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Tatsujin:
--- Quote from: kureshii on May 04, 2014, 03:54:34 AM ---
--- Quote from: Tatsujin on May 03, 2014, 08:44:00 PM ---I've seen several nice NAS but they're a bit expensive. The best one I saw looked so bad-ass and had 5 stars. It was 6-bay, but the fucking price on that thing is a staggering 600 USD :/ ... that's just retarded.
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It’s retarded unless you know what you’re paying for, and you are actually using those things/features you paid for.
--- Quote from: Tatsujin on May 03, 2014, 08:44:00 PM ---Lol, NAS is a computer?! ... Why can't I just build a fucking computer myself and turn it into a NAS? Wow I'm really dull on this shit. Can I custom build something on my own and have it specifically JUST for HDDs? ...
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You sure could. If you’re not picky it’s really easy. You *just* need to learn how to set it up as a server.
--- Quote from: Tatsujin on May 03, 2014, 08:44:00 PM ---Look at this.
Well is this good enough? Or is NAS a whole different ... thing? I don't understand this shit. NAS is a computer? Because I saw "dual-core" and "RAM" and I'm like "wow a fucking thousand dollars for a shit specs because it has 8 bays?" Does it run on some sort of software? Do you install it on your computer and access it through there?
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An NAS is essentially a PC designed to do server-things. It has customised firmware to make things really easy, web interfaces all set up, and a custom enclosure meant for convenience.
What do you get for the money? Hotswap bays, dual GbE LAN, HDD status LEDs (and maybe a text LCD), simplicity, convenience, small chassis footprint and low power consumption, firmware support, ... if you're not using most of those, the price obviously won't make sense to you. If you want to use it as a transcoding media server, you probably will want to build your own.
Among the better-reputed brands are Synology, QNAP. New entries include ASUSTOR (as the name suggests, an offshoot of ASUS), more budget-minded entries include Buffalo, and your usual router brands.
The specs may look shit, but remember that you're not using this for games or Photoshop. All those system resources will be used for background processes (e.g. RAID) and system tasks. Do you really want to blow your budget on 8 cores and 8GB RAM just for that?
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I'd suggest you start with any cheap PC you have lying in the basement first, set it up, play around with it, get a feel for what it's like managing a networked server, know what are the things you must have in your server and which are the nice-to-haves. Better than blowing your money on a premium NAS and finding it's not what you want. If you like that case size, Chenbro has a pretty decent ITX server case, if you can get past the name, if not any case that can handle your desired number of HDDs will do.
Personally, I started with a 4-bay Synology CS-407, liked the interface and convenience but found the 500MHz ARM processor too slow for torrent hashing. A couple of years later, moved to an i3 home server in a Lian Li V354 case, found it overpowered and not at all convenient. Running your own Linux server is fun and exciting etc and you get to do lots of shit, but there’re also nights you spend figuring out how to configure things exactly the way you want them, troubleshooting any samba updates and breakages, etc. I had a web interface set up, then it broke, then I unbroke it again, then it broke again ... chances are you’d be spending a lot of time in a command line, so you better learn to love it (unless you have a spare monitor and keyboard for the server). And unless your case has hotswap, each time you need to do something to your disks, that means mounting/unmounting then in a remote shell, opening up the case to add/remove disks, ... . And of course you have no way of knowing how your disks are doing unless you have email notifications set up, which means more reading ... If that sounds like your cup of tea, this is probably what you want.
Eventually I moved to a 6-bay Asustor AS-606T instead. Pricey? Yes :'| Convenient? Hell yes. HDD status LEDs especially, if you’re using a bunch of old/cheap drives that don’t necessarily hold up well under 24/7 operation. It took me more than a year to finally decide to go back to an NAS, but I’m glad I did. YMMV.
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damn ... didn't even know that. I guess I can notch it down to an i3. I got the DF-85 case unless there is another case you would recommend with lots and lots of bays.
@ kita - can you set up a list for me then? I can also install an add-on with SATA 6GB connections to it? I mean, looking at the FreeNAS8 software and all, would it be able to recognize add-ons? And what case would you recommend? I'd rather keep the DF-85 for my next build.
Edit - Yeah the more I look at it the more I want to stay away from pre-built NAS. That guide I posted is pretty easy to do. Plus I'm purchasing WD Reds which is very reliable for NAS.
kureshii:
--- Quote from: kitamesume on May 04, 2014, 06:05:36 AM ---^ wouldn't setting up a dropbox solution in a windows environment save you from those hassles?
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Not at all. You still need email notification of failed drives, you still need to set up FTP and network shares for things that don't use or work with dropbox, you still want/need remote access to monitor processes ... and ideally you want to be able to do that through some sort of web interface that isn't bandwidth-heavy (so remote desktop is out of the question; you don't get good wifi everywhere).
And I’d argue the point that putting a Windows environment on a NAS actually makes things more complicated than they need to be ... but if that’s the only OS you know how to use, I guess you’re stuck with that.
I actually had a paid Dropbox setup (100GB) at one point, for keeping some things synced between home server and other devices (desktop, laptop, etc). Let’s just say that beyond a certain number of files you start running into some hiccups and other irritating issues, like taking forever to index, having to restart it manually sometimes (which means sshing on Linux, or if you’re using Windows, remote-desktoping—better hope for a good connection). Not to mention some inherent limitations like only 1 level of selective sync for folders, and slow upload speeds for no reason at all (25KB/s sometimes, 250KB/s sometimes, on a fiber line that can get 2–10MB/s to Google Drive).
Cancelled it after a few months, went back to FTP/rsync for remote syncing/access instead.
--- Quote from: Tatsujin on May 04, 2014, 09:13:35 AM ---I guess I can notch it down to an i3. I got the DF-85 case unless there is another case you would recommend with lots and lots of bays.
@ kita - can you set up a list for me then? I can also install an add-on with SATA 6GB connections to it? I mean, looking at the FreeNAS8 software and all, would it be able to recognize add-ons? And what case would you recommend? I'd rather keep the DF-85 for my next build.
Edit - Yeah the more I look at it the more I want to stay away from pre-built NAS. That guide I posted is pretty easy to do. Plus I'm purchasing WD Reds which is very reliable for NAS.
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1) If it's mainly for torrenting, FTP/file access, and not as a transcoding media server, a Pentium will be more than enough (even the Baytrail-based Pentiums). My AS-606T is using a Cedarview Atom (32nm, 2011) and it’s enough for everything except HD video transcoding for streaming.
2) You won't need SATA 6GB connections; over a GbE link the most you will get is 100MB/s anyway. Unless you're planning to do things with it that involve an SSD for some reason, which IMO is just unnecessary expenditure.
Setup should be easy. just install your server OS of choice, connect it via LAN to a router that's on the same network as your devices, configure your router to forward the necessary ports for whatever services you are using on your server, done. If you want a hostname for your server through DDNS, that’s a few more steps depending on your DDNS provider.
Tatsujin:
--- Quote from: kureshii on May 04, 2014, 09:43:29 AM ---
--- Quote from: kitamesume on May 04, 2014, 06:05:36 AM ---^ wouldn't setting up a dropbox solution in a windows environment save you from those hassles?
--- End quote ---
Not at all. You still need email notification of failed drives, you still need to set up FTP and network shares for things that don't use or work with dropbox, you still want/need remote access to monitor processes ... and ideally you want to be able to do that through some sort of web interface that isn't bandwidth-heavy (so remote desktop is out of the question; you don't get good wifi everywhere).
And I’d argue the point that putting a Windows environment on a NAS actually makes things more complicated than they need to be ... but if that’s the only OS you know how to use, I guess you’re stuck with that.
I actually had a paid Dropbox setup (100GB) at one point, for keeping some things synced between home server and other devices (desktop, laptop, etc). Let’s just say that beyond a certain number of files you start running into some hiccups and other irritating issues, like taking forever to index, having to restart it manually sometimes (which means sshing on Linux, or if you’re using Windows, remote-desktoping—better hope for a good connection). Not to mention some inherent limitations like only 1 level of selective sync for folders, and slow upload speeds for no reason at all (25KB/s sometimes, 250KB/s sometimes, on a fiber line that can get 2–10MB/s to Google Drive).
Cancelled it after a few months, went back to FTP/rsync for remote syncing/access instead.
--- Quote from: Tatsujin on May 04, 2014, 09:13:35 AM ---I guess I can notch it down to an i3. I got the DF-85 case unless there is another case you would recommend with lots and lots of bays.
@ kita - can you set up a list for me then? I can also install an add-on with SATA 6GB connections to it? I mean, looking at the FreeNAS8 software and all, would it be able to recognize add-ons? And what case would you recommend? I'd rather keep the DF-85 for my next build.
Edit - Yeah the more I look at it the more I want to stay away from pre-built NAS. That guide I posted is pretty easy to do. Plus I'm purchasing WD Reds which is very reliable for NAS.
--- End quote ---
1) If it's mainly for torrenting, FTP/file access, and not as a transcoding media server, a Pentium will be more than enough (even the Baytrail-based Pentiums). My AS-606T is using a Cedarview Atom (32nm, 2011) and it’s enough for everything except HD video transcoding for streaming.
2) You won't need SATA 6GB connections; over a GbE link the most you will get is 100MB/s anyway. Unless you're planning to do things with it that involve an SSD for some reason, which IMO is just unnecessary expenditure.
Setup should be easy. just install your server OS of choice, connect it via LAN to a router that's on the same network as your devices, configure your router to forward the necessary ports for whatever services you are using on your server, done. If you want a hostname for your server through DDNS, that’s a few more steps depending on your DDNS provider.
--- End quote ---
Sever OS? So I need something like Windows 8 Server or whatever?! I thought it was just like what it said on the guide, put the FreeNAS8 on a stick, unzip/install and then plug it inside the NAS computer and boot the computer up from the stick? ... I mean, it just sounds that easy (besides the extra steps to take to set up the drivers and paths).
Also, if I'm going to plug it from the LAN connection to my router, it has to be plugged inside the "incoming" port (which is the single port for internet connection) and the other ports will be the outgoing ports to whatever computers I want to share? Am I right?
kureshii:
1) In this case FREENAS8 is your server OS. By “server OS” I meant literally whichever OS you are using for your NAS; I did not mean “server-edition OS”.
2) No. You plug in your NAS like any normal PC, i.e. to the incoming ports. The outgoing port is meant to go to your modem. Your NAS provides access to files and services running on it, it does not provide internet access.
Tatsujin:
--- Quote from: kureshii on May 04, 2014, 10:35:33 AM ---1) In this case FREENAS8 is your server OS. By “server OS” I meant literally whichever OS you are using for your NAS; I did not mean “server-edition OS”.
2) No. You plug in your NAS like any normal PC, i.e. to the incoming ports. The outgoing port is meant to go to your modem. Your NAS provides access to files and services running on it, it does not provide internet access.
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I think we're misunderstanding each other. I know NAS won't provide internet (duh) since basically it is specifically designed for hosting storage. Here is the modem that I have. There's that single port to the far left, that one is where I plug the cable from the Internet modem to spread it across the other four ports to the right. So I would replace the right cable with the one from NAS to spread it across to the other four ports? Or do I need another modem?
My computer also has one ethernet connection. I'm not sure how to work around this problem. I don't want to install another addon inside the computer, either. Is there a way around it?
Maybe there's a router that can take two ethernets? I also see ethernet to USB 3.0 cables/plugs so those might work?
Nevermind ... this video explained it to me. So I can just plug the NAS cable into one of the four ports.
Mkay, I just need to reorganize the equipment then. So I don't think my question was answered about the addon card. So say I downgrade my motherboard and then get an addon card with 2-4 ports extra SATA connections. Would the OS recognize it or that depends on the OS?
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