NAS

I want a NAS. Not for backup, just for media storage (photos, music, video). Want RAID-5 (or RAID-Z if I do it myself I suppose).

It would be nice if it could do bit torrent and I could control if from my Ipad.

I needs to play nice with a rooted Apple TV (new one).

It needs min of 2 x drives but would like 4 bays I suppose.

Please inundate me with personal experience with brands and / or funny stories about how your mate Keith just plugs in 10 x USB hard drives and he is a total datamaster.

Also has anyone built their own? Want a pretty little box which is power smart, are there pretty little box options which people can first hand recommend? "Just use that old PC from the closet" people need not apply.

Also

Just ordered this one today for work:
http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=192

Think it was about $230 AUD with no HDD's which is pretty good. Looks like it would fulfil a lot of your requirements. I was actually reading about it getting a bit moist thinking I could do with one of those!!

We also have a TS-209 at work which we have had for ages, runs sweet etc.

If you wanted four bays then look at the TS-412.. but I dunno of the price sorry.

Pretty sure most / all NAS's are admin via a web browser so you can use whatever (IE iPad if you want)

Keiths a funny cunt aint he? This one time me and Keith mooned a train full of old ladies Think they quite enjoyed it myself.

Will have a look.

I just realised I want it to run iTunes on NAS as well, might limit options somewhat.

Limits options severely. If you want the most flexibility, what about an HP Proliant Microserver? Not as cheap as I would like locally, but can be VERY cheap overseas (seen them as low as 99 pounds in UK).

Would be the best roll-your-own situation, load with drives + ram, run Linux on the metal for RAID-Z goodness, and run a Windows VM to run iTunes.

http://www.acquire.co.nz/acquire/default.asp?PageID=ProductDetail&pf_id=2392396&dept_id=1000030


Really want a couple myself.

In addition, experience from several knowledgeable friends suggest that most of the cheap to mid-range NAS boxes have terrible transfer speed, whereas the HP boxes run like the real (albeit low power) system they are.

Hmm musta missed them when I was looking for small form factor machines.

Zing!

Sweet can get for $199 ex here!

Thanks Kris!

You can run an iTunes server on 'nix natively can't you, if its just for ATV support, unless that isn't sufficient and you want the iTunes client?

That one I posted features an iTunes server on Linux, there seems to be several hits regarding setting one up.

Sweet thinking of this:

1 x Hp MicroServer
2 x Hitachi 2TB Deskstar 7K3000, SATAIII, 7200rpm, 64MB Cache
1 x Corsair 60GB SSD, 2.5", Force 3 Series, SATAIII, Read 550MB/s, Write 490MB/s
1 x G.Skill 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 Kit, PC-10666 (1333Mhz), Ripjaws X, 9-9-9-24-2N, Dual Channel Kit

And running SmartOS or OpenIndiana on it with the OS and L2ARC on the SSD.

Using ZFS in Async mode (no ZIL) on the 2TB drives as I don't care if I loose writes (I can rewrite them).

Then configuring it as a NAS with ISCSI for my computers and SMB for other stuff.

And finally putting a windows machine in VirtualBox to run Itunes (if I can't find some other way of getting it going).

Should be sub $800 all up.

Just have to deicide if I want to get an AppleTV or just put a Video card with HDMI out in it.

That stuff is basically setting up a DAAP share. It works for sharing music, but that's about it. Running real iTunes means you can set it up to automatically download podcasts etc.

Personally I wouldn't bother with SSD in a server box like this, you're not going to notice the speed benefits. And I'd lean toward ATV instead of video card, even though it will be a small quiet box, with a few drives in it will hum along. Stash it somewhere is my preference.

Edit: also fuck you $199

Maybe you are right, we put SSDs in our Thumper and saw massiver performance increases - but I suppose we are using different workloads to what I would be.

Although now I think about it it's not really best practice to use partitions with ZFS, ideally you would want to add whole disks to a zpool. Which I can't do if I want boot on my internal disks.

Maybe I could buy a crap 2.5" non SSD and use that for boot

The primary use is serving files off the spinning disks over the network, so yeah, I can't see much benefit to the SSD. Buy cheap 2.5" (or hell, 3.5 since you could just shove it in the 5.25" bay) and spend the difference on a 3rd 2TB?

2TB and SSD are roughly the same, but yeah.

I found out I don't need iTunes anymore, hello forked-daap!

Also I'm being retarded, it comes with a HDD I can just use that for OS.

Also found some cheaper parts, will be able to do for less than $500 now.

Ahh cool, I haven't kept up with disk pricing lately. Mainly because I'm critically close to running out unless I set up a second server and I'm dreading it

Nice one on cost! Could possibly drop RAM down to 4gb if you're not gunna run a VM on it now?

Solaris is a hungry beast, but if I can get 4 for half the cost of a 2 x 4 kit I'll try.

Actually 2 x 4GB non ECC is only $70 anyway.

Maybe I should use ECC though.

Bought.

First impressions, this thing is built really well (apart from disk caddies)

Can you post some throughput info when its set up? I'm quite interested given I have 5 or 6 different NAS setups at work. I assuming you'll be using iscsi.

No, decided not to use ISCSI just using SMB as it makes more sense for usability.

I can benchmark some ISCSI stuff for you though.

Actually how do you benchmark, IOMeter or something (if you do I can get results from our Thumper as well)? It would be more relevant if I did it the same way.

Only downside is I'm pretty sure I will be able to saturate the single GigE port.

Do you know anyone who's used one of these Synology ones? They seem pretty good but are a little more pricey than the HP MicroServer you've suggested:
http://www.synology.com/products/product.php?product_name=DS411&lang=enu Would ideally like this one.
http://www.synology.com/products/spec.php?product_name=DS411slim

That is way cheaper if you are happy to stay with the 4 x 500GB disks that come with it.

I had to buy all the disks and extra RAM for the Microserver.

The Microserver will perform better, that thing seems ridiculously underpowered though. 256MB memory and one core?