Thetownend.com

That's Network Attached Storage, not the rapper.

Anyone got one? I want one, but can't decide between the self-build or off-the-shelf option. I ideally don't want to spend too much.

Netgear's ReadyNas range look good and there are plenty of customisation options, but the cheapest is around £140 for a diskless two-bay box :eek:. They do a basic box for £75 which you can then claim a free 500GB drive for, but it's pretty basic and the add-ons are only available on a subscription basis (they're free on the more expensive boxes).

I could go self-build and source some second hand components cheaply off eBay. Apparently mini-ITX boards are the best option, but that leaves case options limited because I'd need it to be fairly small (but big enough to take have at least 3 drive bays) and look aesthetically pleasing because it'll be sat under my TV next to my router.

I got a good self build running in mirrored raid array so double backed-up. It cost £60 I think on eBay and then I just had to buy the drives. It takes fucking ages to boot though, like 10 minutes or something!

I also have a dual bay Netgear thing I no longer use, it's as good as new and if you want it you can make me an offer? It cost me £50 about 3 years ago!

It's an SC101 and as you can buy them new for peanuts and I would've thrown it out eventually, you can have it for free if it's any good to you Sam.

Nah, thanks anyway but I think I'll pass. Looks like it's IDE only and I don't think you can use any custom add-ons either.

For example, on the ReadyNas there's a bittorrent client that you can install so I could download stuff overnight without having to keep my laptop on.

Don't blame you to be honest. From what I remember, it has it's own software and format options that are a total pain in the arse.

Edit: Which reminds me. Try to find one that doesn't require it's own software like that Netgear. I have mine mapped and I can browse and backup with ease using Syncback, I don't think my Netgear above allowed any access or backups unless through their shit software.

I'm leaning more towards the self-build. I'm going to try and find a cheap mini ITX case and board and bung either Freenas or Naslite on it.

I'm sure I heard the BT Home Hub has built in NAS for the usb port. Not sure if that would be helpful to you, well it could be if you have a Home Hub.

Would be good if anyone could confirm

I have done a build with one of these, supports core 2 duo chips so much quicker than the Atom based mobos.

http://www.advancetec.co.uk/acatalog/Zotac_nForce_610i_Mini_ITX_Motherboard.html

Not a bad price at £41 but then you have to add a chip but you may have an old core 2 duo sat around like an old pentium D or even an old 775 socket Intel Celery.

Whack it in a wee 300w case like this one
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/204329

And away you go.

http://www.filesaveas.com/bthomehub_usb.html

Yep the home hub does.

It does, but it's only USB 1.0 so it's extremely slow.

Hi Sam...did you recieve the 1.000 pence i sent you?

Gibberish

Thats a great Martock word Steve.

I'm trying to keep power usage low though (to save on the leccy bill) and those Core2Duo chips are very power hungry.

Processor power isn't really so important on the NAS, hell I've seen one guy on AVForums who built himself a NAS with an old Pentium 3 (533mhz) and 256mb RAM and could still stream .mkv files flawlessly!

My network is only 10/100 ethernet rather than Gigabit, so the max transfer rate will be 12.5mb/s which an old chip will cope with easily.

Lopen is where its at!

Yes I did, thanks.

Thanks to you also and for being patient.

If its power saving then you cant go wrong with an Atom, dirt cheap to buy brand new (£45ish) and very very low power, about 10w on full power I think.

I've got a spare celeron chip knocking about Sam. I'll check on the socket type but it's quite old.

Ta for your help Sie........dead easy but wanted to be sure........can see Crispys videos in all there glory now!.

Thanks.

Cheers Si, I'm going to have a gander about later to see if I can find a second hand mini ITX board with chip on eBay, but yours might come in handy if I can't find anything.

Just looked it's socket 478 I believe, might not be so useful after all!

To the techies (Si Pie/jje): What's the best/cheapest 1TB SATA HDD at the moment?

eBuyer have a Samsung EcoGreen for £49 at the moment which is supposedly low power. The same drive was £35 on Aria the other day but they've run out of stock now :(

I'm thinking of just sticking a single 1TB drive in for now and then add another in at a later date and run RAID0 or RAID1.

I'll have to have a look, for a normal pc I would recommend a Samsung Spinpoint F1, but you won't need it for speed so pointless.

Don't bother with RAID 0 - it's only used for speed and if one drive fails the whole lot does. Usually only seen in high performance pcs and honestly the speed difference is not noticeable. I've swapped to RAID 1.

RAID 1 is for mirroring - so if one drive fails you still have a working array. This is best for data backup but you won't get any additional storage space by adding the extra drive in RAID 1.

RAID0 = no RAID.

Ah, I misunderstood RAID0 then.

The idea was to use mirroring, so I'll be needing RAID1.

I can always add more drives at a later date when I need the extra storage and change over to RAID5.

I use Raid 0 with 2x1TB Samsung spinpoint F3 and the difference on some large files is amazing but on on smaller file sits not noticeable at all.

on HD tach with a single 1tb F3 Spinpoint the average read speed for me is 90mb/s with a pair in Raid 0 (1.8tb total) the read speed is 150mb/s.

Also bear in mind I am running a core i7 at 4.1ghz and using Raid 0 will utilize the CPU a lot more than a non raid set up so the cpu is always working more with Raid 0 - therefore if power usage is a concern then non raid will use a fair bit (25% or more) less power because the chip is not being worked all the time that disks are accessed.

The Eco green is a nice drive but it spins at 5400rpm rather than the 7200rpm of the F3 so its not as fast in real terms.

Also bear in mind that both drives will be wiped if you add a second and try to RAID1 it later. You need to back that data up before you create the RAID array.

Anyone know much about PCI-e SATA cards?

I've sourced a lower power Via mobo & CPU bundle off eBay for £15, but it only has two SATA ports. That's enough for now, but if I want to add more drives in the future I'll need one of those SATA cards. Do they still give full SATA speeds?

Never used one myself as I am choosey about motherboards, I insist the ones I buy have at least 4 sata.

But yes they do support full 3gbps but they are not hugely cheap, expect to pay around £25-30 for a decent one.

4 would've been ideal for future proofing, but considering I'm trying to build it all for as little as possible then I made the comprimise. I won't have any optical drives installed, so have the potential to have 2 x 2tb drives in on SATA which is more than enough for me for now!

*Mini-bump*

I'm finally going to get round to building this thing soon. I've got a mobo, chip and case sorted.

What's a good deal on a 1TB drive at the moment?

Also looking for recommendations for a quiet/silent PSU. I've bought ones in the past that've promised to be quiet, but then the bearings wear after a few weeks use and they're no longer silent.

Deliberating over OS at the moment as well. I could use something dedicated like FreeNAS, but then ideally I'm looking for something I can a) use as a download box to leave on overnight (FreeNAS doesn't offer that functionality) and b) remote into so I don't have to faff around hooking up a monitor & keyboard etc. everytime I want to change something on the server. I'm thinking maybe a slipstreamed XP install that's quick to boot so I can make use of Wake on Lan.

2TB at Ebuyer for £72 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/237908
1TB at EBuyer for £42 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/182435

As for a silent CPU go for an Atom http://www.ebuyer.com/product/191127 totally silent as there are no fans at all.

www.ebuyer.com for all your HDD needs..
internal or external?
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/234825

Get a flavour of linux on there, you'll be able to telnet/ssh into it from your Windows box using putty.

How much you spent on the box, ie everything excluding the drives?

I need to sort something out and have been looking at the Synology DS410J. It ain't cheap at £250, but it's got 4 drive bays and does everything you could ever want straight out of the box with no fucking around - media server, email and website hosting, surveillance (you just need to plug the cameras in), porn downloading and more plus it has some free iPhone apps for remote access.

Is it really worth going for a cheaper self build that takes ages to put together and maintain but doesn't do half as much?

That's half the fun jonny

And yep that thingy aint cheap especially as it comes drive less

One day you'll discover women and then you'll realise that building PC's and comparing Linux builds isn't actually fun.


The price isn't that bad - if you were to build a budget system with hardware RAID it wouldn't be that much cheaper and would probably cost more if you wanted RAID6 as well (though RAID6 is a bit pointless with only 4 drives).

That Samsung F4 looks a good price. And I said PSU, not CPU ;) I've already sorted a fanless CPU (VIA EPIA).



I considered it, but I'm not so au fait with Linux. What's it like for interacting with Windows machines in a small network?


I've gone for a cheap an cheerful option. Nothing to fancy, but it'll be plenty good enough for what I need.

£30 on a mint condition second hand Antec 300 case. Think I can fit up to 8 drives in it if I want
£17 on the mobo inc. CPU (also second hand).
Had 512mb of DDR2 RAM lying around.
Probably another £30 or so on a PSU

So initially it'll be around £150 all in including drives. I'm just going to add more storage as and when I need it.

Now that would be just plain silly

So you just going to run RAID1 or no RAID? Not sure I'd be happy using software RAID5, especially on a system with a low performance CPU as it might struggle with the added overhead especially during a rebuild.

I did a quick check and a fully loaded (4 x 2Tb) Synology DS410J will cost about £500, which isn't that bad for what you get.

No RAID to start with as everything will be backed up between machines and the server. When the machines get too full and I solely need to use the NAS I'd add another drive and go RAID1.

Although it allows better use of the full HDD capacity, I think RAID5 will be overkill for what I need.

Oops my bad, I read it too fast, as for very quiet PSU's well there arent many out there a lot that say quiet actually arent quiet at all.

Thats a tough one.

And to Jonny72 I actually really enjoy building my own PC's and can build one and install everything needed in less than 2 hours and I have discovered women already, as I am pretty sure STFCinbmth has to be fair to him ;)

I use 2 Spinpoint F3 1tb's in a RAID0 and the read speeds are very quick indeed and giving the capacity of 1.8tb in total but the chances of data loss are greater obviously but so far, in 2 years, even with random power outages and failed massive overclocking attempts it has never failed me...yet.

Yeah, RAID0 isn't an option for me.

I've got 10GB of photos, 50GB of music and another 100GB or so of films and TV programs that I just couldn't bear to lose.

I'm no Linux expert Sam, but if you use a beginner flavour like Ubuntu or CentOS you should have no problems. Windows and Linux machines network together just as well as a pure Windows network.

Bump (again).

I'm sure none of you really care but it's only (!) taken me 6 months, but I'm (nearly) finished. Went to whack the OS on it today and realised I didn't have a VGA cable (:doh:) so currently waiting for one to arrive from eBay. Been fucking around with FreeNAS in VMWare to get an idea of what it's like and I have to say it's the dog's proverbials. Piece of piss to install, add a drive, format and set up shares. Good power options to spin down the drive too when it's not in use. And no need to fuck around with remote desktop (after the initial install), the UI is all browser based.

In all I've spent:

£30 on an Antec 300 case
£17 on a mobo inc. CPU
£15 on a PSU (surprisingly quiet)
£39 on a 1TB Samsung F3

A grand total of £101.

Plus some RAM I had lying around, a freebie DVD drive and a keyboard courtesy of PaulD.

Wow, sounds like a good deal. I might have to look into this as my NAS is full and pisses me off. (It can take 10+ minutes to boot and may or may not require a restart to get it connect correctly!)

I have some old stuff lying around, which I might have to consider using. I just need a Socket A processor, up to 400mhz FSB, a heatsink, some sata drives and a case that isn't fucking massive and can hold the mobo. Do those parts sound like overkill for a NAS? (It has 1GB of RAM as well.)

It's not necessarily overkill. You can make your NAS whatever you want it to be.

Personally I wasn't too bothered with speed or CPU power. I'll mostly be using mine to hold my music library, films and photos. FreeNAS has a built in UPNP service, so can easily be used to stream media.

I don't even want it to be powerful, it's just that they're some spare parts I have lying around gathering dust, so it would be relatively inexpensive. So you can use it as a Media Server for the PS3 and what not? Nice.

Yep.

But the media will need to be in a format that the PS3 can handle as FreeNAS won't re-encode it.

I just got a Synology 8tb array, cost about £560 in total. Worth it as I can finally get rid of all m external drives.

Still, nice thing to have. Although saying that I had a media server on my mac and streamed to the TV and the PS3, simply because I could, but it had no appeal once the novelty wore off I'd done it once for about 10 seconds!

Digressing slightly, but I currently use PS3 Media Server from my laptop. It transcodes .mkv files on the fly so you can stream them to the PS3.

Watched a couple of films in 720p and it's streamed them flawlessly with no breakup.

Not bad really when the 8TB of drive space would easily set you back £300+.

The Synology was about £260 and the drives about £300. Pissed off about the drives as I had to pay £40 extra to get ones approved by Synology - the cheaper ones weren't compatible. Still £70 a tb isn't too bad especially with all the features you get.

I use this software on my PC - it is fucking brilliant. Even works over my wireless network.

http://ps3mediaserver.blogspot.com/

Yeah, that's the same one I use.

Yeah I got that form your post. :D

Was providing the link for anyone else who may be interested. It's a really good bit of software, and a piece of piss to set up.

I've spent the best part of 3 hours trying to get FreeNAS installed on my server and it's still not working.

Doesn't seem to like working with old mobos / BIOS. :(

Gave up on FreeNAS, managed to install Openfiler this morning which does essentially the same stuff as FreeNAS but doesn't have uPNP (although that can be remedied by manually adding packages).

Currently trying to transfer my media over to the NAS at a blistering 1.92MB/s. It reckons it's going to take 6 hours to do 33GB of music  :eek:

Something wrong there. Is it all cabled? My first real backup was 250 or so GB and it took about 12 hours or so by recollection, I think.  :hmmm:

What program are you using (or are you just copying and pasting a load across)? I know I used something, before I got it all working sweet, that I imagine is not dissimilar to catching a computer version of Aids. It spent most of it's time doing fuck all and slowing my computer down. In the end I used Syncback, which is free and that was absolutely perfect. (Assuming you are using it for backups.)

Cos when I flow for the street, who else could it be?

Yep, all cabled.

Laptop > Router > Homeplug > NAS

I can log into the Homeplug and it shows a throughput of 7MB/s which sounds a lot better. So it appears the bottleneck is actually at the NAS. Currently the NAS is only reporting 184MB of RAM installed when there's actually 512MB, so that could be causing a bottleneck.

I'm not getting on too well with Openfiler now though. Just simple things like wanting to check the HDD temp has do be done through the console rather than being shown on the GUI.

I've done some Googling about my problem with FreeNAS and it appears there is a workaround which involves connecting the HDD to the laptop, running the LiveCD and installing to the HDD and then putting it back into the server and it should boot. Only problem is I now need a SATA to USB cable.

Does you laptop have a SATA drive? Just remove that and replace whilst you run the live cd. Then once it's installed and shit you can swap them back.

Good point Pieman.

It would be if the hard drives were the same form factor. Sorry, long day.

Laptop is 2.5", server is 3.5".

I've ordered a cable from eBay for £4 so will have to wait for that to arrive then give it a go.

EBay is great for stuff like that. Got a screen inverter for 2 quid delivered which fixed my laptop in the end

Yeah, I've ordered shit loads of different bits off of eBay recently (mostly cables) for very cheap. Items that are usually £15+ in Maplin go for 99p on eBay.

Looks like I've got a faulty stick of RAM :doh:

Off to eBay to buy some more.

Did manage to get FreeNAS installed by using the USB > SATA cable though :)

I have stopped using Ebay for anything for the PC except cables, for which it is excellent value as you say Sam only a couple of quid per cable, I have most in my box of bits, pretty much for all eventualities except when I went to Crossfire 5870's in my pc the 2nd one covered up the PCI slot that my soundblaster was in so I bought on ebay a PCI Flex Expansion Slot Riser Card Flexible 6" Extender cable so that I can put it in the case well away from the 2nd card, and that was £3!

Am going to spend this afternoon cobbling together a new system of bits as I found(totally by surprise!) an AMD Phenom x4 9550 quad core in the bottom of my spare parts bin along with a 160gb hard drive, 4670 graphics and 2gb of memory, will probably flog it on for about a £100 as I could do with the pennies!

I love this little beauty. It's been pretty much maxed out over the last few days transferring data from my laptop to the server. Yet under constant load the CPU never gets above 30ºc and the HDD hasn't gone above 26ºc. The CPU is fanless so it's very nearly silent. I had to put a case fan with an LED in it just so I can tell when it's powered on! It's also only using ~20 watts under full load, so very cheap to run.

Managed to tweak a few settings and have got the transfer rate up to 3.9MB/s, I think my powerline adapters are maxing out at that. I'm considering investing in a Gigabit switch, some Cat5e and a Gigabit NIC for the server. Although, the mobo only has PCI (no PCIe) which I understand will limit the Gigabit NIC to 30MB/s rather than the theoretical full 125MB/s. Still, that's ~10 times faster than what I'm getting at the moment.

Just need to replace the faulty PC2-4200 RAM now to see if that improves speeds a little. Weirdly, it seems the older the RAM you need the more expensive it is these days.

Can any geeks tell me whether Current Pending Sectors are a bad thing? Google isn't being very productive. I know they should get re-allocated next time the sector is written to, but I don't know if it warrants returning the drive (and going through the hassle of backing it up).

SMART is currently reporting 6 but overall health is marked as PASSED.

If it's started to go, replace it ASAP.

Right, this fella's been giving me stick for the last few days.

I had another pending sector report in SMART. Then, the NAS refused to boot because it failed fsck. I ran fsck manually which picked up on the pending sectors, so I cleared them. Everything was fine, re-ran a SMART test which showed pending sectors had reduced to 0, but reallocated sectors also stayed 0. If they were bad blocks, I would've expected the drive to reallocate them. It would appear they weren't actually bad, because the drive must've now been able to read them ok.

To be safe, I made a bootable ISO of ESTools and ran a full surface check on the disk. This came back with absolutely nothing.

Since then I've had the NAS on for two or three days and I've ripped around 300GB of DVDs. Today I've had two more SMART errors, but this time it's not pending sectors, it's DMA errors. I checked the cables and everything seems seated correctly.

The drive itself seems fine. It's passing SMART and also passed on ESTools so I'd doubt Samsung would let me RMA it. I'm thinking it must be either a faulty SATA cable or possibly dodgy SATA controller on my mobo.

Any geeks have any ideas?

Open a beer and relax.

Hope this helps!

I just have. Thanks. :)