storage considerations...

[VJ]

Hello,

I'm looking to expand some storage, and was considering a NAS (e.g. 4-bay, raid 5). Any things to look out for? Brands to consider or stay away from? My brother has a NetGear ReadNAS and is pleased with it (although he only uses it for music streaming).
I did notice that Windows Home Server machines tend to have 4 drive bays as well. Do they support raid?
One other option would be to get a raid controller for my server (running Server2008) and go internal... I've still not ruled it out, as it would be cheaper (if I don't immediately spring for a hotswap drive cage) and maybe more flexible but it would also be more noisy. With the hotswap drive cage I'd also have no room for an optical drive in the current case (on a system that cannot boot from usb), but that wouldn't be too much of an issue.

Thanks for any suggestions!


Jörg

[Jammrock]

Synology is generally considered the best bang for th buck in the home NAS market. Qnap is supposed to be pretty good too. Thecus is another name you can look into. I owned a Thecus RAID DAS in the past that was ok. Speed wise it was great, build quality, not so much. Though their higher end boxes are built better.

[Fat Tone]

Good experience here with the Buffalo Terrastation range.

[Umfriend]

I'm waiting for WHS Vail which, unlike the current, has the option of backing itself up externaly.

[degrub]

i've 2 readynas NV+s with nary a hiccup. The newest ones are out in a month or so and they appear to substantially improve the network transfer speeds over gigabit. i stream music and HD without problem.

[VJ]

Thanks guys! So basically all the commonly found brands are good to go.

I'm still in doubt whether or not to go for an external solution; it would be the easiest but also the most expensive solution. The other plan I'm playing with is to free my current raid up a bit, by getting a new harddisk and backing up some less valuable data (it is already backked up to another disk as well).

[Dr Mordrid]

For local edits and short term storage: SATA RAID5 on the workstation

For long term and media storage: gigabit network and a RAID5 NAS

[VJ]

For local edits and short term storage: SATA RAID5 on the workstation
For long term and media storage: gigabit network and a RAID5 NAS

Interesting... Why would you consider the raid on the server to be short term storage?

It is not really the workstation, but a dedicated server which currently holds one raid5 (3x500 GB). I could expand the raid with one more disk, providing me with 500 GB more storage... Getting a second internal raid would however mean getting a raid card, and the only option for that mainboard is PCI-X... It is an older dual Xeon which I have repurposed as a server and as such am running Server 2008.

[VJ]

Ok, pricewise it will not make much difference (internal raid controller + drive cage costs about as much as a nas). I could opt for a normal sata controller and go for software raid, but somehow I have something against software raids... :-)

So going with the nas will be the more intelligent solution (featurewise/futureproof).

Any recommendations on the harddisks? I have one Samsung HD103UJ (1 TB, 1 year old) and could add more of the same... But maybe it is better to get all disks of the same batch and with the same firmware...?
Some manufacturers offer disks that have some specific raid specification, what does that add and is it important in a nas?

Thanks!

[degrub]

Work from the NAS suppliers hardware compatibility list first.

Drives labeled as "for raid" have at least implemented firmware to prevent the drive from dropping out of the array when it is trying to fix an error because it takes too long.

One thing to keep in mind - bandwidth over the net won't be the same as with an internal controller most of the time.

[Umfriend]

"Most of the time" as in "never", I should think.

[VJ]

Degrub: I know, but the storage is mainly for my music, ripped dvds, photos, ... I can transfer some of the data from my current internal raid and use that one more for local high performance storage. So if it can stream HD it suffices. About the hdd: I thought it was that; it just amazes me that they charge so much for this raid firmware which made me think there was more to it. So it may be important to get such disks?
edit: I found that those disks have a Rotational Vibration Safeguard, which basically compensates for vibrations from nearby disks. I found this hitatchi whitepaper, but other manufacturers (Seagate, WDC, ...) have similar things. So maybe interesting to check for it.

Umfried:

I'm currently looking at the Netgear Ultra 4, the Netgear NVX Pioneer, but I don't really see the difference. The NVX lists that it supports multiple HD streams, but the Ultra4 shows the same IO performance, so surely it could do that as well? The Ultra4 adds support for Tivo and Orb, but I don't need those. I can find the WDC Sharespace at a surprisingly low price, but haven't checked its details. I will check the other suggestions from the list.

I had hoped to find a 6 bay device, but the are quickly much more expensive. But a 4 bay with raid 5 ought to be enough.

[degrub]

The NVX has an IOP processor if i remember correctly that has worked well for the NAS devices when several users are working. It is optimized for IO transfer. It is the same as what is in my two NV+ boxes. The dual core Atom processor is more general purpose and has low power as its selling point. My understanding from reading about others using the Atom is the single core is just able to keep up with HD video data rates if offloaded by a GPU. The dual core should be better and for the NAS is probably just enough since it is only streaming the mpeg stream. i think where it will slow down is if you get 2 or more HD streams going at the same time. So it may be just enough to do the job. The IOP may be able to sustain more throughput, but i haven't tested it.

The other difference i noticed is the mention of SATA II on the NVX and not on the Ultra. May just be an oversight. Also the NVX supports hot swap and the Ultra doesn't mention it. i don't know if that is important to you.

i think the NVX is oriented more to a 2-3 user environment and the Ultra to a 1-2 user setup.
i would look from some real world performance tests - smallnetbuilder, etc, before i committed to the Ultra. Both of the boxes are likely to be using both gigabit ports together to get the full bandwidth quoted. Also, turning on journaling will slow down the box thruput quite a bit if you use it for streaming and writing.

Hope this helps some.

[VJ]

In the definitive guides for Ultra and NVX it shows that both have SATA II and hotswap. But the difference must be in the processor as the NVX consumes more power.

The NVX Pioneer specifically mentions streaming multiple HD streams, but the Ultra doesn't. The Ultra on the other hand mentions Tivo, Orb and Skifta (3 things I don't need) and iSCSI (but this has been released as a free addon in the latest software). The thing that throws me off is that the NVX Pioneer is cheaper than the Ultra....

Oh, a question on the dual lan ports: can you connect one to a router, and the second one to a computer (direct link)? Or will there be issues in routing as the computer will also be connected to the router? (the reason to do it is that my router is 100 Mbit, and the computer has gigabit and supports iSCSI)

[VJ]

I posted the question on the ReadyNAS forum. The Ultra4 has a 64 bit Atom, whereas the NVX Pioneer has a 32 bit Intel Tolopai. As far as functionality goes, the 64 bit allows for files larger than 2 TB (which they say can happen with TimeCapsule).
Performance and featurewise, there should be no noticable dfference; both devices have 2 lan ports but do not support teaming (they consider this a business feature, so it is on the NVX Business edition). Both should be able to simultaneously stream HD.

Why do they put two so similar models in their range? The Ultra4 is brand new, so maybe that is why it is so close to an existing model... I can't see any benefit in the NVX Pioneer over the Ultra4, and the price difference is minimal...