be ripped again, but the rest...

How long before tape libraries hit the domestic scene?

(by the way, I never did RAID outside the classroom, the Inexpensive that the I originally stood for was not-very for the IBM kit I was looking after, and the company wouldn't buy me the disks. Sure, one day I might do it at home, but, not being a movie guy I am unlikely to accumulate enough data)

I would say that VPNs terminate at the Firewall --- because NAT takes over at that point, but, again, I have not done that stuff for ten years: you may well be more up to date than I am. (hah! I still have the CD we used to install the checkpoint VPN clients at our remote offices)

 

[sam9s]

Sammy. if one is going to do RAID, then hot-swapping for content becomes a matter of not only having more discs, but having slots that are not in the RAID array --- and then those discs are not included/protected in a RAID array

(sorry, RAID array is tautological. a RAID is correct, I suppose)

Thad, Hot Swapping can be done with the disks with in the RAID as well. Most of the available types of RAID; support the concept of the hot swapping. On level one its fairly simple, it becomes complicated with nested RAID levels, where we have multiple RAID levels. I have never done a multiple RAID level, but setting up a single RAID is easy, and as I said it will support Hot Swapping.

I would also like to bring in notice, mainly just for the information sake, if any one is interested that usually Hot Swapping in RAID is miss labeled as Hot Sparing, where in we have a spare disk and is only inserted when a disk failure occurs. The RAID rebuilds the data as soon as the disk is inserted. How we tell the OS/RAID that are we Hot Swapping or Hot Sparing is another topic of discussion. But the point is that the concept of Hot Swapping is independent/separate from Hot Swapping. ....

 

[vaibhavyagnik]

convergence can only be done with a hardware that has a like minded end purpose. Just because we have a mobo, proc and ram does not mean we mix the objectives of the machine.

I have done just that. config 2 is low on power consumption but more than enough for 1080p playback. Has 5 on board SATA 6 Gbps ports. Is mini ITX. Has gigabit LAN, Has USB 3.0 and it does everything at 33W TDP at full load.

I already have listed lots of very NAS specific requirments which have no place in an HTPC. An HTPC will use a NAS to pick up all the media. I have not even started on the backup part yet. Nobody was bothered to ask what kind of backup we will have on our NAS

No body might have asked, but most would have thought about it.
Rsyncs - Freenas
Backups - Amahi

In this kind of design, a NAS without a backup is foolish and out of question, or else you are not building something that is called a NAS.

First of all, for your rudeness, is there a lawbook which says its a NAS ONLY if it performs this many tasks? Even if there is a Lawbook, are you the judge?
Second of all, you are commenting on a OS (freenas) which as far as i know, you haven't used. Let alone used, i can go far as to say that you have not even visited their website and seen their features.

About the price your high end config, is 62K. I am not sure why do we need a high end config for a NAS at the first place .......

The particular board suggested by me has 6 SATA 6 Gbps ports and 2 SATA 3 Gbps ports. In short 8 SATA ports for 8 hard disks. Also supports RAID 0, 1, 10, 5, JBOD. Hence High end.

With 62K I can built a high end Xeon based server!!! ...........

Build this high end xeon server that you are talking about with 16 TB space in 62K and i will buy it from you!! by the way what config do you have in mind? i am curious. I am sure you will include a couple of seagate cheetah 15K drives, won't you?

As I said 15K is the max you need to build a quality NAS, that would run 24x7 and have all the specific features one needs in an actual NAS. Add 16500 to it (4, 2TB HDD ) and the price should not exceed 15+16.5=31.5K .. period!

why 4? my high end config has 8 2TB hard disks. see the excel again. that alone comes upto 36-37K

Now shall I start on the monitoring part of the NAS........I'd leave it here .....

S.M.A.R.T - Freenas. Freenas has SMART monitoring and will send periodic email reports.

BTW .... you should not configure a machine for a network, without actually placing it, on to the network, yes you can do the troubleshooting via online RD tools (like teamviewer), but configuration should only be done via onsite visit, specially with the specifics I have discussed for the NAS here. ......

Why? Can a IP be NOT configured without attaching to a network cable? with teamviewer i will be configuring the network and NAS through Freenas GUI from their computer. How is it different from me being on site?