Network File servers

ERP

Veteran
Does anyone have any experience with stand alone Network File Servers?

Just interested in opinions.
 
ERP said:
Does anyone have any experience with stand alone Network File Servers?

Just interested in opinions.

What kind? What do you want to do with it?
 
Just want a central network store, mostly for media, and possibly file backup.

IU was looking at either something like http://www.buffalotech.com/products/product-detail.php?productid=97&categoryid=19 or a stand alone server http://www.linksys.com/products/product.asp?grid=35&scid=43&prid=640 with external USB drives.

I have a bunch of old computers I could use, but I figured these solutions would be quieter and easier to manage.

Just wondering is anyone here had any real experience with these or similar products.
 
I'm not sure if a NAS is the same as what you are considering.

But I happen to have a 160GB Buffalo LinkStation (NAS).

Frankly, it's great. I have it physically attached to my wireless .11G router and can connect to it without problems either via my wired PC, my wife's wireless desktop, or my laptop (also wireless).

There are two issues though.

Speed is NOT great even with my wired desktop (and it takes time to initially browse through the directories).

And the USB ports do not work very well (or at all in my case) for running printers through them. Apparently there is some incompatability with printers that have memory card slots.

All in all though, I'm quite pleased.
 
I've been using a lot of *nix distros lately, something like this would be a few clicks away. Honestly, I just use ftp across my local network, it's easier. And over the internet I just fish:/ (I love KDE) or rather ssh to grab things.

BTW, what's wrong with windows file sharing? If you've got a heterogenous system, it wouldn't matter thanks to samba. For internet based access, just setup sftp.
 
If you've got an old PC with at least 128 MB memory, you might want to download Knoppix, burn it on a CD, boot the computer with that and select the drive you want to share with Samba. That is not harder than setting up a stand-alone NAS server. And if you don't like it, it didn't cost you any money and you can look for something else.
 
There is an open source filer software called open-filer. It is pretty nice, easy to install and stable.
http://www.openfiler.org/

The linksys usb thing seems neet, however I hear that you must put a special format on the drive. Then the usb drive can only be read by the linksys device... but thats all crazy hearsay. =)

And on the buffalo thingy, I was reading the specs... what the hell is this?

• Domain support to allow import of your current Groups and Users (Windows NT4 domains only)

No mention of AD at all... Im confused.
Tho this may not matter 1 bit to you =)
 
Ty said:
I'm not sure if a NAS is the same as what you are considering.
Yes, he is looking at a NAS (Network Attached Storage).


ERP:
I would skip it, and use an old computer.
Most consumer (read: cheap) NAS devices have no redundancy, and so I'd not trust them as any sort of file repository for anything that you don't want to lose.

The more expensive NAS you list (Terastation) does have redundant potential (depends on how you config it), but it is $1000 - if you have a decent old computer, you can get a decent SATA raid card and drives for less, and have much more flexibility - the cost is that you then must set up the device. Depends on your skillset as to whether or not its worth it, and it depends on how much money matters to you.

Personally, I use an "old" computer - Althlon XP 1700+ with 384mb of ram (which is way overkill, but heck, I had the chip to spare to replace the duron 600 that was in it up until a few months ago), with 5 160GB drives in RAID5. I can have a total of up to 8 drives with the raid controller I am using, as well as do online capacity expansion (add drives and space without going offline or losing any data) which I have done - I recently grew the array from 3 drives to 5 when I began to get short on space. It works great (I've test failed the array by yanking one drives cable - worked great, no hiccups, rebuilt fine), and gives me some confidence that the data I store on it is safer. Now I just need a cost effective way to back up the data....
Damn data security paranoia - I get it from work. RAID only protects from a HD failure. Remember kids, backup your stuff!
 
My first thought was one of my old computers there are probably 5 Pentium class computers in my garage, although they would all require some messing with to get in a usable state. Not least of which I doubt there is one with an intact case since I never bothered closing my cases until recently, so the odds of the outside of a case surviving one of my recent moves is minimal.

I figured one of the stand alone units would be less intrusive. I could probably buid a Terabyte raid array and a computer cheaper than the bufalo solution, but it would likely be noisier and run hotter. Maybe I'll price it out anyway, anyone know of a reasonably compact case that'll hold 4 drives?
 
ERP said:
My first thought was one of my old computers there are probably 5 Pentium class computers in my garage, although they would all require some messing with to get in a usable state.

If you're going to use it as a media server, be sure to have gigabit ethernet on it. Not for streaming of course, but for moving movies around.

I've got a 1.2TB machine (4 x 400GB disks in software raid-5/linux) I use for media serving. It was initially on a nforce-1 board, but once you start to dump all you DVDs on it, filling 1.2TB through a 100mbit (12MB/s) pipe is just going to drive you crazy (speaking from experience). So I'v upgraded with some leftover nforce2 and put a GigE NIC in there.

Cheers
Gubbi
 
Gubbi said:
ERP said:
My first thought was one of my old computers there are probably 5 Pentium class computers in my garage, although they would all require some messing with to get in a usable state.

If you're going to use it as a media server, be sure to have gigabit ethernet on it. Not for streaming of course, but for moving movies around.

I've got a 1.2TB machine (4 x 400GB disks in software raid-5/linux) I use for media serving. It was initially on a nforce-1 board, but once you start to dump all you DVDs on it, filling 1.2TB through a 100mbit (12MB/s) pipe is just going to drive you crazy (speaking from experience). So I'v upgraded with some leftover nforce2 and put a GigE NIC in there.

Cheers
Gubbi

I've spent a lot of years moving Gigabytes of data to network servers over 100Base T and I think I know what I'm getting into on that one :)
But thanks for the warning.
 
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