Ask Engadget: that's just NASty

It's Thursday night, kids, which means it's time for another round of Ask Engadget. Before we get going, if you'd like to ask Engadget something yourself, hit us up at ask at engadget dawt com, and we'll take it to the court of public opinion. Anyhow, last time Brian C wanted to know how to best RF shield his WiFi; this week we got a short n' sweet one for ya, so consider yourself asked by Serge:

I'm looking for a NAS solution and was hoping you could make suggestions. I'm looking for something with gigabit Ethernet, Apache / PHP / MySQL, media serving and a RAID configuration.

Kinda sounds more like Serge wants himself a web-hosting solution in a box, but take out the LAMP configuration and you've got a ton of options. Too many, in fact, the market's positively saturated with home NAS and media storage solutions (most, it seems, with RAID). Got any favorites?

[Samuel McConnell @ Apr 13th 2006 10:08PM]

An old throw-away computer, a SCSI RAID controller, and a bunch of disks? That's what I do. Toss Linux on there and you've got every kind of server you could ask for.

[wxrman @ Apr 13th 2006 10:12PM]

U.S. television stations, often have S.A.P. channels for spanish language programming...

how come spanish language channels don't broadcast english on the S.A.P. channel?

[Dennis @ Apr 13th 2006 10:14PM]

Last year I picked up a little Dell PowerEdge SC420 server for $386. Its been a really great machine, and works great as a server. I'd highly reccomend one for a home server, because they are powerful and cheap. Dell no longer manufactures them, they have been replaced with the SC430, but you can still get one of eBay for very cheap. Here are the specs of mine:

(When I bought it from Dell)
2.8GHz Pentium 4 HT
80 GB Western Digital SATA HD
Gigabit Ethernet
512 MB RAM
48X CD-ROM
(What I've Added)
Adaptec SCSI Card
Plextor SCSI CD-RW
2 10/100MB NIC's

For the OS I'm running Debian Sarge 3.1 (Linux). The server acts as a gateway/firewall, proxy server, FTP server, DHCP server, etc. etc. etc. The possibilities are unlimited. I have 1 10/100MB NIC connected to my modem, the other 10/100MB NIC connected to a switch which connects to another computer and the WAP, and the gigabit ethernet runs directly to my main computer. Here are some stats:

www.thelst.com/phpsysinfo

Good luck!

[Jo @ Apr 13th 2006 10:33PM]

I've been eyeing a ReadyNAS NV recently.

http://www.infrant.com/

[DRG @ Apr 13th 2006 10:50PM]

Tom's Networking has some NAS reviews.

http://www.tomsnetworking.com/nas/index.html

[Chris @ Apr 13th 2006 10:50PM]

how much power would it need? generaly the consumer grade stuff is weak, 200Mhz xScale or similar, about as powerfull as an older iPaq, and the SMB grade stuff can get quite pricy very fast.

if you are looking for raid and gigiabit, then I'm guessing super low power isn't high on the list, so why not a pc based server? for simple RAID1 mirroring both linux and windows can do that well enough in software, for home use a reboot to set it right after a failure won't be a big deal so hardware raid is not needed. those low end NAS's, PCI RAID0/1 ide cards, and on mainboard chips all use software raid anyway. could go with a shuttle or mini-itx system and still keep the power low but have enough cpu to do whatever you want, and for about half the price as an SMB class NAS appliance.

if you are looking for RAID5 and hotswap, you'll need to go with a bigger system and a 3Ware RAID card if IDE/SATA is where you want to be. You'll still beat the SMB class appliances price with the same features but get a faster processor, more ram and full admin access. again, linux or windows will work equaly well though WinXP will top at 10 total client connections max and windows server is like to be way to much cost.

[Buzzkill @ Apr 13th 2006 11:06PM]

Doesn't sound much like a NAS. What you asked for is a server that also has drive storage. Don't get lost in the buzzwords de jour. Get the right hardware for the right task.

[Fuzz @ Apr 13th 2006 11:44PM]

Sounds like you would be better with 2 machines. Throw one up as a webserver, and then get a NAS. I recomend infrant.com for the NAS. Have a 7 drive version at work.

[Andy @ Apr 13th 2006 11:53PM]

Get an older Infrant X6. Or the new terastation:

http://www.ehomeupgrade.com/entry/2405/buffalo_boosts_nas

[Andrew @ Apr 14th 2006 12:10AM]

I have the ReadyNAS NV. Feature-wise it's excellent (though not a webserver/db), but it's not nearly quiet enough. Saying "silent" on the box isn't enough.

[Sean @ Apr 14th 2006 12:11AM]

Build your own, and use this http://www.freenas.org

[frankmu @ Apr 14th 2006 12:41AM]

kuroboxHG. has everything you want except raid. i'm using debian for my box. uses only 17 watts. get a couple, throw in a hard drive, and install linux. no problem!

kurobox.com

[grey @ Apr 14th 2006 1:03AM]

Second thumbs up on the ReadyNas NV; it's pretty much on feature par with a Netapp but 1/30th the cost. Ok, no iSCSI, and performance won't match, no _two_ hotspares per RAID set, but great performance, snapshots, RAID5 (plus hotspare if you want), email alerts. One super nice thing is you can expand the RAID set/size/container without destroying the data. I did this and it worked like a champ - started with 1 250GB, added in 3 500GB which were all formated @ 250GB. Popped out the 250GB drive, put in a 500GB drive, then it first restored the raidset, and then expanded the volume - very slick, my netapp & EMC shelfs at work can't do that; plus it kept the data that was on there. :)

A little expensive for the hollow chasis ($650ish) but you could buy 4 500GB drives and have 1.4TB in a RAID5 for under $2000 - NICE!

Upgrade as you need to, without losing your data is probably the coolest feature I've not seen in another NAS (our netapp is $60,000; for reference).

It could have more features, but not many. Also native rsync support (netapp charges a ton for snapmirror, and ndmp is a pain).

I dunno - no DB stuff/etc. but it'll act as a media server, it's great for home or Small/med businesses I'd say.

[Dave Weinstein @ Apr 14th 2006 1:24AM]

I've tested Infrant's ReadyNAS referenced above (http://www.gizmag.com/go/5156) and quite liked the product.

If you're looking for a DIY solutions you should checkout http://www.freenas.org/.

-dw

[eric @ Apr 14th 2006 2:10AM]

Infrant ReadyNAS after evaluating quite a few other home-nas solutions and building countless of my own boxes and DIY "solutions". Nothing beats having an embedded, specialized device to store your data.

[Serge @ Apr 14th 2006 2:40AM]

Thanks for the suggestion guys... I already looked in to ReadyNAS NV which does everything I want except PHP & MYSQL. I just want one box that I can put in a dark closet, connect it to my network and that I can use to test my webstuff on, use as back up and filestorage.

I currently have a separate webserver and separate nas (Maxtor) but really want to integrate both of them so I only have one box to connect to.

[Paul Phoenix @ Apr 14th 2006 3:10AM]

Definitely #4's recommendation!
http://www.infrant.com/

I looked around a lot for both myself and my SMB company and this fits both. I would buy it in a heartbeat if I could find oversees shipping.

[wim @ Apr 14th 2006 3:30AM]

well.. I use a snazio Tera Nas HD Pro, which was bought as a DIY kit. threw in 4x 400 GB Samsung in hardware raid 5 and off we go.
it is DLNA compatible so ideal as a mediaserver, and it has gigabit too.
see http://www.snazio.com/Links/TeraNAS%20Intro.htm for more.
another option is the buffalo offcourse (no hardware raid though. it uses software.)
http://www.buffalo-technology.com/products/product-detail.php?productid=97

[Greg @ Apr 14th 2006 3:54AM]

I use a Mac Mini with external HDD for this. May not be the cheapest but...
-VERY quiet
-you can have virtually ANY service you want
-you can RAID the external drives

The new Intel Minis have gigabit built in

[Carmine @ Apr 14th 2006 5:15AM]

All of these seem to accept SATA drives only. Are there any NAS solutions for IDE drives? I have a couple IDE HD's of various capacities lying around and would like to put get them on my LAN.

[lucjlb @ Apr 14th 2006 5:28AM]

There are some good comments on the Synology Disk Station 101g+ (SATA / GigaEthernet / USB)
with external sata for RAID1
http://www.synology.com/enu/products/diskstation/DS-101g_plus/index.php?page=overview.html

[Serge @ Apr 14th 2006 5:47AM]

Aah... A Mac Mini with external disks... Interesting option... Quiet, small and would go very well with my PowerMac, iMac and Powerbook... Last member of the family that's missing... Definitely worth looking at... And for price... The ReadyNas is also not a cheap option...

[TZK @ Apr 14th 2006 6:17AM]

I stand next to my steup with a crossnbow, and if anyone screws with it, I shoot them in the donkey kong.

[Brian @ Apr 14th 2006 6:24AM]

Here's another one for your consideration:

http://www.yellowmachine.com/products/index.htm

[Matt M. @ Apr 14th 2006 7:06AM]

Just want to give another plug for Infrant. I had accidently hooked up my NAS X6 to a non-backup powered outlet on my UPS (I didn't realize some were only surge protection) and after power cycled 25 times in 3 hours due to wind 2 of my 3 disks had failed. I sent the unit off to Infrant and they recovered my data quickly and at their cost.

Not only is the unit rock solid but their support rocks too.

Only negative is that they keep putting out better and cooler products. Wish I had waited for the NV...

[Tony Chang @ Apr 14th 2006 7:18AM]

The Infrant systems have good reviews, but were overkill for my home network.

I picked up a Thecus N2100 2 weeks ago specifically for some of the specs listed: Gigabit ethernet, SATA, RAID 0 or 1, media serving, FTP hosting, Mac & Windows support. It also has a built-in iTunes server (shows up as a shared library). It runs quiet and cool at 46 C with a pair of WD2500KS drives in Raid 1.

Thecus is a relatively new player in this market. I emailed a suggestion to Tom's Hardware to do a review on the N2100 (they have reviewed the N4100).

[Serge @ Apr 14th 2006 7:23AM]

The Yellow machine sadly doesn't have gigabit ethernet

[ash @ Apr 14th 2006 7:41AM]

you could always grab an old pc and install naslite, http://www.serverelements.com/. no raid (unless i missed it by not reading the manual, but it's cheap

[Doug @ Apr 14th 2006 8:16AM]

Carmine-
It's not exactly a NAS, but the Netgear SC-101 is an interesting way to get some usage from old IDE drives.

[Matt @ Apr 14th 2006 8:22AM]

Serge, do you really need that gig link? Have you run any kind of network analyzer on your home LAN? I bet you that you'd never come close to utilizing a 1G link. Your bottleneck is probably your drives getting data to the network and writing the data from it, not the network passing the data back and forth.

[Chris @ Apr 14th 2006 8:50AM]

#26 on my lan the nic is definatly the bottleneck, and I don't even have SATA2 yet. I transfer at over 9MB/s (100Mbit is 12MB/s which you'll never achieve due to protocol overhead) and it's a LOT slower than a disk to disk copy.

[joe @ Apr 14th 2006 8:52AM]

I use the Buffalo Terastation and I've been very happy with it (despite the mixed reviews it got on sites like Newegg). Doesn't quite have every feature you are looking for, but others might be interested.

[Blademonkey @ Apr 14th 2006 9:45AM]

have you looked into this?
http://www.freenas.org/

[Blademonkey @ Apr 14th 2006 9:50AM]

Check this mod out. would be nice in conjunction with Freenas.

http://www.mashie.org/casemods/udat1.html

[quahogian @ Apr 14th 2006 10:03AM]

Infrants ReadyNAS RNV1-S2-0000 looks so far as the most feasible choice. Can anyone that has it say how it looks though? On some pictures it looks shiny silver, on other blant grey...so which one is it?

[John Laur @ Apr 14th 2006 10:03AM]

Just here to second the recommendation of the Infrant ReadyNAS devices or other Infrant products.

The Buffalo NAS products get a lot of press but they are complete crap. I have one. Should have bought a ReadyNAS!

[Pander @ Apr 14th 2006 12:24PM]

I just bought for myself the AbernNAS 110, a solution from Aberdeen (htpp://www.aberdeeninc.com). It has the usual stuff, RAID support, Hot-swap STA drives, two gigabit ethernet cards, it comes with Windows Storage Server 2003 but you can purchase one with Linux as well, I must say it is a little bit noisy, but it is 1TB in the size of a pizza box!!! Mmmm pizza....

[gx @ Apr 14th 2006 12:37PM]

Don't forget your power budget. Having a full blown 3ghz machine and 4 SATA drives chomping down your kilowatt hours may not be good on your wallet. Check to make sure you understand the power budget of your pre-built NAS box, or if you're rolling your own, how to make sure drives spin down and idle when not used and so on. My NAS box has two >160gb IDE's in it, running off a mini-itx 533mhz and 100Mbit - it doesn't do more than 70watts at peak.

[JonP @ Apr 14th 2006 12:56PM]

This totally gives me a chance to ask a question that I can't seem to find answered anywhere. Does Mac OS X support booting from an NAS? Apple specifically says on their support pages that booting from a FireWire drive is supported and that booting from a USB drive is not supported (but may work). What about an NAS? It's incredible how far the prices have fallen on this things.

[foQ @ Apr 14th 2006 3:04PM]

I've been saving up for a good NAS and weighing my options. I decided to just roll my own. Now this won't be the best option for everybody, but I'm going to get a CoolerMaster Stacker (or ThermalTake Armor) case (go check them out on New Egg, they've got room for like 15 drives!), 2 4xSATA RAID cards, 8x400GB (320GB has a better pricepoint now, hopefully the 400GB guys will come down soon), and the rest will be older stuff that I've got laying around. Run the drives in RAID-5 (either 2 logical drives or maybe just 1) for redundancy. Yes, software RAID is slow as balls, but it's only going to serve 1 or maybe 2 people, so that should be alright.

I'll probably run NAS Lite, FreeNAS, or FreeBSD+vinum if I'm feeling adventurous. I might go with Windows Server 2003, because I have a legit copy of it, but you can use XP and get software RAID-5 out of it (google for it on tomshardware.com) if you want to go that route. Each of these can run the requested Apache/PHP/MySQL.

[Tony @ Apr 14th 2006 4:32PM]

To JonP #39: Apple used to heavily advertise the Netboot feature of Mac OS X beginning with 10.1, trying to leverage classroom use (imagine booting 20 computer lab Macs from a single network server). However it seems like Netboot was tied to Mac OS X Server ($500 for a 10-client license). I'm not sure if Netbooting off any old NAS is supported.

[Kyle @ Apr 14th 2006 4:34PM]

All of Infrant's stuff cannot be beat. Trust me.

[JonP @ Apr 19th 2006 11:18AM]

To Tony (No. 41): Thanks for the response. That's sort of what I've gathered from Apple's tech docs.

[Brian @ May 5th 2006 2:27PM]

Google for an linksys NSLU2. It is a NAS device (about $70) that allows you to plug in 2 USB storage devices onto it wich are then available on your network. And it runs linux, which a modding community have picked up and are modifying it to run bittorret, apache,raid etc etc. Only thing it doesn't have is gigabit ethernet.

+Cheap
+Silent (no fans)
+Small (as tall and deep as a coke can, about 2 inches thick)
-some linux experience necessary

[ChrisM @ May 10th 2006 9:29AM]

It seems like most readers prefer Infrant. Why hasn't Engadget done a post on any of them yet? When you do a search from the main page for 'Infrant', nothing comes up.

[eric @ Jun 16th 2006 1:00AM]

Infrant ReadyNas is truly the best. It is well-integrated and very compatible with all of my Windows, Mac, Xbox, etc. Make sure you get one with RAID.

[Craig Eddington @ Jul 27th 2006 12:20AM]

I'd like to see a comparison of performance, price and features between an infrant ReadyNAS nv & Synology CS-406e & Thecus 4100. I'm sure someone out there has done a bit of a comparison.