NAS setup

#1

I’m looking at getting a cheap NAS set up in my home, doesn’t need to be too feature heavy, but am looking at around 4TB storage (2 x 2TB).

http://www.amazon.co.uk/D-Link-ShareCenter-Network-Storage-Enclosure/dp/B004AIWOXY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334960794&sr=8-1

Found that one, which seems fairly decent particularly for the price, am looking at configuring the two drives in RAID1.

  • Will be used to sync my library (documents, music, pictures and video) across my multiple computers.
  • Using RAID1, second drive will be a mirror (obviously) of the first, for backup purposes.
  • All computers run Windows, laptop is dual booted with Ubuntu.

Questions:

  1. Will there be a noticeable speed difference in accessing just standard documents, and playing the odd music file in comparison to local hdd? (reading)
  2. In terms of write speeds, how quick should I be expecting? I read somewhere that you can get 30mb/s out of this NAS with the drives in RAID1, does that sound realistic?
  3. Would it be possible to partition these drives, and have both drives still in RAID1?
  4. Could xampp be installed on it so I could use it as a web server?

Think that’s about all for now, need any more info just ask.

#2
  1. No.
  2. Very quick, assuming you are connected with a 1gbit wire and this NAS doesn’t have a bottleneck elsewhere.
  3. Yes.
  4. A major concern for me is if the ‘firmware’ (Operating System) on this NAS was open source so I could modify it to my own needs.

That seems like a really cheap NAS, and it doesn’t support NFS which you can use from both Ubuntu and the latest Windows 7. It does support CIFS and SMB, which work decently, but NFS is a little better.

If you have a little more money to spend, or better yet, an old computer laying around that you can put a gbit card (about $7) and install Linux on (I use Ubuntu Server on my home server), then it would be a far better and infinitely customizable NAS than this box.

#3

I knew you’d pop up suggesting to just use an old Linux build, but I’d much prefer a purpose built machine dedicated to it. The power consumption would be lower, as well as the physical space taken up by it.

Thank you for the answers though :slight_smile:

Really not looking for anything too snazzy, just need to be able to read and write, and map it as a network drive in windows :stuck_out_tongue: The web server would be a bonus, but I was planning on using a raspberry pi for that anyway so I’m not too bothered :slight_smile:

#4

Then what you linked to would probably be fine.

#5

Great, thank you :slight_smile: Would it be possible to set it so parts of the drive(s) aren’t accessible by other people in my house?

Say for example I wanted to store all my library on there, as well as my brother’s. I want to be able to access my folders obviously, but not be able to access his, and vice versa.

#6

Depends on if that box allows you to put authentication (user/pass) on your samba shares. Samba on linux does. :slight_smile:

#7

I imagine so :stuck_out_tongue: Even Windows 7 can with no extra software. Couldn’t I just right click folder > share with > me/brother, etc?
That’s how I do it with my laptop, I already have all my videos and music shared throughout the house, they can only read not write, and I can write obv.

#8

[quote=“SilentCJ, post:7, topic:440167”][quote author=Moparisthebest link=topic=542848.msg3980302#msg3980302 date=1335152925]
Depends on if that box allows you to put authentication (user/pass) on your samba shares. Samba on linux does. :slight_smile:
[/quote]
I imagine so :stuck_out_tongue: Even Windows 7 can with no extra software. Couldn’t I just right click folder > share with > me/brother, etc?
That’s how I do it with my laptop, I already have all my videos and music shared throughout the house, they can only read not write, and I can write obv.[/quote]
No, it wouldn’t be the same way. It would have to provide a GUI or something to let you create shares and set attributes on them, perhaps it just gives you access to smb.conf, which would let you do anything that version of samba supports.

#9

Oh good, I don’t mind editing a file rather than a gui. Just found a product description on another site:

The confidentiality and integrity of all your files is guaranteed as you can give rights to specific users or groups and assign them to folders with read/write permissions. This function is ideal for the home...
So it can be done one way or another, great :)
#10

That probably just has some kind of a web UI

#11

Either is cool, as long as it’s possible :slight_smile: Went ahead and ordered it anyway, should be here friday. Gonna stick a couple of spare 160gb HDDs in there to test before I go and splash a load of cash on 2x2tbs.

#12

if you want my advice (and can wait a little) the prices of harddrives are going to go down the longer you leave it, the prices are still ridiculously high from the floods and it’ll be a while before you can get £56/2tb drives again but you may be able to save a bit

#13

[quote=“Niall, post:12, topic:440167”][quote author=SilentCJ link=topic=542848.msg3981428#msg3981428 date=1335311891]
Either is cool, as long as it’s possible :slight_smile: Went ahead and ordered it anyway, should be here friday. Gonna stick a couple of spare 160gb HDDs in there to test before I go and splash a load of cash on 2x2tbs.
[/quote]

if you want my advice (and can wait a little) the prices of harddrives are going to go down the longer you leave it, the prices are still ridiculously high from the floods and it’ll be a while before you can get £56/2tb drives again but you may be able to save a bit[/quote]
Yeah, I’ve been watching the prices for a while now, as my 500gb laptop drive has just failed (great timing I know), but I didn’t think £80~ is too bad for a 2TB?

Got it installed this afternoon with the 2x160GB western digitals set in RAID1, only getting 2.6mb/s~ write speed, just copying and pasting a 6gb iso to it.
Full bar wireless connection to the router… was hoping for a little better than that? Any ideas?
Also using a fairly expensive belkin N series router, I doubt that’s the bottleneck, gonna try running smart tests on the HDD’s, as I did borrow them from my college.

Edit: SMART tests reported back good. Tried an ethernet cable directly to router and I can get 8mb/s write speed, so it’s looking like my laptop’s wireless card is a bottleneck. Even so, I was expecting higher than 8mb/s, particularly after the RAID1 configuration… Also updated the firmware to latest, no speed difference.

Even my sister’s low spec netbook gets 6mb/s through wireless, and my brother’s laptop gets just under 8mb/s via wireless. Can’t seem to find a better card for my Dell Studio 1749, does anybody know of any decent expansion slot based cards?

#14

@hard drive prices, before they skyrocketed I bought 3 hitachi 2TB drives for $69 each, two for a client, one for myself. So they are still ridiculously priced.

About your speeds, you are never going to get decent speeds with a wireless card, your best bet is to hook up a wire when you need faster access.

On my gigabit network running through a $12 TrendNet switch, I can write to my 5200rpm cheapy hitachi drive at the same speed over the network or locally. So I’d say that little box you have is the main chokepoint it sounds like.

#15

[quote=“Moparisthebest, post:14, topic:440167”]@hard drive prices, before they skyrocketed I bought 3 hitachi 2TB drives for $69 each, two for a client, one for myself. So they are still ridiculously priced.

About your speeds, you are never going to get decent speeds with a wireless card, your best bet is to hook up a wire when you need faster access.

On my gigabit network running through a $12 TrendNet switch, I can write to my 5200rpm cheapy hitachi drive at the same speed over the network or locally. So I’d say that little box you have is the main chokepoint it sounds like.[/quote]
My brother still gets just under 8mb/s with his laptop (which is a lot lower spec than mine) with his wireless card though, that’s what baffles me. And my sisters netbook running an intel atom even gets 6mb/s, but I’m stuck on 2mb/s… I mean I’d be happy with about 8mb/s, 2mb/s isn’t great though…

Do you think using a switch could help? And by little box, are you referring to the NAS or the router? :stuck_out_tongue:

You don’t think the hard drives could be at fault at all here do you, I mean I’d say they’re a good 9 or more years old, I’m not sure what the rpm on them is but still…

#16

[quote=“SilentCJ, post:15, topic:440167”][quote author=Moparisthebest link=topic=542848.msg3983946#msg3983946 date=1335644571]
@hard drive prices, before they skyrocketed I bought 3 hitachi 2TB drives for $69 each, two for a client, one for myself. So they are still ridiculously priced.

About your speeds, you are never going to get decent speeds with a wireless card, your best bet is to hook up a wire when you need faster access.

On my gigabit network running through a $12 TrendNet switch, I can write to my 5200rpm cheapy hitachi drive at the same speed over the network or locally. So I’d say that little box you have is the main chokepoint it sounds like.
[/quote]
My brother still gets just under 8mb/s with his laptop (which is a lot lower spec than mine) with his wireless card though, that’s what baffles me. And my sisters netbook running an intel atom even gets 6mb/s, but I’m stuck on 2mb/s… I mean I’d be happy with about 8mb/s, 2mb/s isn’t great though…

Do you think using a switch could help? And by little box, are you referring to the NAS or the router? :stuck_out_tongue:

You don’t think the hard drives could be at fault at all here do you, I mean I’d say they’re a good 9 or more years old, I’m not sure what the rpm on them is but still…[/quote]

A switch won’t do you any good if you are connected wirelessly, and by little box I meant the NAS.

About the hard drives, try writing to them locally and see what speeds you get. Write speed on RAID 1 will be slightly slower than without RAID.

#17

try hooking a cat cable up, even if you have a wireless n router your wireless card may only be a g type, some of which can only give 25-30mbit speeds which fall comfortably in the 2.6mbyte/s range

#18

Yeah I did and I get just over 8mb/s. And yes it is a g type wireless card, I didn’t realise they had a speed limitation, I thought it was up to 54mbps :stuck_out_tongue: It’s seeming more likely it’s my wireless card…

I also tried putting the laptop right next to the router, no speed change whatsoever, so there’s definitely a hardware bottleneck somewhere.

[quote=“Moparisthebest, post:16, topic:440167”]A switch won’t do you any good if you are connected wirelessly, and by little box I meant the NAS.

About the hard drives, try writing to them locally and see what speeds you get. Write speed on RAID 1 will be slightly slower than without RAID.[/quote]
Oh, what was I thinking, I was thinking I could plug the switch into the router ethernet ports, but that would serve no purpose other than increase the number of ports :o

And will do :slight_smile: thanks.

#19

54mbps is around 7mBps, you’re getting your bits and bytes symbols mixed up. That is the fastest you will get on that wireless connection.

#20

I was aware I wasn’t putting my Bytes to upper case, habits :o but I know the difference (wasn’t expecting 54mB/s :wink: ).

Would something like this help: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-002-TP&groupid=46&catid=1600&subcat=2033 ?
Just thinking, wouldn’t that speed be restricted by USB2.0 at all?

I’m also thinking of a new router too if that doesn’t speed it up a little… found some pretty nice ones for about £40.