NAS + Gigabite ethernet + SSD = 0db?

[syrian_gamer]

Hey everybody, I was recently talking with a friend about upgrading to gigabit router and it got me thinking.

I currently have 2 hard drives, 1 os and 1 data (both 3.5" drives). Im thinkig of replacing the 1st OS drive with a 2.5" (not enough $ for SSD) and putting the 2nd drive in my NAS which is in my basement. I figure 1gigabit is more then enough speed for loading all the extra stuff like videos and photos, etc.

But syrian, your not silencing anything, this is Silentpcreview, not movethenoiseinanotherroomreview.

Well yes i completely agree. But when the prices off SSD becomes cheap enough (OCZ 30gb drive currently 144 on NCIX) we could instal the OS on SSD, and just install all our other programs on the NAS. there might be a speed issue, but its a small price to pay. Think about it, no drive head clicking, no platter spinning and whinning. At that point i dont even use my DVD drive so i could probably cut the front portion of my computer and just shrink it down, reducing everything down

ok so here are my questions

1. Is this feasible?

2. What would the speed be reduced to, if it even would be (I doubt the drive can read and write at 1 Gb per second.

Essentially I would like to know if there could be any problems with doing this. I currently have a whisper quiet PSU (modu82+, thanks SPCR for the review), all my heatsinks are thermalrights (Ultima90 and HR-03gt) so if i eliminated the hard drive noise, all that would be left is to get some very quiet fans, of find a better way to cool my cpu/gpu.

Comments, questions, answers. All of them are welcomed here

[m0002a]

Sure it is feasible. Many corporations use NAS for their data. But on my systems, the hard drive is not the loudest item, so its not that big of a deal for me.

[lm]

But syrian, your not silencing anything, this is Silentpcreview, not movethenoiseinanotherroomreview.

Well yes i completely agree.

Aw f it. Whatever works. You want your work done, right? Why should the method be important. I moved my computer to a walk-in closet by extension cords and solved the problem for good.

[MikeC]

Over the past few weeks, the several PCs in the SPCR labs have been upgraded with 30~60gb SSDs, replacing mostly larger capacity 3.5" HDDs. We restored an NAS in a closet in a stairwell, with the single fairly high vibration 1gb drive suspended w/ elastic from rafters. You can hear it when the door to that closet is opened, but not when it's closed.

An old early single drive NAS was there before; a much more capable QNAP TS-109 Pro has replaced it. Now all the PCs save to the NAS through the network also upgraded not long ago to gigabit, with an 8-port switch in the closet and a 4-port one next to the cable modem. The appropriate NAS folders are mapped on each PC. The speed of data transfer is about the same as with a USB drive. One big advantage of all this is ease of data security: Only the NAS needs to be backed up, and this is done with a simple external USB 1tb drive connected directly to the NAS.

So every PC has become a bit quieter -- they were all very quiet already -- and draws a bit less power.

[syrian_gamer]

Why is the speed of a nas the same as a USB drive and not SATA?

Since 1 gigabit is about 300mb/s, and no drive today (except SSD) can read/ write at that speed, shouldnt it be the same as if it was connected to a SATA connection

[MikeC]

Why is the speed of a nas the same as a USB drive and not SATA?

Since 1 gigabit is about 300mb/s, and no drive today (except SSD) can read/ write at that speed, shouldnt it be the same as if it was connected to a SATA connection

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/ has very good reviews/analysis of network gear, and most NAS boxes transfer data under 30 MB/sec. Much slower than SATA, and about the same as most USB external drives. The only external interface to match SATA is eSATA -- which is just SATA, really.

[syrian_gamer]

Why is the speed of a nas the same as a USB drive and not SATA?

Since 1 gigabit is about 300mb/s, and no drive today (except SSD) can read/ write at that speed, shouldnt it be the same as if it was connected to a SATA connection

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/ has very good reviews/analysis of network gear, and most NAS boxes transfer data under 30 MB/sec. Much slower than SATA, and about the same as most USB external drives. The only external interface to match SATA is eSATA -- which is just SATA, really.

Hmm, so the the problem isnt the drives but the NAS that transfers the data too slowly thats disappointing. However, i often watch videos from movies stored on my nas, and dont really have problems. So i guess for big file transfers it wouldnt be so good, but for day to day use it could be ok.

My plan is to just have everything on a 2.5" 320gb (or 500) drive, and the rest be on my NAS. I already got a psu (Modu 82+) after a great review from spcr . i cant wait till the day where we all have silent 0db computers

[MikeC]

I don't think it's the NAS boxes, really but rather the real-world performance of gigabit networks. In theory, the maximum data rate for 100Mbps Ethernet is 12.5 MBytes/sec and 125 MBytes/sec for gigabit. In any case, even large file transfers are not that slow (the biggest here being the occasional 700mb~4gb downloaded movie) and the usual smaller files, <5mb raw photos or bigger multimedia clips, take no time at all to save/move. Naturally, if you're working on any large files, keep them on the local SSD and transfer to the NAS only when you're done.

Except for the PC in the anechoic chamber which has no moving parts, the other two have just one fan, a smooth 120mm that runs ~500rpm or lower. Both have fanless PSUs (one a silverstone, the other a picoPSU + 110W power brick). The absence of any HDD noise is nice -- but the improvement over the previous configs is really noticeable later at night or when you're right next to the PCs.

[lm]

On linux-linux transfers, I easily got 90% of 100Mbps ethernet maximum theoretical speeds already at around 8 years ago. However windows-linux was only 4MB/s compared to the 11MB/s I got on linux-linux back then.

I don't have a gigabit network here, but I'm very doubtfull if it would only give me 3x increase in speed with todays hardware. There is some badly designed bottleneck somewhere.

[psiu]

Over the past few weeks, the several PCs in the SPCR labs have been upgraded with 30~60gb SSDs, replacing mostly larger capacity 3.5" HDDs. We restored an NAS in a closet in a stairwell, with the single fairly high vibration 1gb drive suspended w/ elastic from rafters. You can hear it when the door to that closet is opened, but not when it's closed.

*snip*

You know there's more modern drives than that 1 gig now, right? You could move up to a nice 4.3 GB Quantum Fireball. Or maybe a nice 2.2 GB Seagate Barracuda in SCSI?

[MikeC]

You know there's more modern drives than that 1 gig now, right? You could move up to a nice 4.3 GB Quantum Fireball. Or maybe a nice 2.2 GB Seagate Barracuda in SCSI?

ok, it's a little bigger. 1tb

[ShadowVlican]

some ethernet devices make annoying high pitched whining sounds.. so even if i went that route, i wouldn't reach "0db"

[Das_Saunamies]

On linux-linux transfers, I easily got 90% of 100Mbps ethernet maximum theoretical speeds already at around 8 years ago. However windows-linux was only 4MB/s compared to the 11MB/s I got on linux-linux back then.

I don't have a gigabit network here, but I'm very doubtfull if it would only give me 3x increase in speed with todays hardware. There is some badly designed bottleneck somewhere.

That is something I've been wanting to test - too bad I know no one who ran Linux machines or brought some to LAN parties (we can all guess why). I see these claims every now and then and can't help but wonder if there is a software bottleneck after all - everyone is probably familiar with how ruddy hard it can sometimes get to just have Windows machines find each other.