NAS hardware recommendations

[Enchant]

I would like to rip all my CD's to MP3 and placed on my network so they could be played from any machine attached. I may also want to serve some video files as well. Is 100MBps sufficient for video? Or is 1000 needed?

Also, any recommendations on hardware that people have or have knowledge of? Is having an enclosure with USB drives better than ones that utilize normal IDE drives?

 

[kstornado]

I'd suggest getting a Linksys NSLU2, and then an external USB drive of your choice. The NSLU2 can be 'hacked' to run an iTunes server on it, and works really well. You can store all your other files on there as well and simply access it through a network share...

 

[JackMDS]

May be this can Help.

Link to: Network Attached Storage (NAS) for Home/SOHO Networks.

:sun:

 

[Changlinn]

Umm yeah all good ideas, expensive and somewhat troublesome, but still good USB drive, expensive, and innefficient. NAS, expensive and not as easy to upgrade it or multi-task it.
My suggestion, build a pc to be a file server, if it is just going to be a file server you can get away with a 300mhz processor, you can run raid for redundancy, and can upgrade the space with more and more controllers and drives, personally though you can make it do other stuff, mine is a dual 1.3ghz with 512mb of ram, mail, dns, dhcp, web, ldap, and obviously file server, even with all this load rarely goes above 10%. I currently have one 2port ide raid controller in it that I got for $30, running 4 120gb hard drives(I got for between $150 and $50), not in raid yet, as I need to empty them first. Also going to get a 8-port 64bit(as this board supports 64bit pci, for faster access) sata raid controller for $150 and get 8 300gb drives in raid 5 for ultimate storage.
Mostly this is used for linux isos, music, sharing dvd's and backing up laptops and desktops in our network. We also have over 50gb of photos... With all this centralised I can burn the whole lot to a stack of dvdrw's every month and leave them at work just in case the unthinkable happens.
Oh and about your question of bandwidth required, I have succesfully run a dvd from the server across the lan and across my wireless lan to a laptop with no issues. most mp3's are at max 256kbs thats one-quater of a Mbps, video maxs out at around 2500kbps, or 2.5(roughly)Mbps, again a 100mb link easily handles it.

 

[JackMDS]

The difference between a computer running as a dedicated file or a NAS with USB drive.

1. Much less Noise with NAS.

2. NAS is more solid and more crash protected.

3. The NAS takes 20W to run. Computer much more.

If one does not get free electricity the computer solution might be a monthly expense that would fast super pass the initial cost difference.

4. NAS is cool, people are more imperssed when you say ?I Run NAS? as oppose to ?I Run File Server? (j/k on 4, since one cal say NAS even if he does not have a real NAS )

:sun:

 

[wlee]

You might consider one of the LACIE Ethernet Disk Minis
They are currently avail up to 500GB. There is also the 1U rackmount 1TB model. They run WindowsXP Embedded ver. The limitation of this vs the Iomega's running Windows Storage Server 2003 is that you can only have 25 concurrent client connections. But it's a LOT less $$$

 

[Changlinn]

I set up a 1tb arrary for a client, with an old dual celeron 300 motherbaord and a couple of cheap pci sata controllers, all up around AU$2000, about US$1200, it runs raid 5, and has a dvd burner for their important stuff to be burnt too. SOrry but until you can show me a NAS that has 1tb in raid5 for this much, then the server solution will always be better, more upgradeable, and really doesn't draw to much more power, my file server costs me $15/month to run 24/7, so if the price difference is $100(from what I have seen it is more like 5 times this) between nas and software solution, it'd be 10-50 months before they hit the same price, in that time I could have upgraded my storage, and added security to the shares... Hard drives from most resellers here in Australia are mostly below AU$1/GB that means a tb will cost less than AU$1000 or about US$600 . So from that 1tb lacie 1ru rack mounted nas it was US$1100 for that you could almost get a 2tb file server, with raid, and probably even with a tape drive to backup important files.
I would also suggest depending on the amount of users of your file server to suit the operating system to this, windows basically makes you pay per user that connects to the file server sequentially, of course windows is easier for most people to administer, but linux/bsd can have an unlimited number of users connected to them, so it is really cheaper for mass file storage.
As for less noise, you can setup the pc to be quiet, but if you sacrafice a little noise for less overall cost and more configurability, then so be it. Also it is cooler to say I have a 2tb file server than it is to say I have a 1tb NAS, then you have to explain what NAS is and they just look at you and go why didn't you just get a thumbdrive...

 

[Genx87]

Those lacie units would be cool if they werent a single drive design and came with GBit ethernet.

 

[Changlinn]

ah another advantage of a roll-your-own aproach, multiple drives, hot swappable, and multiple gigabit ethernet if needed, really though in most cases 100mb is enough.