Network Attached Storage rather than Drive Enclosures?

Silencing hard drives, optical drives and other storage devices

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zhenya
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Network Attached Storage rather than Drive Enclosures?

Post by zhenya » Mon Dec 05, 2005 10:25 am

In my quest for quiet I've not too surprisingly come to the conclusion that the best way might be to move my noisiest storage drives out of the room. I have a Samsung 80gig main drive that is by far my quietest drive (below the noise floor of my PSU for now)...however my two storage drives are very slightly audible (Hitachi 250gb) and a screamer (WD 160gb). As I don't access these drives all the time, at this point I have them set to turn off after 3 minutes, so they are off most of the time. Still, it'd be nice if I couldn't hear them, and they weren't being triggered from time to time from opening or closing a program. I was thinking of a couple of drive enclosures to silence them, but then I came across the Netgear SC101 which should allow me to put those two drives online downstairs in my basement with my cable modem and router--which would make them online even when I'm tweaking with my desktop, and better yet put them out of hearing range, at the same price as the enclosures. What's the word with NAS? Does it work fast and reliably enough to replace local drives? Anyone have any experiences they can share with NAS in general or the Netgear one in particular?

BlueTide
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Post by BlueTide » Mon Dec 05, 2005 1:02 pm

Not quite NAS, but I do have an old server at closet behind 100mb/s. For most of the stuff it is fast enough. It is not as fast as a local drive, but it is not untolerable. Video streaming works well, even multiple streams. I at times make copies of my installation disks there to keep safe and fast and program installations are quite decent as well. NAS should be quite comparable and possibly even faster as my server is OLD.

I tend to use it to store pretty much everything and the workstations/laptops/desktops only have the working sets on them.

If you constantly copy large datasets back and forth, the network might become a bottleneck. Don't see that happening in home usage. But hey, it's very quiet! :D And you could, of course, then jump to 1gb/s parts... (is there such NAS out there for cheap?)

m0002a
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Post by m0002a » Mon Dec 05, 2005 5:42 pm

NAS is used by many companies these days, even for systems that require very high performance.

In most NAS systems, writes to disk are considered as complete by the requesting program when the data is in the NAS cache, so this speeds things up considerably. The cache is backed up by a battery in case of a power failure (this is a local battery in addition to an external UPS).

Most NAS systems are also configured with some kind of RAID to protect against drive failure. Gigabit (or faster) ethernet connections to the NAS drives are typically used.

If the NAS system you are considering has lots of cache, and you at least have a decent UPS, then it may be a good solution. However, I have been able to make my disk drives inaudible, by using newer drives with FDB’s and by using superior mounting techniques with some added local sound absorbing materials.

darthan
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Post by darthan » Mon Dec 05, 2005 5:56 pm

Get the NAS is my recommendation. If you pick a good one you'll be able to drop newer bigger drives in whenever you need more storage and if you ever build, say, an HTPC or another computer you can build it with limited quiet storage (laptop drives :D ) and still have access to all your files. Again, if you get a good one it will do RAID and so be as reliable as anything you're likely to build into your own computer. As for the UPS and all that, well, over a 100mb network the NAS is not going to be caching much data at all because the hard drives will write quicker than the data can flow in. Also, unless you have your computer on a UPS you will just lose the data at that end.

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Post by jasond » Mon Dec 05, 2005 7:19 pm

One review:
http://www.tomsnetworking.com/Reviews-2 ... -SC101.php

I believe there are some other reviews out there, too, if you look around. It's been a couple of months since I looked at NAS, so sorry I can't offer more.

zhenya
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Post by zhenya » Tue Dec 06, 2005 7:54 am

Thanks for the replies all. After looking into it a bit more, it appears that NAS, while available for the Home market, is in reality, still in development. The Netgear SC101 was appealing, because it offered two drive capacity for $100. While the easily accessed magazine reviews were lukewarm to positive, the user reviews on Amazon and Newegg just trashed it. Apparently the biggest issues are that it uses a non-standard file system, requiring that each client machine (Windows only) have proprietary software installed to access the NAS drives. This method makes them unusable outside of the SC101 (that is you can't pop them out and connect directly to your computer, the file system won't be recognized.) I'm not willing to risk my data with a proprietary file system. In addition, it only supports ATA-6 drives, making re-using older (even slightly older drives impossible). The other major problem appears to be heat - with just passive heatsink cooling, and no fans people are reporting the case getting too hot to touch. Too bad! This is the method I want to go, I guess not quite yet though.

What I'd like to see:
-enclosure sold without including any disks.
-able to hold 2 or more drives of any ATA standard. modular might be good too for future growth
-gigabit ethernet supported
-uses a standard file sharing protocol so I can swap drives between my computer and the NAS device at will.
-raid available, but not required
-sells for less than $150 with support for 2 drives.

Is there anything out there I'm missing that is even close to filling my wishes?

zhenya
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Post by zhenya » Tue Dec 06, 2005 8:00 am

m0002a wrote:However, I have been able to make my disk drives inaudible, by using newer drives with FDB’s and by using superior mounting techniques with some added local sound absorbing materials.
Yes, silencing my drives locally is being worked on. My main Samsung drive is nearly inaudible being suspension mounted in my P150. My new Hitachi is also nearly silent. However I still have an older 160gb WD drive in good condition that I'm loathe to give up, but is outrageously noisy. Seeing the SC101 briefly gave me hope that I could move my existing drives out of the room entirely for the price of a new drive, and have access even when the desktop is off. As that product is not all its cracked up to be, I may consider drive enclosures again for the mean time.

erikt
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Post by erikt » Tue Dec 06, 2005 9:00 am

zhenya wrote:What I'd like to see:
-enclosure sold without including any disks.
-able to hold 2 or more drives of any ATA standard. modular might be good too for future growth
-gigabit ethernet supported
-uses a standard file sharing protocol so I can swap drives between my computer and the NAS device at will.
-raid available, but not required
-sells for less than $150 with support for 2 drives.

Is there anything out there I'm missing that is even close to filling my wishes?
Sure! build your own. Why bother spending lots of cash on a pre-built NAS
box which is inflexible and expensive when you can simply build a cheap
PC and network it. Depending on what parts you have lying around, and
what OS you choose, this can be done really cheaply. All you need is a
case, PSU, MB, CPU, RAM, and possibly a GigE NIC if your MB doesn't have
it onboard. The PSU can be cheap, 300W or even smaller. A P3 CPU
will suffice, and no need for more than 256MB RAM. Now, you will have to
run an OS and unless you're comfortable with linux and Windows/linux
inter-networking, you'll need a copy of XP.
I've got 8 drives in my file server, 1.5TB and growing!
erikt

zhenya
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Post by zhenya » Tue Dec 06, 2005 9:38 am

erikt wrote:
zhenya wrote:What I'd like to see:
-enclosure sold without including any disks.
-able to hold 2 or more drives of any ATA standard. modular might be good too for future growth
-gigabit ethernet supported
-uses a standard file sharing protocol so I can swap drives between my computer and the NAS device at will.
-raid available, but not required
-sells for less than $150 with support for 2 drives.

Is there anything out there I'm missing that is even close to filling my wishes?
Sure! build your own. Why bother spending lots of cash on a pre-built NAS
box which is inflexible and expensive when you can simply build a cheap
PC and network it. Depending on what parts you have lying around, and
what OS you choose, this can be done really cheaply. All you need is a
case, PSU, MB, CPU, RAM, and possibly a GigE NIC if your MB doesn't have
it onboard. The PSU can be cheap, 300W or even smaller. A P3 CPU
will suffice, and no need for more than 256MB RAM. Now, you will have to
run an OS and unless you're comfortable with linux and Windows/linux
inter-networking, you'll need a copy of XP.
I've got 8 drives in my file server, 1.5TB and growing!
erikt
This was my first thought, as I have all the required parts to build this machine at home, other than an extra copy of XP. I was hoping to avoid having another machine to maintain, however. I do suppose that this method is by far the least expensive for me, as I already have everything needed, and the basement is already wired with ethernet to get it online out of earshot. I suppose that it is also the most likely to meet all of my criteria in a NAS (other than having to maintain another OS). If I go for another copy of XP, I can even manage the computer from my main system with Remote Desktop, thus having no need for a monitor, keyboard and mouse to be connected to the file server. This is sounding appealing!

akerr63
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Post by akerr63 » Tue Dec 06, 2005 9:46 am

Instead of buying a copy of XP use a Linux distrubtion with SAMBA. Will give you web based administration.

zhenya
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Post by zhenya » Tue Dec 06, 2005 9:57 am

akerr63 wrote:Instead of buying a copy of XP use a Linux distrubtion with SAMBA. Will give you web based administration.
Can you elaborate a bit on what web based administration exactly means? Would I be able to fully manage my file server without having to connect up a keyboard/monitor (other than for the initial build)? The XP option is appealing because I already know XP very well, and for less than $100 I can have I system I know how to use, and with remote desktop it acts like I'm sitting right in front of the server. I'm open to considering learning Linux though. :D

erikt
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Post by erikt » Tue Dec 06, 2005 10:09 am

zhenya wrote:This was my first thought, as I have all the required parts to build this machine at home, other than an extra copy of XP. I was hoping to avoid having another machine to maintain, however. I do suppose that this method is by far the least expensive for me, as I already have everything needed, and the basement is already wired with ethernet to get it online out of earshot. I suppose that it is also the most likely to meet all of my criteria in a NAS (other than having to maintain another OS). If I go for another copy of XP, I can even manage the computer from my main system with Remote Desktop, thus having no need for a monitor, keyboard and mouse to be connected to the file server. This is sounding appealing!
Keep in mind, the remote desktop server is only avialable under XP-Pro,
and it doesn't allow you to standby/restart/shut-down the remote
machine. Try realVNC or something similar.

One additional thing that might interest you. If you don't want your file
server running 24/7, you can use Depicus' wolcmd and
Sysinternal's PSShutdown to automatically/remotely wake/suspend the fileserver.
erikt

mellon
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Post by mellon » Tue Dec 06, 2005 10:10 am

I would recommend the Synology DiskStation. No disk included, excellent features and a web management interface. I bought one of these to the company I work for and it has been working reliably from the beginning.

akerr63
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Post by akerr63 » Tue Dec 06, 2005 10:53 am

If you used Linux/SAMBA you would not require a keyboard/display except for the initial install. However if you are not familiar with Linux/SAMBA (a steep learning curve) you are probably better getting an XP Home OEM copy and using free UltraVNC installed as a service to provide remote keyboard/display. Note that XP Home will not give you any file permissions on the server, since all file sharing is performed as the Guest user. If you want finer access control you need XP Professional.

zhenya
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Post by zhenya » Tue Dec 06, 2005 10:59 am

erikt wrote: Keep in mind, the remote desktop server is only avialable under XP-Pro,
and it doesn't allow you to standby/restart/shut-down the remote
machine. Try realVNC or something similar.

One additional thing that might interest you. If you don't want your file
server running 24/7, you can use Depicus' wolcmd and
Sysinternal's PSShutdown to automatically/remotely wake/suspend the fileserver.
erikt
Ah, that was one thing I was not sure of. RealVNC looks promising if it works as advertised though. Thanks for the advice!

zhenya
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Post by zhenya » Tue Dec 06, 2005 11:01 am

mellon wrote:I would recommend the Synology DiskStation. No disk included, excellent features and a web management interface. I bought one of these to the company I work for and it has been working reliably from the beginning.
I looked them up, and a quick google search didn't return any distributors in the US. Thanks though!

zhenya
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Post by zhenya » Tue Dec 06, 2005 11:03 am

akerr63 wrote:If you used Linux/SAMBA you would not require a keyboard/display except for the initial install. However if you are not familiar with Linux/SAMBA (a steep learning curve) you are probably better getting an XP Home OEM copy and using free UltraVNC installed as a service to provide remote keyboard/display. Note that XP Home will not give you any file permissions on the server, since all file sharing is performed as the Guest user. If you want finer access control you need XP Professional.
Thanks. I am interested in learning Linux/Samba, so I'm going to try to enlist the help of a friend to try to shorten the learning curve. I'm aware that I wouldn't have any file permissions with XP home, and I think that's ok if I ended up going that route. UltraVNC looks like it might still make it possible with Home Edition.

VERiON
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Post by VERiON » Wed Dec 07, 2005 1:34 am

If you want to use linux - you can use clarkconnect.com (there is HOME free version - which is PROF version without support).

It is a linux distribution with point-and-click installation [ok ok ok ok ok - done]. It takes 30 minutes and you don't have to know anything about linux. After the instalation there is no need for keyboard or monitor. You don't have to configure anything, except your HDD shares (user paswords and hdd share size) - all via web based simple interface.

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Post by rek » Wed Dec 07, 2005 6:01 am

erikt wrote:Keep in mind, the remote desktop server is only avialable under XP-Pro,
and it doesn't allow you to standby/restart/shut-down the remote
machine. Try realVNC or something similar.
One workaround to this is the 'shutdown' console command in Windows. I use this occasionally when doing maintenance on my HTPC over remote desktop.

Code: Select all

Usage: shutdown [-i | -l | -s | -r | -a] [-f] [-m \\computername] [-t xx] [-c "comment"] [-d up:xx:yy]

        No args                 Display this message (same as -?)
        -i                      Display GUI interface, must be the first option
        -l                      Log off (cannot be used with -m option)
        -s                      Shutdown the computer
        -r                      Shutdown and restart the computer
        -a                      Abort a system shutdown
        -m \\computername       Remote computer to shutdown/restart/abort
        -t xx                   Set timeout for shutdown to xx seconds
        -c "comment"            Shutdown comment (maximum of 127 characters)
        -f                      Forces running applications to close without warning
        -d [u][p]:xx:yy         The reason code for the shutdown
                                u is the user code
                                p is a planned shutdown code
                                xx is the major reason code (positive integer less than 256)
                                yy is the minor reason code (positive integer less than 65536)
It's worth the minor hassle, as RDC is head and shoulders faster and more convenient than VNC (no screen drawing glitches, enables sharing drives/printers/everything between client and remote, nicer integration with Windows' login model, etc.)

I've set my HTPC up sweetly, where I have done the hack to allow concurrent connections; I have the machine automatically log in on startup as a "Showshifter" user that loads up all that sort of business, still leaving me free to log in remotely as Administrator for maintenance and background encode/torrent/etc. jobs, without affecting the HTPC duties :)

topic relevance: I use my HTPC as a NAS box too, among other things :) It's not quite silent (yet) though. I need 380W of Seasonic and 92mm of Nexus, stat

Cams
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Post by Cams » Sun Jan 08, 2006 11:02 pm

rek wrote:
erikt wrote:Keep in mind, the remote desktop server is only avialable under XP-Pro, and it doesn't allow you to standby/restart/shut-down the remote machine. Try realVNC or something similar.
One workaround to this is the 'shutdown' console command in Windows. I use this occasionally when doing maintenance on my HTPC over remote desktop.

I've set my HTPC up sweetly, where I have done the hack to allow concurrent connections;
Very useful! Thanks for that.

Zhenya, I'm presently going through exactly the same thing that you are and I'm also considering going down the Samba route or trying out Clark Connect. I just don't have a basement :(

quikkie
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Post by quikkie » Mon Jan 09, 2006 5:43 am

I love my linksys NSLU2 NAS system.
It's a mini linux system with a comprehensive web GUI, the NSLU2 itself has no moving parts and is very low power, so the system is only as loud as the USB disks you plug in.
Yeah, sadly it uses USB disks so the performance isn't lightning - although you still get ~5MB/s transfers. It will accept two disks and it's extensible (check http://www.nslu2-linux.org for just how extensible it is).

I have a 250GB WD USB disk sat on the "air bag" packing that it was shipped with and I can just about discern disk seeks from 2 metres away.

the best thing is the price: from Amazon UK it was 150GBP delivered.

-Quikkie

iatacs19
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Post by iatacs19 » Tue Jan 10, 2006 6:55 am

I went the NAS route after i wired my house for GigE. I went with the Infrant ReadyNAS X6 and 3x250GB 7200.8 drives. I placed the NAS in another room. My main PC has just 1 Samsung 200GB drive which is pretty quiet.

Performance wise it's not bad, but I had to invest in GigE equipment and cabling + GigE switch that could do jumbo frames.

I recommend the NAS solution if you have time and some spare cash. It does "move" the noise away from the immediate computer area.

Review:
http://www.tomsnetworking.com/ProductGu ... X6-NAS.php

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Post by nick705 » Tue Jan 10, 2006 7:12 am

rek wrote:
erikt wrote:Keep in mind, the remote desktop server is only avialable under XP-Pro,
and it doesn't allow you to standby/restart/shut-down the remote
machine. Try realVNC or something similar.
One workaround to this is the 'shutdown' console command in Windows. I use this occasionally when doing maintenance on my HTPC over remote desktop.
You can also perform a shutdown/reboot/logoff by bringing up Task Manager on the remote machine and entering the "Shut Down" menu.

I agree that RDC is much nicer to use than VNC if you have a Windows box...

Cams
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Post by Cams » Tue Jan 10, 2006 7:17 am

nick705 wrote:You can also perform a shutdown/reboot/logoff by bringing up Task Manager on the remote machine and entering the "Shut Down" menu.
That's great Nick! Thanks for that -- I didn't know about that.

zhenya
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Post by zhenya » Sun Jan 15, 2006 12:40 pm

Ok! I finally have my linux file server up and operating. I had everything I needed in spare parts, so my net cost was $0. I set up a PIII 450 w/ 256mb ram running Ubuntu linux. I have linux running on a 10gb drive, and then a 160gb and 250gb drives shared with permissions on the network. I can remote into it with RealVNC or over SSH, so no monitor/keyboard or mouse is needed.

For positives I have a stable scalable file server that should suffice for a very long time, for no out of pocket costs. It can talk to any OS and should work great as I move towards a HTPC. Having the noisy drives out of my desktop system is great -- no more spin up/spin down cycles, and that system is now dead silent.

Negatives are that learning linux was a serious challenge. I manage our windows network at my workplace, but had no previous experience with linux. I'm always glad to learn something new though. :)

All in all this has been a very satisfying experience, although I wouldn't recommend it to someone without linux experience unless you are really committed to the steep learning curve!

Cams
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Post by Cams » Mon Jan 16, 2006 12:52 am

Glad you got it worked out Zhenya. I'm waiting on my two Samsung V120CE drives arriving to get my server up and running.

You may just have convinced me to try Clark Connect rather than learning Linux! If it's difficult for someone familiar with Windows networking, it will be so much the harder for me with my limited networking knowledge.

zhenya
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Post by zhenya » Mon Jan 16, 2006 5:06 am

Cams wrote:Glad you got it worked out Zhenya. I'm waiting on my two Samsung V120CE drives arriving to get my server up and running.

You may just have convinced me to try Clark Connect rather than learning Linux! If it's difficult for someone familiar with Windows networking, it will be so much the harder for me with my limited networking knowledge.
I actually tried Clark Connect before Ubuntu. Both were easy to install initially, but I actually had a harder time with Clark Connect than with Ubuntu. A GUI goes a long way. I did manage to get my drives shared with Clark Connect, and the web interface made remote configuration simple - when I could find the correct menu. The power of linux is there with Clark Connect, but a lot of it is only acessible from a command line. Ubuntu still has plenty of command line work, but you can manage it largely from a windows-like GUI.

Cams
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Post by Cams » Mon Jan 16, 2006 7:35 am

Interesting. What made you choose Ubuntu over Debian or Samba? Or are they all the same thing? I'm a complete Linux noob and am just about to jump in -- my drives arrived today so just got to move the parts into my GMC case and set it up.

My server will be primarily to run Slim Server for my Squeezebox 3 and I can foresee some headbanging and frustration over the next few days. At least the SB3 isn't here yet so I'm not itching to try it out just yet!

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Post by jaganath » Mon Jan 16, 2006 7:52 am

What made you choose Ubuntu over Debian or Samba? Or are they all the same thing?
A short explanation of the relationship between Debian and Ubuntu is provided here:

Ubuntulinux.org
my drives arrived today
Were those the V120CE's? Let us know how you get on (especially re:noise levels).

zhenya
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Post by zhenya » Tue Jan 17, 2006 6:21 pm

Cams wrote:What made you choose Ubuntu over Debian or Samba? Or are they all the same thing? I'm a complete Linux noob and am just about to jump in -- my drives arrived today so just got to move the parts into my GMC case and set it up.
Basically I chose Ubuntu because a friend of mine who's a network admin recommended it, and helped me get it set up. I also found pretty good support resources for it, making it easier for me to learn. Samba is kind of like a service that runs within linux, allowing file sharing with Windows machines.

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