Ask Engadget: Can a NAS device really change your life?
By Paul Miller 
posted Oct 5th 2007 5:20PM
posted Oct 5th 2007 5:20PM
We've got ourselves a tall order here on Ask Engadget, Tony's looking for basically the holy grail of home media gadgetry, and while we're not sure he's going to get all he's asking for -- or even half of it -- we're always up for a challenge. Oh, and as always, don't be shy to send in your own ridiculous requests and more reasonable queries alike to ask at engadget dawt com. Here goes:"OK, it's a torrent world now, as big media doesn't seem to get the fact that I want to watch what I want, when I want, how I want. So I'm looking for an easy, efficient NAS type device that will handle my torrents. It must:
- Work well with my Mac
- Allow me access when I am on the road (away from home) to add new torrents, see status, etc.
- Work with my Airport Extreme with a HD attached.
- Play nice with my Apple TV (how I watch most files I dl). Can also be used with a 360 if the ATV is a make or break.
- Expandable via drive bays or USB 2.0.
- Not be a power pig.
- Price is not really a major object, but of course good value is preferred.
- Must be quick and easy to add and delete torrents, as I don't have a lot of time to muck around.
What do you or the other readers suggest?"
Would you like fries with that Tony? But seriously, anybody got any pearls of wisdom and / or reality checks for Mr. Optimistic? He might just have to get crafty on his own with a little bit of Automator or perhaps the BitTorrent SDK itself, but perhaps we can get him halfway there. Oh, and it goes without saying that Tony's just looking to download the latest and greatest media released under a CC license for his free consumption, yes?
"OK, it's a torrent world now, as big media doesn't seem to get the fact that I want to watch what I want, when I want, how I want"
You left out the part about not wanting to pay for it either.
"You left out the part about not wanting to pay for it either."
The nerve, expecting broadcast TV for free! Ohh wait...
http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/03/qnap-intros-well-specd-ts-209-nas-server/
a NAS won't change your life...that's for sure. However if Tony was to ditch all that APPLE shit, and get a WINDOWS MEDIA CENTER...that will change his life...
Who even uses apple TV anyway!?!?!? You can't do shit with it!
True, you can not do shit with Apple hardware or software.
However, you an use them for the respective intended purpose, which is much more than I can say about all Microsoft software (and some hardware too).
This is the site for this stuff: http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/
Some highly regarded NAS boxes are the Thecus N2100, Qnap TS-209, Synology DS207, Dlink DNS-323, etc. Those all have dual bays and RAID 1 ability. Not sure ATM about which ones can handle torrents, but some do. There is one that also has a PHP/MySQL server. For media streaming to Xboxes and shit you'll want UPnP, forget iTunes server. From what I understand all of them do UPnP. There is some disagreement about none of these having NTFS, but the ex3 Linux file system is better.
I use my Dlink DNS-323 with my Macs, PCs and Xbox (XBMC). I haven't tried it with the Xbox 360 because I'm happy with the plain old Xbox. My Apple TV is just gathering dust so I don't know if it's viable. However I do know my Dlink box is capable of running it's own bitTorrent client natively since it uses Linux as it's operating system. It was one of the reasons I bought it! It also has uPnP, iTunes, FTP and a webinterface that works nicely on all the platforms I have.
Windows Home Server.
2nd that vote for Windows Home Server. I was on the beta and now have my Media Center recording to it. It performs auto backup of all 4 PCs in my house, is a repository for our 50GB music collection, keeps all of our photos, is RAID protected and accessible from the road (along with my Media Center and Sling Box). Its based around Windows Server 03 and has been rock solid for months without any issues. Check it out.
3rd voet for home server. It's awesome.
Yeah, Big Police also dosen't get that I should be able to dive as fast as I want when I want, and stab who I want when and where I want. That big guy walking also should realize I want my money how I want as much as I want and now.
Build yourself a fucking media server and record the shit yourself and let the ad dollars work. "Big Media" dosen't owe you shit. They host it on their own servers cause you're too lazy to watch it with commercials yourself.
This is pretty surprising, but on10 - one of Microsoft's community/developer sites has actually answered the question too. They suggest WHS (of course), and you should read what they have to say about using WHS for Macs:
http://on10.net/Blogs/larry/answer-engadget-the-life-changing-nas-type-device/
Wish there was a torrent of that!
small linux box running samba server, vnc, and azureus. Add a transcoding server if you want it to play nice with ATV. You can auto-spin-down the HDs when idle to save power. Depending on the case size it's as expandable as you want it to be
Actually, you don't even need the VNC. Azureus has a web-based UI plugin that comes in both Java and straight-up HTML flavors.
I would say small linux box running TorrentFlux. Great web-based torrent client with built in search. Hack your appleTV and install Files/Sapphire, as well as xvid/divx support to play back files natively.
Torrentflux-b4rt (fork) is what i use for this feat.
Infrant (now netgear). Their Ready Nas NV+ is the BEST!!!!
So far my Buffalo NAS 500GB is working like a charm:
- opted for the 100/1GB ethernet over USB/Firewire because Mac and PC systems will access the NAS
- allowed me to put all my iPhoto and iTunes files, shared by multiple Mac users;
- allowed me to save Tivo taped shows (Series 2 through TivoToGo) on my PC;
- no real need to access content outside home network;
- 500GB will be enough -- it took me over 5 years to fill up 80GB in my Mac.
I'm waiting for the TivoToGo to work for my Series 3 server, and use my NAS for additional storage.
Next 5 years, you'll fill up 80TB...
took me 3 weeks to fill 500 gb on my new drive
With video and games getting bigger and bigger I need tons of more storage. Like other users I filled a 500gb HD in less than 3 1/2 weeks. With my Home Server I can just plug in another external hard drive so for someone with a lot of storage needs it keeps the cost down.
Hi Curious, could you please post details on how you set up itunes/iphoto etc. on the NAS and allowed it to be shared by all users? Were they on different machines, or all on the same machine? Thanks.
Hey, Pataudi.
I have multiple users on my desktop mac, and I have two Mac laptops. All of them access the same iPhoto and iTunes library residing in a networked drive.
For iPhoto, it was easy -- move the iphoto library over the networked drive. With different libraries, just drag the photos to the new iPhoto libary. While starting up iPhoto, hold down the Apple key, and it will ask you what iPhoto library you want to access.
For iTunes, however, it was more difficult, because everyone had their own libraries. Consolidating them meant that none of them won't have their playlists intact, and many songs were duplicated in multiple libraries. Took me a week to know which steps I needed to do, and half that to successfully consolidate them. Ouch.
You can find better tutorials than my descriptions on consolidating libraries:
* http://hifiblog.com/past/2006/05/11/howto-move-your-itunes-music-while-preserving-library-data-when-you-dont-let-itunes-manage-your-music-library/
* http://playlistmag.com/features/2005/08/shiftitunes/index.php
* http://www.netscape.com/viewstory/2007/04/15/moving-your-iphoto-library-to-an-external-drive/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbasics4mac.com%2Farticle.php%2Fmove_iphoto_lib&frame=true
Good luck!
Don't let the genie free. Use the last wish on yourself.
I'd like to second the Linux samba box, but add a Drobo to it and you have expandable storage that's mirrored.
http://www.drobo.com
I have made myself a cheap computer to act as a NAS in my home network. If you have some time to tinker with parts and linux, it's the cheapest, most flexible solution you can have. Besides being a media server and torrent client it doubles as a backup device. Config is some sata300 motherboard with 3 1TB hdd, software raid 5, rtorrent and samba daemons. Rtorrent watches a folder for .torrent files and starts downloading them as soon as they are put there via sftp.
Sounds crazy... it's actually easy and very very comfortable once you get everything running! Plus raid 5 gives you some extra reliability in case of hd failure!
ReadyNAS NV. Best thing I've ever purchased. Great support as well. Works great with a Mac.
I second that. This is the BEST NAS I have ever used. AFP (Mac), SMB (Linux/Windows), and FTP access. 4 SATA RAID bays. Gigabit Ethernet. OSX Widget for monitoring drive status. Email alerts for drive failures and such. If you use an power supply backup, it'll email you when it goes to battery power. It has a limited, but functional iTunes server built in.
The only hard part for you will be the torrents. You'll have to access your Mac and set the bit torrent stuff from there to your NAS. The NAS is just a storage device, not a bit torrent client.
Third that.... The readynas nv is probably the best piece of hardware I own (or at least ranks with my Mac Pro). Saved me so many times...I can't count. Stable...os agnostic...X-RAID...what more do you want? Yoda rules!
Make me the 4th. I have a ready NAS NV+ (purchased prior to Netgear buying them out) with 4x750GB. Love it! Mount shares from WIN (OS no longer used in my home!), LINUX and OS X. Stream HD, music, whatever...never had a problem.
Actually, if your a linux expert, you can compile your own bit torrent client for the ReadyNAS. casue infrant opened up access to root in it's current beta firmware.. which will be included in its official release too!
so you can do whatever you want with the box, if your good with linux.. or wait for other people to develop stuff for it
I'll be the fifth (or sixth if the last post was a vote :-) on the ReadyNAS NV. It's been one of the best home-centric NAS I've ever used. And the fact you can expand the array just by swapping a drive and you have the ability to run differing capacities and actually grow the array. Great stuff.
The only thing better would be an array like the one announced in another Engadget post where you can run your own OS and then install ZFS. I haven't used that particular file system, but from what I've read it's good stuff.
Another one for the ReadyNas. I was going to go with Windows Home Server and upgrade a box I had here, but the ReadyNas was just a better deal overall. It's small (I mean, really small), quiet, and the X-RAID is really nice - the protection of RAID5, with the ability to scale up without formatting. I've got 4X250GB drives now, and when I need more room I'll just buy 750's and swap them out one at a time. No need to copy data off then back on. That's a huge plus, since backing it all up to DLT via another PC on the network will take forever.
Mine feeds movies and music to Xbox Media center in the living room, is an iTunes server for my wireless clients, and comes with backup software to do automated backups of pc's. It's a little expensive upfront, but you won't be replacing or regretting any time soon.
There is a great program for the mac called TV Shows, http://tvshows.sourceforge.net it will automatically download tv shows from bit torrent as soon as they are posted. You could then use apple script or automator to have those shows automatically encoded to an itunes compatible format using quicktime pro or Visual Hub.
Infrant ReadyNAS NV+. It's an actual RAID, not a hard drive with a network card. And unlike the Buffalo Terastation, it has four bays and can be expanded at will with any mix of drives (up to 4 x 750GB = 2.25GB of data). The system automatically expands the array as new drives are added, without reformatting. Hot pluggable SATA, of course. Gigabit ethernet, of course. Web-based administration. Fun.
If you can live with a USB connection instead of actual network attachment (ie, you'll use your Mac to share the drives on the network), the Drobo offers similar benefits at a somewhat lower price.
Infrant's ready NAS NV+ works great with SlimServer from SlimDevices as well.
Actually, the Infrant RADIiator software in beta now will bump the drive accessibility up to 1TB drives. If you hit their forums, you'll see some folks have had great success with 4TB drives in their ReadyNAS.
bit torrent is too slow. i use a dedicated usenet account and get a constant 2.5 MB/s download. bittorrent speeds are usually around 500 KB/s for me.
also, i wonder what performance is like between esata raid 5 shared over gigabit ethernet via smb vs. dedicated nas.
Great Question. I have been doing some research on the subject as well.
The Thecus and QNAP are both good machines. However, I would consider a unit built for 4 drives not 2. Also, if you want something configurable, both the Thecus and QNAP machines have mod groups that allow you to put on Debian Linux and add just about any mod you want.
For me, I am looking into putting on Hamachi on a device so I can access it while I travel.
- Roger
I'd like to further this quest and say I'd like to have iPhoto and iTunes libraries on it and access it from multiple Macs. Ideas?
I'm currently running a hacked 1TB Western Digital World Edition II. The WD WEII runs linux and there's a simple way to gain root access to the drive. The drive is currently connected to my airport extreme. I'm running bitflu so I can telnet/ssh or http drop torrents from wherever using my macbook pro or iphone. I run apple's rendezvous proxy service and itunes streaming server as well as ccxstream (xbox media center streaming server). The WD World Ed.II has smb,ftp,ssh,telnet services already on it, you just have to uncomment those lines in the inetd file. I haven't tested yet whether the device is capable of streaming video to the xbox 360 and/or other devices. It did work quite well streaming to my xbox running xbmc.
Yeah, I second the MyBook World edition rig.
And it does play REALLY nice when you do a little hacking to the AppleTV too. I had been looking for a way to have pretty much this exact setup and after adding NitoTV and enabling SMB access on the AppleTV everything is SUPER dreamy.
When my AppleTV boots (which is rarely ever since it just stays on and happy... Yeah, I'm now a HUGE fan of the device) it automounts my SMB share of the MyBook. Perfect (okay SMB is far from perfect but over gigabit I've never scene ANY stutter) playback and tons of storage for ALL of my computers (macs and PCs) connected to my network and from abroad.
I've got an HP Media Vault. Go here to check out all the cool faqs for it. http://www.k0lee.com/hpmediavault/
Also, when I did my research this is arguably the CHEAPEST entry point to all these features. I paid $350 check Dell.com or pricematch at BestBuy. Also the 2TB drive is out and the price is steadily falling.
Is there any documentation avail on hacking the MyBook? Mine is still a virgin ;)
WD MyBook World Edition Hacking Links:
http://mybookworld.wikidot.com/start
http://martin.hinner.info/mybook/
http://websupport.wdc.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5535&whichpage=1
MAC MINI + OWC MINI STACK DRIVES, run it headless...
Oh, I should add that the ReadyNAS has every network protocol known to man: NFS, CIFS/SMB, AppleShare, FTP, UPnP AV, etc. Plus 3 USB ports for expansion. It's also quieter than I expected.
RIAA is watching...
Can any device serve both an XBox 360 AND a HR20-700 over Ethernet? The one's I've looked at seemed to have issues...
I don't believe the HR-20 supports ethernet storage expansion. You'll need an eSATA drive.
How can I stream dvr-ms files to my Mac?
my biggest gripe with WinHS or Drobo's is that the data isnt encrypted. They to encrypt the drives to a Truecrypt AES standard and have the backup capabilities of Raid6 or better.
That would be something worth buying, until then...no money from me.
The big snag in your requirements lists is the AppleTV. Apple could've made the AppleTV compatible with an iTunes server such as mt-daapd, but instead, they chose to break it with an encryption layer. It could've been great--a Linux box running MythTV backend and the AppleTV running MythTV frontend, sharing music over daapd. That wrecked my plans, let me tell you...
Now, I'm not all that excited to have a Mac running 24/7, but I went with a Mac Mini with 1TB of disk attached via firewire. When Leopard comes out with Front Row 2.0, I'll hook up the Mini to my living room TV and the AppleTV will get demoted to a bedroom. Mac OS is nice for file sharing and web with a click of a button. If you want to run anything more complicated like an sql or mail server, you can do that, too.
I second that emotion. I cut one of the vent separators on my Mini and ran a Sata Male to eSata cable out to a 1TB Ministack v3. Record via a HDHomeRun and plug in a Turbo h264 stick to avoid getting sued by the tv networks. This will produce AppleTV compatible content which will also work with the Xbox 360 via Connect360 software and will also serve as a web server should you need to get at the content from outside your own network. Use Apple Remote Desktop to administer the setup and you're golden.
The newer Azureus client, called VUZE, does this to an extent. I discovered quite by accident last night that you can share and stream media over the internet- media you have downloaded. The problem? My normal libraries are meticulously organized. On one hand, if it's just a source of data, iTunes will recognize the Azureus share.
As for easily extensible? It's not there yet. My torrenting and media-playing are entirely separate beasts, and I have no idea how well they might mix.
hmm ReadyNAS seems good, but 4 HDD? c'mon.
i'mma check this out
http://www.norcotek.com/DS-520.php
8 HDD + 600MHz Processor+vga+keyboard/mouse
the specs seems AWASOME!!
Sounds like you need a dedicated torrent box, not just a NAS device.
I tried several NAS drives and gave up. Problems I had included excessive noise, breaking down, and the fact that bandwidth over the network is just so slow compared with USB or Firewire. Plus it required a separate program to start up in OSX to manage the connection.
In the end I went for the 'low tech' solution of a couple of small LaCie 'rugged' drives. They're not much bigger than an iPod, don't require an external power supply (FW/USB powered), give you the speed of FW800, and take 160GB of data. I just plug them in/swap them around etc.
For me the simple solution worked best.
Working with a mac is hard as many NAS's use NTFS as such you can not use * in a file name among other symbols HFS allows. It might be possible to Create a LUN for the mac files and a LUN for your non HFS files. Possible look at a HP EVA
The Dlink DNS-323 works great with my Macs and PCs. And with my Xbox Media Center.
I usually look at reviews on tomshardware.com. They have a great chart tool for comparing NAS's with filtering capabilities. There was also a recent article on FreeNAS - a linux based distribution you boot to convert that old PC to a NAS!
My top picks that I'm considering are Qnap TS209PRO and Synology DS207 both because of features and I'm looking for a 2-disk BYOD setup. The Synology DS 107+ also looked good and also I'm really tempted to convert one of the two old "doorstop" PCs to a NAS using FreeNAS.
I've got the ReadyNas NV+ and I love it. It works flawlessly with Mac, Windows, and Linux clients. I'm also using a hacked AppleTV to play audio and video from. Being able to access my Handbraked DVD collection instantly is a beautiful thing.
I also like that it is easy to expand the storage array. I currently have 4x320GB hard drives which translates to ~870GB of usable space. That is rapidly filling and when I want to upgrade that I can replace the drives one at a time with larger drives. Once the final larger is initialized the array expands to the new, larger size.
The torrents would haven be run on an additional machine, but it would be easy enough to automatically save the files to an AppleTV accessible share on the ReadyNAS.
Chris-
Is there a hack to use the Front Row client on Apple TV to talk to a non-iTunes server? Are you mounting the share from the ReadyNAS over cifs or nfs or something? The problem is that I've grown attached to the Front Row interface. Of course I could run any binary, such as CeterStage or even use the MythTV frontend interface, but those are nowhere near as polished as Front Row for playing music.
Then I could move to a ReadyNAS or NSLU2 solution.
Just BYOPC with a RAID 5 array.
Install XP (yes, even though I'm a Mac user I would o this route)
Install uTorrent & it's remote interface.
Set up file sharing & VNC. Run it w/out a monitor. Mount up the shared volume on your mac. Install iTunes and keep your library there if you want - just share it to your mac.
Voila! A dedicated server that frees up your Mac for primary work (not monopolizing your network card for bt) , stores a ton of data safely that you can monitor bt downloads with via a web browser and control remotely thru VNC over your lan.
Where should I send the bill? ;)
Unfortunately, RAID performance on XP isn't great. Ya, and I'm a huge Windows fan. Linux software RAID blows it away. If you want to stick with XP, get a dedicated RAID card like a 3COM or Adaptec and it'll scream then.
Why install VNC when XP has (single user) Terminal Services?
ReadyNAS NV (which was purchased recently by NetGear). Anyway, it can handle 4x1T disks (previous poster noted this wrong). It hasn't been noted yet but it can also handle NTFS. It is VERY FAST... allows user to replace the hard drives (there are alot of choices listed on website for compatibility)... and has alot of configuration options. Works with most (if not all) home media networking protocols.
Here is where you would have a problem based on your comments:
... it would do EVERYTHING you want EXCEPT...
(1) Work nicely with AppleTV... well, if you have one, you know, nothing will work nicely with the AppleTV, because you need to enter that 4 digit code to "link" the AppleTV with another device and access its media. I assume this is a DRM issue... the ReadyNAS has built in iTunes server functionality, but since you cannot enter a code to the ReadyNAS, you cannot access it via the AppleTV (there has been forum talk to update this... but my understanding is, apple is not releasing necessary code to allow them to enhance it). Anyway, you can, connect the ReadyNAS to your MAC/PC then share the connection via your mac... but that isn't really what you wanted... I don't think any product will do this directly.
(2) The ReadyNAS NV+ has a built in backup function... which works great... HOWEVER, the MAC's OSX installs a hidden file which chokes the backup process... it will skip the file and continue the backup... but you will get alot of errors as you run the backup on a Network Share that has been accessed by the MAC OSX FInder. If you are comfortable with the shell, there are a number of quick utils or just a couple commands that need to be issued to delete those files... but then you loose your MAC OSX Finder "extra-data" (read: comments, etc).
It should do everything else you want... and significantly more... you should note, it has 3 USB ports, and you can hook up drives to it directly.
Lastly, you can buy the box empty (read: no drives), put in your own drives and build the Raid (they use XRaid, but you can run Raid 0,1,5)... it takes only 15 minutes to install all the drives... around 15 minutes to set up the Raid for the format... and then around 8-12 hours to run the format (depending on size)... if you are a good shopper, you should be able to build it yourself for around 1/2 (maybe 2/3) the price of the cheapest online offerings.
Hope this helps.
Netgear/Infrant ReadyNAS NV - 4x750GB is working well for me (for now) - I did EXTENSIVE research and looked at many of the other options listed above - go with the ReadyNAS...period.
I'll second that. I've done my homework too. The ReadyNAS is unbeatable. If I didn't have $10k worth of dental work coming up, I'd have one by now.
just use an old pc. I have a 366mhz with a serial ata raid card, I can access utorrent via the web, ftp into it, etc. it uses 120watts power and sits under my tv. all the computers on my network access it.
runs xp just fine with no hiccups.
I took an ancient dell, put a Raid card, a gigibit card, and installed Ubuntu.
Now it's a Raid-5 file server and Print Server.
@ Chip
10k on dental work? Johnny Fairplay - is that you?
Or you could just get a life??
(only kidding - yeah ok I'm flame bait!)
I've got a Synology DS-106j with a 750Gb Seagate ATA-100 drive.
I bought it because of the great reviews in SmallNetBuilder.com but also because it was cheap, quiet and had every feature that I wanted including photo/video sharing, pc backup, iTunes server, bit torrent, ftp, http server, GigE. Another cool surprise feature is one button upload of digital camera data via USB port on the front.
ReadyNAS NV+ is nice, but it's horribly slow and has absolutely horrendous fault tolerance on network failures. If you absolutely must get this, do yourself a BIG favor and make sure you avoid wireless at all costs.
The sad thing is, that even with those faults, it's still the best bang for buck.
It's only a matter of time someone comes up with a BitTorrent plugin for it.
The ReadyNas does look good guys...
But Ive just looked on NewEgg at the prices and it costs a fortune!
Buy the chassis with ram and purchase the drives afterward. They charge a premium for it with disks preinstalled. I did this and the auto expand feature worked great.
Sorry i don't have time to read all the previous comments, but i just want to mention that all of this has been gone over in great deal on the internet - check lifehacker for a few blog entries about this topic. Personally, this is my setup.
Ubuntu linux server with 4 500GB drives, nested into a 1TB RAID0+1 array. This is my data security.
Torrents are managed by Torrentflux (Apache Based, not uTorrent shyte)
Music is managed by Ampache (TOTALLY recommended - its Apache based so you can stream to anywhere)
General file access is provided by Samba
Web file access is provided by PHP File Navigator (DO NOT RECOMMEND!! In fact, i will be back later to see what programs others are using to access their servers.)
Be sure to get yourself a nice Gigabit Ethernet card on this sucker so that your local transfers are nice and fast. I've got 100MB here at the house, and i gotta say, moving ISOs takes 60-120 seconds.
Oh, one last note: Those 500GB drives are SATA, and i see a small performance boost from the raid array. Hard drives are SDA-SDD, RAID 0 drives are MD0 and MD1, RAID 1 drive is MD2. The speed from MD2 is the speed you actually see using this setup:
[18:17:37] root@Maximus:~ -> hdparm -tT /dev/sda; hdparm -tT /dev/sdb; hdparm -tT /dev/sdc; hdparm -tT /dev/sdd; hdparm -tT /dev/md0; hdparm -tT /dev/md1; hdparm -tT /dev/md2
/dev/sda:
Timing cached reads: 822 MB in 2.00 seconds = 410.74 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 182 MB in 3.03 seconds = 60.04 MB/sec
/dev/sdb:
Timing cached reads: 820 MB in 2.00 seconds = 409.36 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 180 MB in 3.01 seconds = 59.86 MB/sec
/dev/sdc:
Timing cached reads: 820 MB in 2.00 seconds = 409.80 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 182 MB in 3.03 seconds = 60.14 MB/sec
/dev/sdd:
Timing cached reads: 820 MB in 2.00 seconds = 409.38 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 182 MB in 3.02 seconds = 60.25 MB/sec
/dev/md0:
Timing cached reads: 824 MB in 2.00 seconds = 411.57 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 266 MB in 3.01 seconds = 88.28 MB/sec
/dev/md1:
Timing cached reads: 814 MB in 2.00 seconds = 406.89 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 266 MB in 3.01 seconds = 88.44 MB/sec
/dev/md2:
Timing cached reads: 818 MB in 2.00 seconds = 408.38 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 238 MB in 3.01 seconds = 79.09 MB/sec
shyte, one MORE last thing:
If youre a UNIX junky, do the software raid with Solaris Disksuite.
If youre the OPPOSITE of a UNIX junky, spend $300 on a good hardware raid card. Optionally, do this if performance is the highest priority.
If you still have questions, contact me on my website, evillawngnome.com. I'd be glad to IM with you about this - we could even post the discussion.
That is not a particularly impressive performance rating out of 4 drives in a RAID 0+1, the cached I/O performance ratings are coming out of your RAM. The real performance numbers of 80mb/s isn't terribly impressive when a single atlas 15k II has that as a minimum read speed and peaks at about 110mb/s.
Even though the Atlas is a 3rd generation 15k SCSI drive, I'd expect better out of SATA.
@saq
Remember this is NAS!!!
Network is the bottleneck WAY before raid performance.
ARGH I CAN'T LOOK AWAY! Stay away from RAID 5. It's bad for data security. Again, google is your friend here. Nested RAID for the win. Novell has an AWESOMELY SIMPLE writeup on doing nested raid with mdadm in linux. This is the setup i use. Of course, i am a unix sysadmin, so things that are simple for me arent simple for everyone.
AARGH - NEITHER CAN I!
I know that the term "nested raid" has become fashionable in some circles but it's a remarkably useless term.
All nested raid is simply raid 1,3,5, or 6 + a mirror. So this dude (Brian) is saying "stay away from raid 5!" when in fact the "nested" form of raid 5 is in fact raid 50!
What he's probably referring to is raid 10 (aka 1 + 0)
which is just two raid 1's mirrored.
All "nested" raid options double the cost & power draw of a raid array. Performance varies among different raid levels but since this is a NAS server the pipe between your client and the NAS host will be the bottleneck way before disk will be - yes, even with GbE.
Trust me, for what engadget is looking for - raid 5 or 6 will be a more logical choice in terms of price, performance, and data protection.
Why am I qualified to give this advice? 10 years in the storage business.
D,
Ask any DBA which they prefer for data security: RAID 5 or RAID1 (mirroring). RAID 5 is far easier to corrupt. I will say, however, that no matter WHAT raid level you go with, you're going to have to have a pretty high level of command line skill to bring it back using MDADM ... i spent easily 8 hours doing my first recovery after a power outage.
I think a lot of people care about their pictures, videos, and music enough to warrant an enterprise level of data security. Short of buying SCSI drives and a hardware RAID card, this is about as good as it gets. 1/2 of the drives can fail in a RAID0+1 solution.
Which brings me to my next point: RAID 5 may be "good enough" for some users, but i must say, RAID 5 is different from nested raid. I have a feeling you're trying to oversimplify this. Check the wikipedia page for RAID Levels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID). I know we can't use wikipedia as the end-all-be-all authority, but i think it's easy to see that there are clear lines between the different levels of RAID.
In the end, it's really hard for someone else to tell you what kind of data security you need. OP, if you end up doing a home-built nas (which is a VERY rewarding learning experience), check out that wikipedia page before you choose your RAID level, and know that recovery CAN be difficult.
Oh yeah, and don't forget the UPS with that NAS ... An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. :)
@Brian
The needs of a DBA (extremely fast small block I/O + bulletproof data protection) are completely different than a user wishing to store media content (network based data consolidation, standard data protection).
I have worked at Enterprise level NAS companies (like NetApp) who sell to both markets but will probably tell you to ise their iSCSI or SAN features for Db and thier NAS features for something like this. It comes down to cost, features and what is "good enough".
Keep things as simple as possible & no simpler! I still stand by my original statements - for this application Raid 0,1,5, or 6 are perfectly reasonable choices for this application. Raid 10, 50, 60 are overkill here because performance of RAID is trumped by the NAS requirement.
Fun discussion though! ;)
D.
I use OpenFiler on a stripped down Mini-ITX board, with four big SATA drives, with a Gigabit network card, all in a 1U case, with RAID 5 hardware card ... this gets linked to my Mac Mini (OS X Server 10.4.10) via a gigabit connection, using iSCSI. So as far as my Mac Mini is concerned, it's got a terabyte drive directly connected to it, formatted HFS+.
This wound up being cheaper than the alternative which was an Infrant NAS, plus, it's in a 14" deep 1U case, and the comparable Infrant 1U server is too deep ... and even more expensive.
This way I get: RAID 5 hardware accelerated storage, a short 1U case that fits in my rack closet, and native access to it on my Mac Mini OS X Server. I don't have to worry about SMB flakiness, and I get OS X Server's fancy permissions.
Do you need a 3rd party application to access iSCSI from OSX?
Yeah it's not built into 10.4, there's a free iscsi driver, and there's an expensive driver. There might be an iscsi driver in leopard, but we'll see.
The free version is at:
http://www.studionetworksolutions.com/products/product_detail.php?t=more&pi=11
ATTO Tech makes the expensive driver ... I think it's like $200.
It's at http://www.attotech.com
I've tried the ATTO one with openfiler and it works flawlessly. I haven't tried the free version (as it just came out a couple of months ago.)
i had the same requirements at the beginning of the summer, here's what i came up with:
linux server
Samba for filesharing www.samba.org
MediaTomb for UPnP streaming to xbox/PS3 http://mediatomb.cc/
Firefly Media Server for iTunes http://www.fireflymediaserver.org/
Azureus for torrents http://www.azureus.com/
not sure about streaming over the web, but VNC might do the trick
this works with OSX, windows xp, windows vista, linux, and PS3 for sure, but would probably work on other devices as well.
I would really take a look at the Synology CS407e. It has a torrent client built into the device unlike the ReadyNAS.
I know the ReadyNAS has been getting a lot of love in this thread, but the price has gone up quite a bit since they were bought out and they can no longer be bought without drives.
Linkstation with linux on it.
Running some open linux firmware, and a DAAP server.
Will do all of it apart from xbox360. Just get a chipped xbox with xbmc for that.
I have the HP MV2020 and it's not bad.
Your wish is my command:
http://www.macmod.com/content/view/1069
I'm an IT systems manager at a small private college in Queensland. We use a Lacie 2TB NAS with a Gigabit NIC and usb expansion, and back it up to a 2TB Lacie Biggerdisk extreme. It serves to apple, windows, Linux, and even has HTTP access. You do need to make sure you've got the latest image as soon as you get the device. Otherwise it's a pretty good deal for the price.
you should definitely check new SYnology NAS.... really mac friendly and versatile!
Definitely don't waste your time on Lacie's EtherDisk product lines. My Etherdisk mini has never worked correctly in NAS or even USB mode, and La Cie has ceased updating the drivers for that model.
I would like to suggest a setup similar to mine. I've been using it within our student house for years.
- Get a cheap, silent and energy efficient Mac, I would suggest a iMac G3 400Mhz+. Try to get one which already include 10.3 or 10.4. These will cost about $50 on eBay. A laptop or Cube will do as well. Connect this in your network on 100mbit ehternet.
- Buy a cheap ATA disc for about $80-110 (300GB+). If you would like to expand later, you can always buy a FireWire disc.
- All your file sharing needs are already built into OS X. You can use SharePoints (http://www.hornware.com/sharepoints/) to tweak your settings.
- Sharing to ATV can be done through iTunes which is already on your server.
- Torrent: Run Azureus 2.4 headless (so no slow java GUI) and control it with the Azureus widget (http://andrewdupont.net/azureus/) from your Mac. If you have PC's in your network you can also use a web interface next to the widget. Or use one of the many other torrent clients which can be accessed with a web interface.
- Control the mac (basic): For basic control over the server, I have setup a e-mail address which my server checks every 5 mins. Mail.app is setup with rules, so it will run the correct applescripts. For example: when outside my network, I can send torrent files to my dedicated server e-mail address. Mail.app recognizes the .torrent attachment and adds it Azureus. Many standard applescripts can be found using google.
- Control the mac fully: it comes with a VNC client built in.
- ATV compatible content. Use trackers on which ATV compatible content is distributed only (for example ipodnova). Or as suggested before, hack your ATV to accept xvid/divx content.
Total cost: $135. Satisfaction: 100%
Good luck!
Something I forgot to mention: the iMac G3 is fanless! So for the
exception of the hard disk it is completely silent. Also it's very
energy efficient. Just be sure to set the screen to go to sleep after
a minute.
The iMac is a small form factor computer, however it comes
with a built-in 15 inch screen which makes it no mac mini
either..
When I mention OS X comes with a VNC client built in, I of
course mean it comes with a VNC server built in.
I love my Windows Home Sever. I have an 80gb internal drive and 3x 500gb external HD attached to my semi-old computer. Its awesome to be able to run programs such as Utorrent and my weather station without needing my PC. Plus I can stream files to my media receivers.