3.5 Terabyte NAS Reviewed 110
Steve Kerrison writes "Thecus' new N5200 NAS can hold five SATA drives, which with currently available drives means up to 3.5TB (or 2.75TB in RAID-5) of storage before formatting. From the review: '£600. That's roughly what this will set you back, minus hard drives. Add in five 750GB drives and you'll be forking out a number closer to two thousand. However, act a bit more modestly and you can still have a terabyte (even in RAID-5) for under a grand.'"
Build one instead? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Build one instead? (Score:4, Informative)
The reviewer, in person, here. Yes, you certianly could build a cheaper solution and whack Linux on it (the N5200 uses Linux too, incidentally). Of course, it depends on what features you long, how much you like fiddling, and what sort of case you fancy building it into.
Indeed, this thing isn't for everyone, but doesn't it look lovely?
Re:Build one instead? (Score:1)
Re:Build one instead? (Score:4, Informative)
Also I'm missing any documentation of how to upgrade the firmware to your own linux system.
If you want the source of their linux look here:
ftp://ftp.gpl-devices.org/pub/vendors/Thecus/ [gpl-devices.org]
They tried to hide the linux, but without success:
http://gnumonks.org/~laforge/weblog/2006/02/24/ [gnumonks.org]
So until they openly say they are using linux and offer a way to upgrade the software on the system I will NOT buy one of these.
I did think about getting one of these. It has really nice features and if I could put my own linux system on one of the hard disk I could use it also as a dsl router and proxy (squid).
Anyone knows of a similar device with an upgradeble linux?
Re:Build one instead? (Score:5, Informative)
At the time the cost was ~$4000 while commercial solutions were closer to ~$8,000. I used CentOS 3 as the OS (4 was still in beta) and had to use the centosplus unsupported kernel in order to use reiser on the 2Tb array -- ext3 didn't work for some reason that I don't recall. The 3Ware card showed up with stock kernel modules as a SCSI controller.
I assume someone could build a similar system for about the same cost with much more disk space now. Also, if cost is a factor, the hardware RAID card (~$800) could be dropped in favor of software RAID and a single processor mobo could be used. I really** like the Chenbro case though and for the extra cost it leaves a lot of room for expansion if you were to start with only 5 drives and wanted to expand later.
Re:Build one instead? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Build one instead? (Score:2)
Instead, I make the assumption that the drive will fail and at the worst possible time. Which means RAID + hot-spare + rotating/generational backups for anything important.
More important to me is the warranty period on the drives. Three years is nice, but five years is nicer. W
Re:Build one instead? (Score:2)
Very nicely done. But if I were you I would have done it slightly differently. I would not have used the internal disk bay (faster interventions, no need to open the case when replacing a disk). I would have only put 12 disks in the hot-swap bays (11 for RAID, and 1 hot spare). I would have used software RAID (hw and sw RAID are both capable of saturating a GigE pipe --I suppose you were doing backups over the network). Software RAID would have allowed me to create a small 100 MB RAID1 partition for bootin
Re:Build one instead? (Score:2)
How is that germane? We don't care about your dick size. Get to the point.
Re:Build one instead? (Score:2)
(Noting that there's no double-asterisk explanation at the bottom...) Combined with your sig:
Re:Build one instead? (Score:2)
Re:Build one instead? (Score:2)
It must be; I've never seen emphasis at the end of a word like that. Generally I see something like *emphatic* adjustment.
Or, to use the markup that Slashdot allows, something like <b>bold</b> or <i>italics</i>...
Glad to help the milk come out of your nose. ;-)
Re:Build one instead? (Score:2)
I did not notice any evidence of a battery-backed cache in either your article or the product website. IMO, it is important to have battery when using cached RAID-5 in order to avoid a write hole. Can you confirm whether or not the N
Re:Build one instead? (Score:4, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Build one instead? (Score:2)
For your average video collection (unless you're a serious home video guy who need real backup) I suggest skipping RAID altogether
That's fine with a small collection, but as it gets larger you start to value it more because of the time it takes to rip and transcode all of those movies. The process is pretty automated, but ripping and transcoding three or four hundred DVDs takes a a great deal of time. I also have about 300 movies on VHS that I plan to digitize, and that's going to take a lot of time (e
NAS without RAID5? (Score:5, Interesting)
Old machines with ATX type motherboards and such are far too cheap to justify shelling out $700 or more for a "dedicated" type solution. Get an old machine with a P2B-F motherboard and a decent PII cpu, throw away the old power supply and put in a shinty new $70 or so power supply, plug in a controller card if you wanna use SATA drives, and off you go - essentially for the price of the drives you want to put in it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Build one instead? (Score:2)
Won't it be etter to just copy the iso and then mount the iso when needed?
I do that with some movies, but not most, for two reasons. First, disk space. It's not yet cheap enough that I can afford to rip the whole ISO. At an average of about 7GB per DVD multiplied by ~400 DVDs, that's almost 3TB for my video collection. By ripping just the main title from each DVD and by transcoding it into a high-quality DivX file, I reduce the per-movie space to about 2.5GB. The other reason is that most of the time
Re:Build one instead? (Score:2)
That way, if the primary disk dies, you simply put a new one in and restore from the backup drive. And if the primary disk gets corrupted, the backup shouldn't be affected. Under linux you could even ke
Re:Build one instead? (Score:4, Funny)
Er.... see you write that.
Er..Yeah.
Re:Build one instead? (Score:1)
That's still legal, right?
Re:Build one instead? (Score:1)
Re:Build one instead? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Build one instead? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Build one instead? (Score:2, Interesting)
I've just done that. I put together a Sempron 2800 powered rig with 4 Western Digital WD5000YS SATA RAID drives for AU$2,300. I'm using ClarkConnect for the OS, and running the drives in a RAID 5 array, which gives about 1.5TB of usable space. The box runs headless, and is hidden away in a cupboard in my office.
Re:Build one instead? (Score:3, Informative)
I am using a software RAID5 and the difference between optimal and non-optimal is 71MB/s vs. 8MB/s writes! Hardware controllers could overcome some of this with their buffer memory, but I still think you should be using the optimal number of drives there.
Re:Build one instead? (Score:1)
Because speed isn't always the goal. I used 4 because that gave me the space and redundancy I needed, not to get a high transfer speed.
Re:Build one instead? (Score:2)
I wish I had known this before I moved 1 TB of data to the array.
Re:Build one instead? (Score:3, Informative)
In
Re:Build one instead? (Score:2)
Re:Build one instead? (Score:2)
Most likely because it's exceptionally uncommon to find disk controllers with odd numbers of ports.
Most everyone building big chunks o' disk value space over performance. Particularly when they're typically going to be accessing it using PCs with pitiful bus bandwidth and/or over <10G ethernet.
I am using a software RAID5 and the difference between optimal and non-optimal is 71MB/s vs. 8MB/s writes!
Your problem is(/was) elsewhere. I have
OS (Score:4, Interesting)
If you roll your own, you might well have to set up Samba/CIFS/Netatalk all separately, which could easily become a huge pain. If you want a new share, you'd have to add it manually to all three, and deal with their varying authentication schemes.
I did some Googling around for OSes specifically designed for roll-your-own NAS boxes (which it seems must exist), and came up with some stuff. One of the neatest projects looks like it has died, which is sad: Darma NAS OS [darma.com]. It seemed to be Linux-based and had a Java web-based management GUI, used the usual SMB/NFS/AppleShare, and supported ACLs and some other neat management stuff.
I'm curious what people who've gone the DIY route are using to ease the management hassle that I could easily see a SAN becoming if it's OS is just straight Linux.
Re:OS (Score:2)
Re:OS (Score:2)
However, for someone posting with such a low UID, I would have expected a link. [openfiler.com] Your
Not necessary hassle (Score:2)
Done the DIY route.
1. I use LVM2 to manage the discs and ReiserFS partition. No need to create new mount points for disc (no new "/data2" directory to add to all configuration), just add more storage space to the LVM pool and grow the partition (which can be done while system is live with ReiserFS). More space will automatically be available in th
Re:Build one instead? (Score:2)
Re:Build one instead? (Score:2)
The only real cost was an empty drive box. I wish for the life of me that I could remember the names. Ahh well.
Re:Build one instead? (Score:2)
Re:Build one instead? (Score:1)
Re:Build one instead? (Score:1)
Won't work for me. I have about 400 transcoded movies, ripped from my DVD collection. DVDs are inconvienient when compared to central storage and theaters are a hassle when compared to a 60" widescreen LCD.
Re:Build one instead? (Score:1, Informative)
I highly recommend the 3ware 9500S-8 controller, it is very well supported on linux (3/5 of the sections in the instruction manual were for installation on redhat, suse, and some other distribution), supports RAID-5, is SATA, support
Re:Build one instead? (Score:1)
For your stated purpose you might find that upcoming boxes from Yellow Machine might be a good fit. Up to 3 GB and built-in streaming and mostly automatic discovery and automation. Pricing seems to be in line with hardware costs with what I, a genuine cheepskate, would consider reasonable.
The new models, about which I am writing, are starting to hit the market this month, with the really interesting ones coming in the fall and so forth.
This is not an endorsement, just information, as I have not yet te
Conversion for Americans (Score:4, Informative)
£600 = $1100
£2000 = $3700
(Yes, the pound is one of the heaviest currencies in the world - in that one GBP is worth more than one unit of other currencies)
Re:OT (Score:2)
Re:Conversion for Americans (Score:1, Funny)
Yes, but it's nothing compared to kilos.
Re:Conversion for Americans (Score:1, Flamebait)
FYI (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:Conversion for Americans (Score:1)
Since I don't trust police states to do anything except trample on liberty and freedom, my trust in the US government is declining at a rapid rate.
(I am a Registered Republican and a libertarian)
Regards,
Ross
Re:Conversion for Americans (Score:1)
Re:Conversion for Americans (Score:2)
First, I'm a libertarian, not a "L"ibertarian. Though I did vote for Badnarik, and I do want a smaller government involved in fewer aspects of our daily lives, I don't actually buy into the anarchist aspects of the official party platform.
Second, as a registered Republican, I get a chance to vote in Republican primaries. Which means that I can support John McCain, and vote against whichever religious right-winger who tries to get elected where I live. Since this he
Re:Conversion for Americans (Score:1)
Re:Conversion for Americans (Score:1)
Re:Conversion for Americans (Score:2)
Re:Conversion for Americans (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Conversion for Americans (Score:1)
Re:Conversion for Americans (Score:2)
Big and Redundant. Nice. (Score:1)
Under a grand? (Score:1, Interesting)
That's it? (Score:1)
Build it myself (Score:2, Interesting)
Under A Grand? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Under A Grand? (Score:2, Interesting)
500 U.S. dollars = 271.783443 British pounds
Works the same way for converting Celcius to Kelvin, metrics to other systems and so forth. Calculator included!
Re:Under A Grand? (Score:1)
Re:Under A Grand? (Score:4, Insightful)
$230 * 4 (redundancy to prevent data loss) = ~$1000 for 1TB.
If you don't mind losing your data then this product is not for you. We can also ignore the performance difference between 4 individual USB drives and a single network attached device.
Re:Under A Grand? (Score:2)
They were USB drives. USB is pretty easy to unplug thus making RAID5 very fragile.
Best use either RAID6 (double parity) -- minimum of 4 disks.
Re:Under A Grand? (Score:2)
Buffalo Terastation Pro (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Buffalo Terastation Pro (Score:2)
What kind of video are you trying to stream from it. It should just be disk IO, and a full HD video stream fills up about 5-8MB/sec.
Hopefully, you are mistaken.
Re:Buffalo Terastation Pro (Score:2)
NFS isn't necessary for streaming video - CIFS doesn't have enough overhead to cause a problem in that area. It's probably your video player that has a problem.
Re:Buffalo Terastation Pro (Score:2)
Simple speed.
Those Terastations have about 15Mbyte maximum write speed in raid5 mode, this one according to the review >35.
If you want to actually use it as a NAS, and not as a media server, thats a huge difference.
iSCSI? NAS? (Score:2)
Re:iSCSI? NAS? (Score:2)
Also beware the controllers. Good file servers have good quality RAID chipsets, like Adaptec or 3Ware. Cheap file serversz have those awful Promise or other low-end chipsets, with lots of wildly touted NEW! EXCITING! FEA
Re:iSCSI? NAS? (Score:2)
Re:iSCSI? NAS? (Score:2)
Unless, of course, money is no object.
Re:CLV vs CAV (Score:1)
If there was a desire to utilize the additional platter capacity on the outer tracks, it could be more simply done by writing more sectors on outer tracks.
But having a variable number of sectors per tra
A custom built alternative (Score:5, Interesting)
This will support 4 drives over SATA, or 7 if you use all of the IDE channels:
$105 4U case and 400w power supply
$165 915G Socket 479 Motherboard w/ 4 SATA, 2 IDE, and gigabit ethernet.
$71 Celeron M 370 (Dothan) CPU
$25 DDR2 memory (256MB)
$25 CompactFlash OS drive (1GB)
$15 IDE to Compact Flash adapter
$0-25 Linux OS -- there are specialized NAS distributions available commercially for those that afraid of setting things up themselves
= $406-$431
Which beats this device's $670 lowest price found on Froogle.
Additions:
$20 4x SATA I
$60 4x SATA II
$50-100 Replacement power supply
+$60 1GB DDR2
+$150 Pentium M CPU
Sure, the Celeron M will use more power than a Celeron M ULV, and the included power supply may be inadequate for configurations with large drives (but that's more drives than the article's product supports). And this device doesn't have the USB device capaibility, either. But you've got the freedom to do things how you like.
I'd substitute (Score:2)
$85 ASUS M2NPV-VM Socket AM2 NVIDIA GeForce 6150 Micro ATX AMD Motherboard [newegg.com]. Everything you need including
Re:I'd substitute (Score:1)
Re:A custom built alternative (Score:3, Informative)
$34-44 - MicroATX MINI-tower case w/ 300-400W PSU, 4x int 3.5" bays + 1-2x ext 3.5" (or 5.25" bays w/ brackets) [newegg.com]
$79 - MicroATX Asus Socket 939 MB w/ 4x SATA2, 2x PATA, pci-e, gigabit, integrated vid&audio [newegg.com]
$92 - AMD Athlon64 3000+ (cheapest socket 939 cpu) [newegg.com]
$22-$40 - 256MB DDR400 [newegg.com] (or $40 for 512)
$25 - 1GB CompactFlash (80X) [newegg.com]
$12 - IDE-CF Adapter [newegg.com]
$14 - 1x SATA PCI-e controller [newegg.com] (1 + 4 onboard = 5x s
NASLite (Score:2, Interesting)
Big Cheapo RAID (Score:2)
Re:Big Cheapo RAID (Score:1)
Not anymore. My time is much more valuable than fiddling with linux boxes and I am not geeky enough anyway.
I would recommand thecus YESBOX for video collectors. Put two 750GB and set the box to the raid1 mode. Box isn't the fastest box on the net but it is useful while maintaining it's size small, quiet, and has physical on/off button to turn on/off without loggin into box remotely. It comes wi
Re:Big Cheapo RAID (Score:2)
But then, I find occasionally setting up a PC for myself relaxing. I guess because I'm both geeky and cheap. That's why the cheap PC approach seems better, especially for home systems that don't need the performance/manageability of an enterprise RAID.
The role of commodity HW actually makes the cheap PC RAID more i
5 Drives not bad...but (Score:1)
So, in conclusion, SATA drives provide more space, have less need for drives and therefore save energy. (And they prev
No pics? (Score:2, Insightful)
a banner day for us old fogies. (Score:2)
But will it work with Vista? (Score:4, Interesting)
I didn't see mention of what internal software was used, but a lot of NAS devices use Samba and won't work properly with Vista. Check out this link [emailbattles.com].
That's the problem with NAS devices; Microsoft loves to change its network protocols with each new version of Windows, breaking countless NAS devices that are past vendor support.
There are a number of NAS devices designed to work with Windows 2000 that don't work well with windows XP; the vendors won't provide updates and would rather you just chuck it and buy a new NAS device.
Recommend Controller Cards for ZFS (Score:2)