[Pete]

A review of the US$650 Synology DS412+. No doubt more than you want to spend, Simon, but maybe it gives you an idea of what the cheaper models offer (I'm guessing the same web interface, lower performance and fewer drive bays?).

[BRiT]

First of all, what are you planning on using it for?
How comfortable are you with tinkering with Linux-based solutions?
Feel like building your own file server?

If it's for multimedia storage such as music or movies and you dont mind tinkering with Linux if you wish to expand functionality, then you might want to check out unRAID. It's pretty much raid-4 using a dedicated parity drive and allows you to use drives of different sizes and is quick to expand the array when adding new drives if you use the separate preclear process so the array isn't offline. The write speeds aren't the fastest [25-43 MB/s], but it lets all unused drives idle and spin-down, only spins-up the single drive needed to read the file, only spins up the single drive and the parity drive needed to write files, presents the array through a union filesystem, and if you have multi-drive failure the data on the remaining drives is fully in tact. It's great for HTPC serving. The read speeds are limited by the single individual drive.

[Simon F]

Originally Posted by Blazkowicz

The HP microserver is pretty nice if you want a cheap PC without spending time searching cases,

In the end I've decided to by the HP microserver, mainly because, with a cash back offer, it's currently around £130. Have also ordered some extra RAM to get it up from its default 2GB, as well as some extra HDDs. It's nice that it has USB port on the MOBO so I can put the OS on a USB key and it's safe out of harm's way.

Now the question is what to install on it. I started messing about with FreeNAS then discovered that the driver for Qualcomm-based ethernet chips does not support wake on LAN, which is something I'd strongly like to have.

Not realising this was a generic freeBSD problem, I also tried NAS4Free, but that has the same issue. I may yet have to experiment with a linux-based server. Some of those definitely work with the microserver.

Anyway, FWIW, it's not clear to me which of FreeNAS vs NAS4Free is better. Both can be set up via a web interface. NAS4Free's seemed a little more logical until it came to actually setting up the disks and then it is convoluted, at least for ZFS. FreeNAS appeared much simpler in this respect and also had the advantage of a web-based shell tool - the other only gives you a single command line via the web. Then again, NAS4Free seems to have more services built-in.

Don't quite know which I'll settle on.

[MfA]

Windows 8 with ReFS finally has a decent storage pooling solution again, so that's an option as well.

Personally I have simply used Debian with Aufs for storage pooling in the past (requires a custom kernel) but that's probably a bit more manual than you want.

[Davros]

Let me ask a noob question :
Whats the advantages of a nas over just making a shared folder on one of your networked pc's ?

[jimbo75]

You wouldn't want your own PC being slowed down because one of your kids or somebody else wanted to stream a movie for example. Or maybe they'd want to watch something late at night when you were in bed, so most NAS would be on 24/7 so your PC didn't need to be. This is why most people want quiet, low power NAS.

[swaaye]

There's also a neat advantage with NAS drives supporting Win9x connectivity unlike Win Vista or later. My Diskstation is Linux based and SAMBA works fine with old OSs. Good for VOGONS retro nonsense.

A little NAS box like a Diskstation also barely uses more power than the HDD alone.

[MfA]

Originally Posted by Davros

Whats the advantages of a nas over just making a shared folder on one of your networked pc's ?

The Microserver uses 30 Watt in Idle, an ARM box will use a fraction of that.

[Davros]

ok thanks for the answers

[Simon F]

Originally Posted by MfA

The Microserver uses 30 Watt in Idle, an ARM box will use a fraction of that.

Not necessarily the case:
http://www.avforums.com/forums/netwo...nsumption.html

The LG, for example, seems to be ARM based.

FWIW: I'm still trying to decide on what I really should install on it.

[Onkl Bjorni]

Originally Posted by Simon F

FWIW: I'm still trying to decide on what I really should install on it.

I would once again recommend you give FreeNAS(NAS4free) a try. My 2 home servers have been running FreeNAS 0,7RC2 flawlessly for close to 4 years now.. Only thing I have needed to do is replace some failing hard drives in the RAID array. And that's as easy as just taking out the bad drive and puting in a new one of the same size..

As for the difference between FreeNAS and NAS4free, as far as I have gathered (current FreeNAS) is version 0,8 built up from the ground to be a more enterprise version and NAS4free is a "spinoff" from FreeNAS v 0,7 meant more for the average consumer.

As for the file system, I have just been using FreeNAS's native system (UFS)

I have both osx and windows based systems accessing them with no problems..

Hope this will be to some help

[Simon F]

Originally Posted by Onkl Bjorni

I would once again recommend you give FreeNAS(NAS4free) a try. My 2 home servers have been running FreeNAS 0,7RC2 flawlessly for close to 4 years now.. Only thing I have needed to do is replace some failing hard drives in the RAID array. And that's as easy as just taking out the bad drive and puting in a new one of the same size..

As for the difference between FreeNAS and NAS4free, as far as I have gathered (current FreeNAS) is version 0,8 built up from the ground to be a more enterprise version and NAS4free is a "spinoff" from FreeNAS v 0,7 meant more for the average consumer.

As for the file system, I have just been using FreeNAS's native system (UFS)

I have both osx and windows based systems accessing them with no problems..

Hope this will be to some help

As I said, I'm currently trialling NAS4Free but there are some annoyances.

• I can't use Wake on LAN with the HP microserver due (apparently) to the state of the Ethernet BSD driver for Qualcomm-based hardware.
• For directories of photos accessed via the webserver interface, I'd like to be able to auto-generate thumbnails and appropriate index files with, say, a cron job on the server, rather than just get a directory listing. I tried to install a BSD build for ImageMagick but that seemed to be broken for NAS4Free ... but that may just be ignorance on my part <shrug>. I'd expect that with a Linux Distro this would be straightforward.
• Something like AjaxExplorer that comes with the Turnkey distro would also be very nice, but I haven't noticed this for NAS4Free or FreeNAS.

There may have been some other things but they've slipped my mind at the moment. I'm currently using ZFS though whether NAS4Free has (easy) access to some of its features is yet to be determined.

Having said that, I like that it runs from a USB stick and that it (apparently) makes use of RAM disks etc. Not sure if there are simple linux distros that are equivalent. <shrug>

[Onkl Bjorni]

Originally Posted by Simon F

As I said, I'm currently trialling NAS4Free but there are some annoyances.

• I can't use Wake on LAN with the HP microserver due (apparently) to the state of the Ethernet BSD driver for Qualcomm-based hardware.
• For directories of photos accessed via the webserver interface, I'd like to be able to auto-generate thumbnails and appropriate index files with, say, a cron job on the server, rather than just get a directory listing. I tried to install a BSD build for ImageMagick but that seemed to be broken for NAS4Free ... but that may just be ignorance on my part <shrug>. I'd expect that with a Linux Distro this would be straightforward.
• Something like AjaxExplorer that comes with the Turnkey distro would also be very nice, but I haven't noticed this for NAS4Free or FreeNAS.

There may have been some other things but they've slipped my mind at the moment. I'm currently using ZFS though whether NAS4Free has (easy) access to some of its features is yet to be determined.

Having said that, I like that it runs from a USB stick and that it (apparently) makes use of RAM disks etc. Not sure if there are simple linux distros that are equivalent. <shrug>

Hmm, I think you may have way more experience with Linux/BSD then me. I use my servers strictly as file servers (video, music & pictures) and to access it I use XBMC Media Center. And that have its on library system (picture thumbnails ect)

And the reason I went with FreeNAS was that it looked fairly easy to sett up and get going, I have really not looked in to the more advanced services that are available..

So other then the fact that for me, FreeNAS has been really stable, easy to use and reliable, I don't think I can offer anymore insights or advice

[Blazkowicz]

OpenMediaVault is the new kitchen sink toy, it seems, but still in early 0.4.x territory.
It's based so debian linux, so easier hardware and software support probably but no ZFS on it, just regular RAID.

For the ethernet adapter, a simple cop out would be to use another one. I thought, there are no slots, they can't be seen from pictures of the computer open but.. there are slots, only visible from behind.
So, you could drop in a cheap Realetk. Then I made a google request to be sure about WoL, and oh dear..
http://forums.freenas.org/showthread...-Realtek-8111E

FreeNAS 9.x is "expected" in mid 2013, when it'll use FreeBSD 9.x, and I don't know about NAS4free. But you maybe will get better hardware support, someday

For Imagemagick, did you try the "ports collection", or plain building from source the manual way (that can be worth doing if it's just one piece of software, install it in /opt.)
Well, the ports's business should be to automate that building.
I suppose using that system gives your software more chance to work than with downloading a pre-built package.

[shiznit]

core i3 with ecc ram running nexenta.

[Simon F]

Originally Posted by Blazkowicz

OpenMediaVault is the new kitchen sink toy, it seems, but still in early 0.4.x territory.
It's based so debian linux, so easier hardware and software support probably but no ZFS on it, just regular RAID.

Thanks for the heads up. Seems tricky to get all the right options in one convenient distribution.
[UPDATE] Hmm.. looks promising OpenMediaVault might do the trick for the WakeOnLan with the Proliant.

For the ethernet adapter, a simple cop out would be to use another one. I thought, there are no slots, they can't be seen from pictures of the computer open but.. there are slots, only visible from behind.
So, you could drop in a cheap Realetk. Then I made a google request to be sure about WoL, and oh dear..
http://forums.freenas.org/showthread...-Realtek-8111E

Yes it does have two PCIe slots, and though they are not that easy to access, I might have a scrounge around to borrow a card to see if it fixes the issue. I do seem to recall reading that some Linux distribs do work with the on-board chip which would be preferable.

FreeNAS 9.x is "expected" in mid 2013, when it'll use FreeBSD 9.x, and I don't know about NAS4free. But you maybe will get better hardware support, someday

For Imagemagick, did you try the "ports collection", or plain building from source the manual way (that can be worth doing if it's just one piece of software, install it in /opt.)

"Ports collection"? Hadn't come across that. Will have a search. As with a lot of things, it can probably be solved given enough time but sitting at a computer at home for extended periods tends to annoy the family

[Blazkowicz]

Originally Posted by shiznit

core i3 with ecc ram running nexenta.

The other notable thing about the HP microserver is it comes with ECC out of the box.

[Blazkowicz]

Originally Posted by Simon F

"Ports collection"? Hadn't come across that. Will have a search. As with a lot of things, it can probably be solved given enough time but sitting at a computer at home for extended periods tends to annoy the family

You probably know about "apt-get install foo" : magical, always works, no effort on your own, it takes care of the dirty work.
Well there it would be the same thing.. assuming it's enabled in NAS4Free.. assuming it doesn't need to be much configured.. assuming it works at all with no dependency and errors hell.. assuming FreeBSD project's recent internet site issue don't affect it (it should affect 9.1 not 8.x).. assuming a 5 minute job doesn't turn into a 2 hour one.

I'm downloading freeBSD 8.3's basic ISO to try it out in virtual machine - a command-line only system will be fine (and any graphical thing I install may run through virtual network on my linux's X server and window manager)
Really wanna try it. I heard the man pages are very detailed and well maintained, there's even a documentation.

I used Solaris 7 in university back then (crazy machine with 8 300MHz CPU and 4GB RAM, a lot of SCSI storage.. but we used that from rooms full of thin clients, and we were many simultaneous users)
FreeBSD should be similar, i.e. a whole OS that fits together consistently and compatible a lot with itself over years. A linux distro is a mish-mash of disparate stuff that comes from hundreds of places and doesn't stay in place, next to that. But that surprisingly works well too. It's a mystery to me that all these gigantic OSes, with their tons of fragile drivers and n-ty layers of complexity work at all. [/end of digression]

[shiznit]

Nexenta 4 beta is out, based on Illumos now. I'm still running 3 but that's because I have 2 esxi hosts, lots of VMs, 2 pools, FC, iSCSI and NFS/CIFS and I can't afford for anything to go wrong. However, if I was starting from scratch I would probably use 4. I remember a post from some old Sun ZFS guys saying most members of the old team are at Nexenta/Illumos now, it will be the premier ZFS platform going forward.

I've tried Linux LVM and OpenIndiana w/Napp-it, Nexenta is by far the best imo if you can stay under the 16TB limit for the Community edition. It supports VAAI on block storage which really helps if you run ESXi, and if you load up on ram deduplication actually works. The gui is much nicer than Napp-it imo, and it has a fully functional custom shell.

All my OI pools and folders imported with no issue and performance with a Core i3-2100 is great. Sometimes I see 50% cpu during storage vmotion from one pool to another, not bad at all since I have compression enabled on all folders. I would be hesitant do run it on the HP Micro, ZFS uses checksums for all transactions and with compression enabled it might be asking too much.

[Blazkowicz]

Heavy duty stuff it seems you do.
Of course, if this home server is full of photographs, sound and video then compression is useless.
if you have some compression-friendly stuff to store I guess you can have a different storage pool (or slice or whatever the name is) and enable compression on that, assuming you need to.

Nice to hear the Nexenta team is still going (and others), hold outs of the OpenSolaris debacle I suppose. Oracle is good for this, when they can something or appropriate it (like OpenOffice.org) the devs leave the ship but continue doing it under another name .
So, what if Oracle decided to destroy Virtualbox for no good reason, it would surely go on with a new life of its own..

[shiznit]

Originally Posted by Blazkowicz

Heavy duty stuff it seems you do.
Of course, if this home server is full of photographs, sound and video then compression is useless.
if you have some compression-friendly stuff to store I guess you can have a different storage pool (or slice or whatever the name is) and enable compression on that, assuming you need to.

Nice to hear the Nexenta team is still going (and others), hold outs of the OpenSolaris debacle I suppose. Oracle is good for this, when they can something or appropriate it (like OpenOffice.org) the devs leave the ship but continue doing it under another name .
So, what if Oracle decided to destroy Virtualbox for no good reason, it would surely go on with a new life of its own..

You guys build software, I build infrastructure . I don't post much here since I rarely have anything of value to add to the discussion, but I like learning more about 3D because building gaming PCs is what got me into computers in the first place so I read this board. The microserver could work well if you're not going to use block storage but rolling your own core i3/supermicro would be cheaper and much better all around.

Don't get me started on Oracle virtualization, I had to roll out a critical app in OVM 3.1 recently and it was very painful.