[Comp] NAS Superthread (current deals on NAS devices)

[7-Endless]

Looks like NCIX has the Thecus N4100PRO on sale for $279.99 till the 15th:

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...h&promoid=1029


Pretty good deal for a 4 bay NAS with multiple RAID options and hotswap.

Review here: http://www.overclockersclub.com/revi...ecus_n4100pro/

[alanbrenton]

I am using the latest of FreeNAS 7. FreeNAS 8 seems nice, but since it's new, there isn't enough support information yet. I also wanted the BitTorrent support, so 7 was the only way: http://www.freenas.org/category/version-comparison

The performance is great for day to day performance. I am writing to it @ ~40MB/s on a gigabit network, which I still need to pinpoint where the bottleneck is (ZFS file system or the network). All in all, zero complain, perfect solution if you already have some hardware sitting around.

How do you people get around bittorrent poisoning? This has happened to me quite a few times. Just last night, download was abruptly cut off after 10 minutes of decent downloading. I'm actually going to run peerblock from now on before I even open by bittorrent client.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torrent_poisoning

I don't have my HP Proliant just yet but it is for this reason (tried and test on Win 7) that I wanted to go the WHS 2011 or Windows Server 2008 route -- run various application just as I do on my Win 7 machine.

EDIT:

http://alternativeto.net/software/peerblock-/

[rui]

Looks like NCIX has the Thecus N4100PRO on sale for $279.99 till the 15th:

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...h&promoid=1029


Pretty good deal for a 4 bay NAS with multiple RAID options and hotswap.

Review here: http://www.overclockersclub.com/revi...ecus_n4100pro/

Looks good.

[EEE2]

Looks like NCIX has the Thecus N4100PRO on sale for $279.99 till the 15th:

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...h&promoid=1029


Pretty good deal for a 4 bay NAS with multiple RAID options and hotswap.

Review here: http://www.overclockersclub.com/revi...ecus_n4100pro/

I had bad experience with Thecus before, and this model shows poor performance on the review.

[Error2]

I though that NCIX only price matches, without any additional reductions...

Yes, I submitted a PM request and it was accepted at the same price price as CompValley, no further reduction. I PM'ed because I had something else I wanted from NCIX, saved me some shipping cost. Yes, that was DS 211J, last year's model. It has run 14/7 since with about 30 minutes of downtime, from network rewiring.

[alanbrenton]

FYI, I found some great modules (USED though) for servers/desktops (at least for my HP Proliant) and includes free shipping within Canada:

Seller counter-offered with $20/module so it wasn't so bad. I figured I might as well put 8GB RAM right from the get go when running Win Server 2008.

HP 4GB DDR3 SDRAM (1 x 4 GB) - 1333 MHz DDR3-1333/PC3-10600 - ECC 240 pin dimm

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/HP-4GB-DDR3-S...item4ab38cd0d2

[7-Endless]

I had bad experience with Thecus before, and this model shows poor performance on the review.

The performance is relative to what you are comparing it too. I think the review is saying that based on the reg price and other 4 bay models, it is slower. That said if you are comparing this to the D-link DNS 3xx models or the Iomega nas units, the Thecus would definitely be faster.

Personally, since I need something with faster performance (need it for a Citrix/VMware test lab) - I will probably hold out for a Synology or QNAP unit.

However, at ~$280, this is pretty tempting to try. I just read that the memory on the unit can be upgraded so that should also help boost performance as well. Some users are throwing in a 1 GB stick in their units.

[alanbrenton]

The performance is relative to what you are comparing it too. I think the review is saying that based on the reg price and other 4 bay models, it is slower. That said if you are comparing this to the D-link DNS 3xx models or the Iomega nas units, the Thecus would definitely be faster.

Personally, since I need something with faster performance (need it for a Citrix/VMware test lab) - I will probably hold out for a Synology or QNAP unit.

However, at ~$280, this is pretty tempting to try. I just read that the memory on the unit can be upgraded so that should also help boost performance as well. Some users are throwing in a 1 GB stick in their units.

I was about to pose a Thecus NCIX deal last week (Wednesday), 50% off and final price was $110 or so for the 2-bay I believe but it was quickly snatched up.

[alanbrenton]

If I will have three 2TB drives, should I just set them to independent instead of JBOD when running Windows Server? Isn't the advantage of JBOD just to make it appear as if the hard drives are but one unit? Also isn't there more risk to JBOD if one disk conks out? TIA.

[Geil]

I was looking at the Thecus and Patriot NAS myself for a while but eventually came to the conclusion that for a redundant NAS my preference is performance over storage capacity. Userfriendly GUI also goes a long way in actually deploying and managing it myself. In the end I simply can't justify any budget to stream downloaded content. For that I rather keep plugging in my many portable HDDs directly or hook those up to a computer and share it across the network.
As for a dedicated 24/7 NAS I can only make sense of it for keeping personal data and media of high personal value safe but at the same time have the need to share it across the network and even relatives and friends across the internet. Keeping it all on the same redundant storage is key to reduce duplication and keep it somewhat manageable.
I narrowed it down to Synology DS212 fitting my budget and offering the best compromise w 2yr warranty (QNAP only seems to offer 1yr). I had poor experience with the WD MyBook World edition II in my first attempt and realized that crawling slow upload speeds will deter me from transferring my stuff regularly and eventually turn it into a useless paperweight so this time I hope I made a better decision but I can still cancel the backroder if someone has a better solution

[coolspot]

If I will have three 2TB drives, should I just set them to independent instead of JBOD when running Windows Server? Isn't the advantage of JBOD just to make it appear as if the hard drives are but one unit? Also isn't there more risk to JBOD if one disk conks out? TIA.

Yes, there is NO redundancy with JBOD, if you lose one disk, you lose the array.

JBOD is simliar to RAID 0 but different.

JBOD: Data is written on Disk 1 first, once full, it moves to Disk 2, and so on.
RAID 0: 1/2 the data is written on Disk 1, 1/2 the data on Disk 2, therefore your read/write speeds are twice as fast

With JBOD you have a (slight) CHANCE of data recovery since theoretically the file should be completely on each disk. With RAID 0, you have almost NO chance of data recovery.

The link provided and the youtube video in the article are from January 2011 not January 2012 so there is nothing new here. It appears they mistakingly mentioned it will play 1080p but I don't think that is correct. Because if you look at all the youtube comments from 1 year ago they still mention it's only 720p capable...

ATV1 can play 1080P with a Broadcom CrystalHD card, that's probably where the confusion comes from. However, even with the Broadcom CrystalHD card, 1080P is not 100% reliable (occasionally sluggish). I suggest something faster for 1080P video.

[alanbrenton]

I was looking at the Thecus and Patriot NAS myself for a while but eventually came to the conclusion that for a redundant NAS my preference is performance over storage capacity. Userfriendly GUI also goes a long way in actually deploying and managing it myself. In the end I simply can't justify any budget to stream downloaded content. For that I rather keep plugging in my many portable HDDs directly or hook those up to a computer and share it across the network.
As for a dedicated 24/7 NAS I can only make sense of it for keeping personal data and media of high personal value safe but at the same time have the need to share it across the network and even relatives and friends across the internet. Keeping it all on the same redundant storage is key to reduce duplication and keep it somewhat manageable.
I narrowed it down to Synology DS212 fitting my budget and offering the best compromise w 2yr warranty (QNAP only seems to offer 1yr). I had poor experience with the WD MyBook World edition II in my first attempt and realized that crawling slow upload speeds will deter me from transferring my stuff regularly and eventually turn it into a useless paperweight so this time I hope I made a better decision but I can still cancel the backroder if someone has a better solution

Have you considered WHS 2011 or any Microsoft Server offering? You can get a product key for Windows Server 2008 through dreamspark program. My two alumni email addresses here in Canada worked though for the first one, I couldn't log back in.

Not sure about support for apps running on these MS OS'es but I figured the learning curve is flattest if I run something similar to Windows 7.

Here's one that actual mimics the Windows 7 OS layout:

http://www.win2008workstation.com/fo...3fd40e0fb8c1ce

[7-Endless]

I was looking at the Thecus and Patriot NAS myself for a while but eventually came to the conclusion that for a redundant NAS my preference is performance over storage capacity. Userfriendly GUI also goes a long way in actually deploying and managing it myself. In the end I simply can't justify any budget to stream downloaded content. For that I rather keep plugging in my many portable HDDs directly or hook those up to a computer and share it across the network.
As for a dedicated 24/7 NAS I can only make sense of it for keeping personal data and media of high personal value safe but at the same time have the need to share it across the network and even relatives and friends across the internet. Keeping it all on the same redundant storage is key to reduce duplication and keep it somewhat manageable.
I narrowed it down to Synology DS212 fitting my budget and offering the best compromise w 2yr warranty (QNAP only seems to offer 1yr). I had poor experience with the WD MyBook World edition II in my first attempt and realized that crawling slow upload speeds will deter me from transferring my stuff regularly and eventually turn it into a useless paperweight so this time I hope I made a better decision but I can still cancel the backroder if someone has a better solution

I'm looking at the DS212 or DS212+ as well...but for an extra $200 the performance boost, dual gigabit support (read Multipath support) and Citrix Ready/VMware certified logos of the DS712+ or QNAP TS-259 Pro - I'm also tempted to go for one of these instead.

[Geil]

thanks for the feedback but oh well it arrived today so I grabbed it.
I am not a true IT guy so the userfriendly interface is actually rather important as otherwise it will just end up not fully utilized or only partially deployed :P
As for budget I am already $100 over what I was thinking of spending and also only because I was able to free up 2x2TB drives and at todays prices was a prerequisite. Oh and I managed to sell my WD MyBook WE2 another prerequisite to move on to the new solution

[lead]

Yes, there is NO redundancy with JBOD, if you lose one disk, you lose the array.

JBOD is simliar to RAID 0 but different.

JBOD: Data is written on Disk 1 first, once full, it moves to Disk 2, and so on.
RAID 0: 1/2 the data is written on Disk 1, 1/2 the data on Disk 2, therefore your read/write speeds are twice as fast

With JBOD you have a (slight) CHANCE of data recovery since theoretically the file should be completely on each disk. With RAID 0, you have almost NO chance of data recovery.





ATV1 can play 1080P with a Broadcom CrystalHD card, that's probably where the confusion comes from. However, even with the Broadcom CrystalHD card, 1080P is not 100% reliable (occasionally sluggish). I suggest something faster for 1080P video.

theirs 2 broadcom cards xxxxx12 and xxxxx15, both easily do 1080p. The first version has a jittering problem that usually goes away with ff/rw fix and has less codec support. The other doesn't have the problem and also includes divx support to take even more load off cpu/gpu. both are better supported under crystalbuntu than the other typical installations for atv. crystalbuntu is really the way to go.