I'm getting a NAS box Any opinions on this?

pleccy2000 · Post by **pleccy2000** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 2:46 am

After recently losing a 1TB drive, I have decided that it's time for some RAID 5 action

So... After some research I've decided to go with

Synology CS407e and 4 x 1TB Western Digital GP's (WD10EACS)

I'm looking for the least power consumption and quietest - so I'm guessing that the GP's would be the best for this?

I've chosen Synology becasue it seems to be the quietest (but it's hard to actually get any data on this)

Many thanks

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 6:04 am

It is certainly much cheaper than the average device of its calibre, however this is "only" a NAS box, you could build a whole PC which has a lot more usefulness, and can be re-purposed later if you choose for about the same amount of money (Â£300 all in).

What is the performance like on this, most NAS boxes in its price range suck balls. This is exactly the reason why I decided (18~ months ago) to re-purpose my old PC into a server, and have since built a whole new server simply because you can re-use old PC parts which are essentially "free" when you upgrade your PC, put everything into a suitable case, make it quiet, and install Linux or Windows.

Andy

pleccy2000 · Post by **pleccy2000** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 6:15 am

Thanks for the reply.

Yeah tbh speed of it sucks donkey balls - it is poor.

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/componen ... /chart,15/

It's the worst in that whole test in fact. I could go for the plain 407 (non-e version) which is much better.

I do have my heart set on a dedicated NAS box - very neat and small and very good on power consumption. I'm not technical enough to mess around with Linux / Free NAS etc

Would you say the 10EACS drives are the quietest around for 1tb?

lor77 · Post by **lor77** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 10:56 am

For more features you can also look so that the NAS support the DLNA protocol, so you would be able to steam multimedia files to your DLNA supported TV through an ethernet cable.
http://www.dlna.org/digital_living/how_it_works/
http://www.dlna.org/products/
And i will confirm that the WD 10EACS is the quitest around the 1Tb limit compared to other 1Tb hd.

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 1:19 pm

Yeah tbh speed of it sucks donkey balls

More like Buffalo Balls.... those results are beyond pathetic, and it may be so poor that you cant actually watch high-def content without dropping frames.

I tried watching some high-def content from my old server which measured about 30-MB/s write, 35-MB/s read with large files (300MB+), I dont know exactly what the problem was as the bitrate was far below the read rate of the server, but 1080 res stuff stuttered regulary on a PC that should not have had problems, while 720 and anything below is perfect.

It could easily have been caching issues, I never really looked into that at all, my new server has no problems (spec in sig). I never had any problems running the 1080 res stuff straight from a HDD (5400rpm laptop drive included). Consider that food for thought - it's worth looking into that to see if I had an isolated or unusual problem, or if its a common problem with shyte performance NAS boxes (and my old server).

Andy

pleccy2000 · Post by **pleccy2000** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 5:26 am

Thanks Andy.

I think that I will review to potentially change to a DLNA box instead. The problem is trying to work out how noisy these NAS boxes are!

cbutters · Post by **cbutters** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 6:26 am

Hey, I recently did the same thing you are about to do, build a Raid5 out of WD greenpower 1TB Drives, I did a video of my build that you can see at exoid.com (should be there on the first page.) My build has 5 1TB WD drives in a raid5 for 4TB of space. I used low power and silent (or near silent) components.
-Cameron

croddie · Post by **croddie** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 7:10 am

andyb wrote:I dont know exactly what the problem was as the bitrate was far below the read rate of the server, but 1080 res stuff stuttered regulary on a PC that should not have had problems, while 720 and anything below is perfect.

It could easily have been caching issues

Bitrates would be more useful than resolution: was the 1080 stuff high-bitrate blu ray or lower bit-rate reencoded material?

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 7:38 am

I can let you know tonight. I seem to remember something low like 1.5MB/s which shouldnt have caused any issues at all.

Andy

merlin · Post by **merlin** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 1:47 pm

I plans on making a nas box by end of year myself..once I can find the right case and a good g45 board. I can't imagine using any of these pre-built nas's because almost all of them have terrible read/write speeds. None of them use good cpus...and then we get cheese like the new readynas pro, which uses a low end core 2 duo.

I could get myself an E7200 with G45 for cheaper instead of buying their overpriced stuff :/ It's a highly disappointing arena, I'd be tempted to start my own nas company if there were some good people to do it with

yefi · Post by **yefi** » Thu Jul 10, 2008 9:56 pm

merlin wrote:I plans on making a nas box by end of year myself..once I can find the right case and a good g45 board. I can't imagine using any of these pre-built nas's because almost all of them have terrible read/write speeds.

If you'll be building your own NAS and want to achieve the highest rw speeds, I recommend you look into jumbo frames. All the overhead in TCP/IP packets can really throttle gigabit ethernet.

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Fri Jul 11, 2008 2:43 am

If you'll be building your own NAS and want to achieve the highest rw speeds, I recommend you look into jumbo frames. All the overhead in TCP/IP packets can really throttle gigabit ethernet.

It really can, although as I understand it all devices on the network that need to communicat with each other MUST support this protocol including the Gigabit switch. I am not sure about the other PC's that may be on the network that dont need to be able to transfer data too/from the server, but I am quite sure that they wont actually be able to if you tried. As far as the router is concerned, it is only 100Mbit anyway so Jumbo frames probably wont cause any issues. Likewise many motherboards on-board GB ethernet do not support the ideal Jombo fram size of 9000-MTU.

The whole Jumbo frame thing is a huge mess from top to bottom, and is probably the worst "issue" with the RJ45 topology.

Andy

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 3:01 pm

FAO Pleccy and Croddie.

The particular video I was reffering to that was dropping frames from my old server has the following properties.

4.29 GB (4,614,363,194 bytes)
Media Length: 01:13:12
Video: MPEG4 Video (H264) 1280x1080 (16:9) 23.98fps [Video]
Audio: DTS 48000Hz 6ch [Audio]

Come to think of it, this might not be any fault of the Server, and some starnge bandwidth/caching issue, but it could be that the PC in question couldnt play it back without dropping frames simply because it wasnt fast enough.

Opening up and running one of those videos uses ~1% network bandwidth on my main PC (in Sig) and about 30% CPU usage with a fair amount being off loaded to my HD4850 (not yet in my Sig). This is certainly not a network bandwidth issue - 1% of Gigabit ethernet is 1.25 MB/s (1000Mb / 8 = 125 MB/s / 1% = 1.25MB/s), and its not a problem with the drive (RAID-5 array) at the other end of the network either as I ran 3 of these at a time and I nearly maxxed out my 2 cores.

So the short answer is, sorry if I freaked you out, the problem seems to have been my miscalculation of the PC in questions processing power, and nothing to do with bandwidth from the server/NAS box.

Although I really like the idea of a pre-made, self contained worry free NAS solution, the price and performance put me off of buying one, when for a small amount of money I can buy one (a PC turned into a server) for less money with more storage, and on my terms. Granted its not as small, but it is capable of far more. Please dont think that I am trying to put you off of buying a NAS box, I will admit though that I am trying to disuade you from buying one, as I am sure you will see the benefits of a "real" fileserver, the question is will you need more than the NAS box can offer you at some point within its lifetime.? If your answer is no, then the NAS box sounds like a good deal, if its yes, then a home made server could be your answer.

Andy

andyb · Post by **andyb** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 3:01 pm

Double post

MoJo · Post by **MoJo** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 7:16 pm

Keep in mind that RAID5 is not backup. If your HDD dies, often it is down to things like electrical spikes or heat that will affect all drives in a NAS.

If you want backup, get a USB enclosure and do regular syncs (say nightly). Ideally you want the USB drive totally disconnected when not in use (from both USB and the mains) but that isn't easy to do if you want automatic syncing.