NFS and me...

[wyrd_fish]

i recently had an idea...

that idea was to build a cheep server and wack some RAIDed disks in it for my music, films, work, ect. and access it through NFS

leaving my computer a smaller faster drive, raptor maybe, just for OS, games and apps.

would this be a good idea?

would a 10/100 netwould be ok, or would gigabit be more advisable, what kind or RAM and CPU should i be looking at?

cheers, alex

 

[TdC]

depends a bit tbh. if you're using a unix then it's no problem at all. if you're using doze on your workstation and a unix on your server you may want to consider samba as a file and printer sharing method, because then you talk to your server via windows' own protocols. The configuration is a breeze and I've been using it myself for yonks. Like you plan to I had music and important files on the unix box, and a small, fast disk on my doze game box.
if you're using a mac, I'm not clued into them at all, sorry, but osX and above is really FreeBSD iirc, which is a unix and knows all about nfs and samba so that shouldn't be too much of a problem
lastly if you're using doze exclusively you prolly wouldn't have posted

good luck!

 

[wyrd_fish]

i'm currently downloading MS's sevices for unix to see what there NFS is like, how essy ect

me and SMB have fallen out before

 

[TdC]

oh, um and for the box itself, well you want a decent raid card that actually works and some nice disks. your CPU isn't the real issue nore is your ram tbh. not when you're the only one using the network. my server was an old dual pII xeon at 450Mhz with 256MB ram. I did have a nice raidcard which was fully supported by my OS.
My home network runs at 100fdx, or 100megabit full-duplex, which means that you can be copying to the server at 100MBit while pulling something off it at another 100MBit. In theory
10/100/1000MBit cards are cheap though, but if you want proper performance then don't get the cheapest. a nice 3com or somesuch.

 

[Whipped]

I'll add one thing to the networking here. If you're connecting anything else up to your original machine (3rd machine, Xbox, Xbox 360, Ps2, etc.) Then use a switch to connect it all together. Avoid hubs if you can.

If it's just the two machines and they're not to far apart then just get a Crossover cable and connect them to each other directly.

I've been tempted to do something silimar since my father discovered a fully working PII740 with 512 MB RAM in the skip at work

 

[inactionman]

To be honest you are better off buying an appliance, as they do all the annoying stuff for you (unless you want lots of fiddling with software), and the second thing is that they tend to use low power components, so they cost you less to run. Up to you though.

What one to get, well it all depends on how much storage you need, you can get anything from a 250Gb NAS (http://www.dabs.com/productview.asp...geMode=1&NavigationKey=11159,4294957361,50327) to a 1Tb RAID NAS (http://www.dabs.com/productview.asp...geMode=1&NavigationKey=11159,4294957361,50327)

The good thing about the buffalo ones is that their's a well supported modding community for them (they all run Linux).

Otherwise, if you are going to build it for yourself you want low power stuff preferably. Processor speed isn't a problem, and 256Mb of memory should be fine. A Gigabit network card would be nice, but gigabit networking equipment (switches etc.) is still a bit pricey, you'll also need a gigabit card for your workstation, and if you are running a crossover cable you can't use full-duplex (you must have a switch for full duplex). As for RAID, there's quite a few nice SATA raid cards out these days, which are not very expensive, just make sure to get one that support hardware RAID (i.e. it's not simply a card that gives you more SATA ports). As for OS, I sorta support tdc on the BSD front, but I prefer OpenBSD to FreeBSD, it's a lot more secure, and comes without the bells and whistles you don't necessarily need turned on, but that'a personal preference.

 

[TdC]

if you are running a crossover cable you can't use full-duplex (you must have a switch for full duplex)

lies it works perfectly from my lappy to servers with an X-over. but then, neither my lappy nor the servers run any kind of doze. so maybe that's it.

glad you enjoy the BSD's too btw. I use and have used all of them and imo they clearly rock. imo Free is a tad more user friendly, but your argument for Open is quite valid indeed.

 

[inactionman]

Odd, you running gigabit? When I did training on switches (which was 3-4 years ago mind), you couldn't run full duplex on 10/100 ethernet without a switch, it literally wasn't in the spec, and you got flow control problems.

 

[TdC]

hmm I'm not sure about yonks ago. course, when I did any kind of training Token Ring was still the shiznit at a whopping 4MBits

anyway, both my lappy and the servers I work with are/were "state of the art" (whatever that may be heheh) and default to 1000fdx if I allow autonegotiate to be on and plug in the old xcable. Our automated installer sets the server interfaces to 100fdx later on in the install and the lappy just follows via autoneg. the lappy's some IBM thinkpad thing that's about a year old running Solaris10 for intel and the servers are Suns, running either Solaris8 or Solaris10 for Sparc.

 

[Lazarus]

my mate put one of these jobbies in his house
http://www.sonos.com/landing/all_lp5.htm?ovchn=GGL&ovcpn=Google+UK&ovcrn=sonos&ovtac=ppc

and wired it to an external HDD (plugged into his PC)

speakers in the Conservatory, lounge and tv room - selectable music in each room

 

[wyrd_fish]

my current plan is to buy a raid card and raptor ASAP

my dad has an old P3 1gig that i can have, so my older big drive and the raid card can go in there...

at a later date i can buy a pair of gigabit cards and the next raid drive

any other thoughts?

 

[Insane]

any other thoughts?

buy a BYOD Nas device like the Synology Diskstation or similar device and a big-ass drive
DS-101G for Gigabit ethernet and SATA connector
DS-101J for 10/100 ethernet and IDE connector
(both links go to scan)

or...

Netgears SC101 NAS device which can handle two (x2) IDE drives
(another scan link)

I originally had a linux box with hard drives (3x 40gig IDE and 5x 16gig scsi) and scrapped it all for the diskstation DS-101j with a 200gig drive, done everything i was doing on the server (bar the web-based bittorrent) in a smaller quiet box

 

[wyrd_fish]

humm

the sata one's a little more than i was looking to spend, atleast, in one big lump

and the old P3's quite small and quiet anyway


and it also has a huge scope for fiddeling with, and to be honest, my mind about a NAS device was made up from the start

 

[TdC]

you don't *need* a RAID card or dedicated serverlet tbh. unless you really want to reap the benefits of gigabit networking. a regular hdd that isn't an 8yo scsi should be able to fill 100MBits quite well. unless you start copying 100GB of p0rn back and forth to stress test the thing, in which case it will suck

you could try out the P3, and see if it was indeed what you thought. if you like, and the thing is connected to the internet after installation, I could SSH in and set it up for you. I'd rather not, as it's a good exercise for you, but if you're hopelessly stuck just let me know