Help NAS drives (again, again)

[caLLous]

So you're able to access ~6tb then (assuming you have 4 of those 2tb eco green WD's)?

As I understand it raidz is the same prinicple as RAID-5, in that the size of one of the disks is put aside for parity bits. I have no clue how that would work with ZFS with different size disks in the pool, I guess it would take the size of the largest disk for parity. Then RAID-6 and raidz2 are the same but that's a bit TOO much space taken up for my liking and my needs.

 

[SheepCow]

Has anyone got their cashback yet? I got an email ages ago telling me it was being sorted but nothing's arrived yet....

Never got the email so I emailed them, they forwarded the original that they'd typo'd my email address in.

They did say they batch them up so it can take a month.

Mine arrived, cashed, and cha-ching about 3 weeks after the server arrived.

 

[Yaka]

Mine is Raid Z. As I understand it you can lose one disk and it'll restore itself. Loose more than one and you're fucked.

thats one thing i liked about using drobo, i lost 2 hdds was able remove the hdds and bang new ones in and carry on preety simple. but everying else with the drobo is preety shit specialy the transfer rates

 

[MYstIC G]

Personal choice Yaks. Can make it higher by setting drives differently.

 

[Yaka]

hmm didnt realise that. time for a rebuild i guess

 

[Embattle]

Mine is Raid Z. As I understand it you can lose one disk and it'll restore itself. Loose more than one and you're fucked.

Yeah but that is no different than my Raid 5 setup on my DS410, but the chances of loosing two in one go is very low *Touch Wood*.

 

[caLLous]

It's statistically more likely if you bought all the drives in one go...

RAID-6 and raidz2 are overkill for media storage and a waste of the resulting space that you lose. Unless of course you lose 2 drives simultaneously down the line and then you will curse. But as you say, chances are very slim of that happening.

 

[MYstIC G]

That's why I bought my microserver with two drives and then later sourced another two from Scan. One of the two from Scan was dead on arrival so I'm hoping I've had my quota of drive failures for this box.

 

[Yaka]

loosing two in one go is very low *Touch Wood*.

i thought that till 2 hdds dead in my drobo with nas attachment, then 2 in my win7 pc. they wernt purchased all at the same time but all were seagate 1.5tb hdds. all had diff manufacture dates

i had backupped SOME of my important shit not gonna be as careless now

 

[Tuthmes]

Happend years back to me aswell, though prolly my own fault. 2 maxtor drivers died on me at the same time. If I count from 2000 I think I burned up 4 - 5 drives. With one 500 GB ATA drive die' ing on me atm. Using it as download drive now. Not certain why it is die'ing on me. It's hotter then the rest but it could also be the power connector or possibly the cable. It's freezing up my comp at times though.

 

[Deebs]

So you're able to access ~6tb then (assuming you have 4 of those 2tb eco green WD's)?

As I understand it raidz is the same prinicple as RAID-5, in that the size of one of the disks is put aside for parity bits. I have no clue how that would work with ZFS with different size disks in the pool, I guess it would take the size of the largest disk for parity. Then RAID-6 and raidz2 are the same but that's a bit TOO much space taken up for my liking and my needs.

ZFS does not use a single drive for parity.

 

[caLLous]

Yeah sorry I didn't word that very well.

I meant (with regards RAID-5) that it uses the amount of space from one drive in the array (the smallest if they are different sizes) and spreads the parity across the whole array...

And I read somewhere that raidz is the zfs equivalent of RAID-5 so assumed it did the same thing (unlike RAID-4 which *does* put all the parity info on one disk - which is just asking for trouble).

 

[SheepCow]

RAIDZ uses variable width blocks so it's actually quite magical how it all works. It's basically RAID5 without the write hole. Restoring is slightly cooler as well as it can cope with silent errors in the disks as it restores rather than simply XOR'ing the data back without thinking

 

[caLLous]

The more I read about ZFS, the more I like it for what I'm planning. Might be what finally pushes me to have my first linux box (for shame that I haven't done it before).

 

[MYstIC G]

Linux sucks with ZFS. Something to do with the licence is incompatible with GPL so can't be in the Kernel directly. Solaris or BSD ftw.

 

[caLLous]

I haven't even looked into that yet tbh (I'm guilty of meaning "something other than Windows" when I said Linux). I read an extremely convoluted method of getting a zfs fs working in windows through a vm but I cba with all that. I only wanted Windows because I'm familiar with it, as long as FreeBSD (or even FreeNAS?) can do all the media playing stuff that I need then I will be a happy bunny.

 

[Embattle]

Most HD manufacturers have gone through bad phases, except probably WD. Maxtor went through one before being taken over which included contracting out some external HD manufacturing and including a free virus on the HD, Seagate had some issues with one of their large platter base hard drives and none could ignore IBM Death stars.

Personally I've only had the odd problem with a couple of Seagate 410AS drives and a Samsung F1 750gb but neither caused me to loose data. The one thing I do plan to do is use an APC UPS with my DS410 soon, since I tend to view an externally induced power issue is most likely to cause an issue with data loss or damage.

 

[MYstIC G]

Well Serviio runs on my FreeNAS box now after much wasted effort to get PS3 media server to transcode.

Runs well. Transcodes MKV using just one core, streamed to PS3 over WiFi. All throughout running transmission, couchpotato, sickbeard, sabnzbd+ & headphones.

 

[SheepCow]

FreeNAS 8.0.1 has been released (FreeNAS 8.0 | News & Updates)

 

[Starman]

Beat me to it Sheep

 

[Starman]

Microsoft Windows Home Server 2011 - Licence and media.. | Ebuyer.com - £35.67 +3% Quidco cashback

Might be useful for those with the N36L who don't wish to run *Unix

 

[MYstIC G]

FreeNAS - Browse /FreeNAS-8.0.2 at SourceForge.net

Not sure if this is an official release yet or just slipped through the net but it's out for download.

 

[Starman]

Release Details - Announcing FreeNAS-8.0.2-RELEASE

 

[Rubber Bullets]

I have an old Freecom NAS that is well past it's sell by date, and at 350Gb way too small. I have just managed to track down one of the few 2Tb drives left in the country that are less than £80 and now need a NAS to put it in (I know, I could do with 2 of the drives and RAID them, but just don't have the cash).

I have looked at Netgear Stora 2 or ReadyNAS, or alternatives from Synology etc., they all seem to have issues, but do look reasonably easy to set up, and do have features that I like. HP are still doing cash back on the micro server, and I have found it for £210 delivered so only £110 when I get the cheque. Clearly excellent value, but more work in terms of setting up.

I do have some basic knowledge, but it is probably safest to consider me a complete novice. Would it be better to go with one of the more plug and play options, with inbuilt OS, or should I go for the HP? I won't be buying an OS, but could possibly manage to install one of the free ones, or I do have an unused copy of Win XP floating round.

edit: What I need is a back up for my photos and music etc. and to stream music to a Pinnacle Soundbridge. Stuff to be accessed from range of computers and phone. Currently I don't have a video streaming player (except the phone) but might be getting an Xbox and so it would be useful to have this too.

Would like to be able to run a network printer from it.

Internet access to data/private web site hosting would be nice, but not a deal breaker, same for torrent type stuff.

Low power usage and noise levels would be important.

Any advice would be very gratefully received.

RB

 

[MYstIC G]

Personally I'd save the cash and stick your old copy of XP on the HP Microserver personally. It'll give you more option to expand in the future (cash saving) and as you pick the OS you've total control over it.

I used to love my old ReadyNAS but it's sparc processor really badly limited what could be done with it.

 

[Rubber Bullets]

Thanks Meg, ordered. So I'll find xp easier than trying to learn FreeNAS?

RB

 

[MYstIC G]

Personally I don't think FreeNAS is complicated if you follow the step by step guides on the website but XP will give you a GUI and you can hook up your mouse/keyboard while you sort things out so it's probably the way to go if you don't fancy doing things over the lan through a browser to begin with.

 

[caLLous]

Guess I'm putting my NAS off until HD prices calm down a bit after the Thai floods. It's shocking how much they have gone up - a year or so ago I bought 4 of the F4 EcoGreen 2TB (HD204UI) drives for £60ish, now they are £140.

I actually have the prices as they were in August when I was putting together a shopping list in Excel:

                                                                          August      Now  % inc.
Samsung SpinPoint F4 EcoGreen 2TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD204UI)      £60.98  £139.99    130%
Seagate Barracuda Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM (ST2000DL003)     £61.99  £155.99    152%
Western Digital Caviar Green 3TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD30EZRX)  £116.99  £229.99     96%

 

[MYstIC G]

Wow, fuck that.

 

[Embattle]

Probably will remain higher than the August price until the end of next year.