I want to do a complete revamp of my "storage architecture" at home. Currently I have one external 300GB NAS (Buffalo Linkstation, 1 disk inside) which is in a closet, and used for backups. Unfortunatly it's not big enough, and I would like to start replacing it before space runs out.
I have two computers at home, an iMac and a Macbook Pro. The iMac is the main computer used, Macbook Pro only occasionally. I have a 250GB drive in the iMac, and it's too small too. Untill now I have kept all files on both the iMac and the NAS, and this is actually where the problem is mainly appearing from (I want redundancy).
Option 1:
Get a NAS with more capacity and with redundancy like the (slow) Buffalo Terastation.
+ Cheap
+ Simple
+ Runs Linux and has allready been hacked allowing for upgrades after Buffalo moves onwards
+ Can be stashed in a closet with my switch
+ One of the most silent multidisk solutions
- Really slow
- Requires a bit of work to reduce vibrations from the 4 drives inside
Option 2:
Get an external (firewire) drive for the iMac, and keep the current NAS. For this to be viable the exteral drive would have to have redundancy, like a Western Digital Mybook Pro II (heard it was noisy) / Buffalo Duo. Another option would be to change the iMacs drive for something bigger so that I would have enough room to store everything there, and on the firewire drive. The NAS would only be used for sharing files to the Macbook Pro.
+ Faster external drive
+ Probably cheaper
- All the external two drive solutions seem to be hacks, requiring proprietery software to get running (can anyone confirm?)
Anyone have opinions? Recomendations on external drives? I live in Finland and not all of the external (especially NAS) drives are available here. I don't feel like building my own NAS, I prefere something smaller (to build my own it would really require atleast 4 drives in raid 5 to make it worth it).
Silent external drive
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
Yeah, electricity cost is definatly a concern. One of my original plans was to build a separate NAS, and use mobile processor for it. I would have hosted my website on the same machine (run vmware server to isolate the two). My wife will start nagging if I have extra computers humming in all the closets, so I gave up on the idea 
I'm upgrading my NAS too
For me, redundancy is very important. I currently have 2x160GB drives with a mini-itx motherboard ad it work fine as a NAS, but I get nervous not having raid 5 - so I am moving up to a mobile CPU - specifically the MSI 945GT Speedster with either 3 or 4 320GB drives in raid 5.
There no substitution for having an full OS for speed and flexibility.
Both ITX and Mobile solutions would be acceptably low power (my mini-itx clocks in at about 28 - 38 watts depending on the load, and I think you can do a mobile CPU setup in the 50 Watt range.
My advice would be to get a Mini-itx board and 3 drives and setup raid 5.
looking at new egg (rough number):
Mini-itx board: $79
3 x 250 GB IDE HDs : $225
250MB DDR2 Ram : $30
512Mb USB thumb drive:$11
basic system price $345 for 500GB usable raid 5 array, not too shabby, especially if you already have an old case and acceptable power supply
Free NAS is a linux based OS that will run just fine off a USB memory stick
and I think it's possible to schedual startups and shutdown in linux, but don't quote me on it.
going to a mobile CPU setup has it's advantages. For one, you can use the moblie CPU for stuff like video conversion, email server, firewall, web server, etc. price to buy is higher and the energy usage is higher as well
here's the cost breakdown for the system I am building
MSI motherboard: $135
Core Solo CPU off Ebay: $56
1GB Ram: $95
4x320GB SATA HD's: $400
Total Price: $686 - a bit steep, but the useability is waaaaaay up there, and I'll have 898GB useable storage. Considering I am about to be a new father, I will probably manage about 2GB or more in photos and Video per month for the next 2 years, so that will fill up fast.
I'm hoping at idle it will be around 40watts or less.
the ITX solution would be the quitest and lowest power. but you could do some very intersting things with it.
There no substitution for having an full OS for speed and flexibility.
Both ITX and Mobile solutions would be acceptably low power (my mini-itx clocks in at about 28 - 38 watts depending on the load, and I think you can do a mobile CPU setup in the 50 Watt range.
My advice would be to get a Mini-itx board and 3 drives and setup raid 5.
looking at new egg (rough number):
Mini-itx board: $79
3 x 250 GB IDE HDs : $225
250MB DDR2 Ram : $30
512Mb USB thumb drive:$11
basic system price $345 for 500GB usable raid 5 array, not too shabby, especially if you already have an old case and acceptable power supply
Free NAS is a linux based OS that will run just fine off a USB memory stick
and I think it's possible to schedual startups and shutdown in linux, but don't quote me on it.
going to a mobile CPU setup has it's advantages. For one, you can use the moblie CPU for stuff like video conversion, email server, firewall, web server, etc. price to buy is higher and the energy usage is higher as well
here's the cost breakdown for the system I am building
MSI motherboard: $135
Core Solo CPU off Ebay: $56
1GB Ram: $95
4x320GB SATA HD's: $400
Total Price: $686 - a bit steep, but the useability is waaaaaay up there, and I'll have 898GB useable storage. Considering I am about to be a new father, I will probably manage about 2GB or more in photos and Video per month for the next 2 years, so that will fill up fast.
I'm hoping at idle it will be around 40watts or less.
the ITX solution would be the quitest and lowest power. but you could do some very intersting things with it.
This is a valid concern, hence I was thinking that if I get an external drive I would want it to be mirrored. I actually have an 8-port Intel sata-controller, and this is one of my dilemmas.
To use RAID 5 I would want to have a robust controller. I've seen alot of cheap ones fail and lose all the data (theoretically it could happen with just a firmware upgrade). The Terastation mentioned supports RAID 5, I was still thinking of using RAID 1 (despite losing one disk).
The controller I have is pci-x, and there are no small motherboards which support it. To be able to use it I would need to get a full atx server board, so the closest I could get to "energy efficiency" would be having a Core 2 Duo processor, not good enough for me. I could ofcourse sell it and get a pci-express controller, but if I sell it I could just use the money for a ready NAS.
Dunno, difficult choices
To use RAID 5 I would want to have a robust controller. I've seen alot of cheap ones fail and lose all the data (theoretically it could happen with just a firmware upgrade). The Terastation mentioned supports RAID 5, I was still thinking of using RAID 1 (despite losing one disk).
The controller I have is pci-x, and there are no small motherboards which support it. To be able to use it I would need to get a full atx server board, so the closest I could get to "energy efficiency" would be having a Core 2 Duo processor, not good enough for me. I could ofcourse sell it and get a pci-express controller, but if I sell it I could just use the money for a ready NAS.
Dunno, difficult choices
hardware vs software raid
-very true if you are deploying in a enterprise class data centerto use RAID 5 I would want to have a robust controller
infact, alot of businesses use linux based software raid.
but at home? I doubt you would ever know the difference.
I think there are some advantages to running software raid - which is what I do. I know that linux based software raid can be way fast. I used windows based software raid 5 and it's easy to move it to a new machine, I haven't had any data loss (going on 3 years and probably 40 rebuilds) and depending on the processor the rebuild time can be *ALOT* faster than a hardware based raid card
The real reason I went with software raid...... if the raid card dies....you have to get the exact/or perfectly compatable raid card to get your data back. 4 years from now it might be difficult to find one. software raid gives me high availabilityand is way cheaper.