CHANGSTAR: Audiophile Headphone Reviews and Early 90s Style BBS
Non-Audio Stuff => The Geek Cave: Home Theatre, Computers, and More! => Topic started by: Questhate on January 05, 2013, 06:57:30 AM
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Since many of us keep a digital library of lossless and hi-res files, a discussion of ideas for storage is in order.
When I began the effort to rip my music to lossless to replace the mp3 files I had, I dreaded the day that I eventually run out of space on my data drive. With the storage limit approaching, and my increasing uneasiness about not having backup of 2TB+ of media, it was time to get off the external hard drive round robin and look into a NAS.
A couple of the IT and Web guys at my work used an unRAID server and were really happy with it. It seemed to be one of the more cost-effective and versatile NAS setups out there. Here's the site (go to the Wiki section for more info): http://lime-technology.com/
I kept an eye out on Newegg and Fry's for good deals on computer components over the course of a month and built one.
Components ended up costing me:
CPU (AMD A6) + Motherboard + RAM = 155
Power supply = 30
Case = 20
Flash drive to boot server = 8
Two 3TB drives = 180 (90 x 2 on Black Friday)
Pro license (optional) = 75 (if split with someone else)
So, around 470 overall and under 400 if you opt not to get a license at all -- free license includes support for up to three drives (2 data, 1 parity). Cost is even less if you already have hard drives laying around.
It has one parity drive, and the rest are data drives. All of your data remains backed up as long as no more than 1 drive fails at a time, and even if 2 or more drives fail, data on the remaining drives is still intact. You can choose which drives your data goes to, so I have my music on one drive and movies on another so I don't need the entire array spinning when I'm streaming music.
I'm fairly computer illiterate, but didn't find it very difficult to set up. Instructions were easy, and the GUI in the 5.0 version of unRAID is very straightforward.
There are some cool plugins that I haven't explored yet, including Squeezebox support and a plugin that converts video on-the-fly to an iPhone/iPad format (AirVideo): http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/UnRAID_Plugins
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Hmm, I'm thinking of building a NAS at some point. I'll probably opt for 2-4 2TB drives in an HP Microserver (the pricing on one of those is extremely competitive). I'll put Nas4Free on it and opt for ZFS for the filesystem, which if you've got the CPU time seems like an obvious choice (it's bombproof, and throughput can be extremely high).
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...and opt for ZFS for the filesystem, which if you've got the CPU time seems like an obvious choice (it's bombproof, and throughput can be extremely high)...
yes.
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I use a ReadyNas Pro with 6 2TB HDDs (Raid 6 equivalent - 2 drive failure tolerant), and a ReadyNAS NV+ with 3 1TB HDDs (Raid 5 equivalent - 1 drive failure tolerant) backing up important personal stuff in the Pro (family pics and videos mostly.)
I would recommend the dated NV+ for the price and convenience, but I'm not 100% happy with my Pro. That said, my Pro has survived 2 HD failures with ease, and it's fast. In fact I'm resyncing the Pro with a new WD green 2TB, since one of the Seagates on it just died while I was out of town this Christmas and New Years.
For peace of mind, I think it's best to also back up stuff using online services, USB drives and/or quality DVDs, and send them off to love ones in case poo hits the fan.
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I took a look at the Drobo Mini on-line, and it looks really interesting.
Now that there are 2 Tb 2.5" HDDs available, you could build a 6Tb array that is easily transportable.
Not cheap, though, especially if you fill the bays with high-capacity SSDs.
http://www.drobo.com/products/professionals/drobo-mini/index.php
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I was very tempted to buy a Drobo when I bought my ReadyNas'es. However, I needed ethernet connectivity, and at the time, Drobo only offered USB and Firewire interfaces. They did offer an ethernet adapter, but I was a bit scared by the low throughput numbers published by some reviewers.
QNAP SS-439 seems like a good alternative if ethernet interface is preferred. For higher capacities there is their 8-bay SS-839, though a little pricier.