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All I want is a 4 bay RAID10 NAS...

Punkwaffle

Punkwaffle

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 12, 2004
205
6
with an itunes server and a bt client.

for around $300 diskless.

any suggestions?
 
I am very familiar with RAID, but I have come to the conclusion that while RAID is good for corporate use... it is less than ideal for home use. RAID is often finicky about having identical drives (capacity, manufacturer, and sometimes FW revision level). An enterprise can inventory enough spares to keep things running... but few home users would want to do that.

I have decommissioned both of my RAID boxes, and have moved to a WHS box (HP MediaSmart Server). With a WHS, you can just add any mismatch of drives... and it just works. It is not quite as dense as Raid... but I think it is superior for home use. Even if there is a total system failure... you can remove the drives and connect them to any PC... and read the data since it is in NTFS format. This in itself is a huge advantage.

My MSS has 7.5 TB of storage. I use folder duplication for everything... which gives me about 50% of my total capacity (the same as RAID 10). Obviously RAID 5 offers better capacity, but I am willing to sacrifice the extra space for the advantages that WHS offers.

/Jim
 
im buying this :D

its cheap. but its what i want! i dont care if the chip isnt the best thing going around, its in my price range!

they are in australia and im not sure if they ship overseas, but i might be able to help im sure ;)
 
I considered the HP MediaSmart Server but I'm not sold on having any windows machine in my house. I just want to hook it up to my router and have it serve as my media library for all my computers/iphones/xbox. iTunes server and bt client are a must. Also, folder duplication seems like it can slow things down quite a bit compared to RAID10, maybe I'm wrong.

Sell me on the HP MediaSmart Server some more, because I'm really lost. I don't want to by a no-name brand RAID.
 
Punkwaffle said:
Sell me on the HP MediaSmart Server some more, because I'm really lost. I don't want to by a no-name brand RAID.
Click to expand...

nawwww why not? :( for that price you get a pretty reliable chip in it and there are no known errors with it.

if you want BT and iTunes, go with this(different interfaces here) it doesnt say price but i guess that is what you're after. i have a few of the same brand and they work really well.
 
inxtron is a new name for Macpower, or it was always the brand behind?
 
Punkwaffle said:
Also, folder duplication seems like it can slow things down quite a bit compared to RAID10, maybe I'm wrong.
Click to expand...

With a budget of $300 for a 4 bay NAS you will definitely have to get comfortable with slooooow speed!
Boxes for that price (if you can even find them) have a very, very slow processor that has to handle all IO operations including the RAID functionality (actually there are very few NAS systems with a dedicated hardware RAID controller, all of them are for business use and cost thousands of dollars), which results in very poor throughput.

Keep in mind, the maximum bandwidth of gigabit ethernet is roughly 100MB/s. If you want a NAS that comes close to that value, you have to invest significantly more than $300. Those boxes have a fast dual core Intel processor and gigs of RAM.
For $300 I highly doubt that you'll find a NAS that can make more than 15-20MB/s (a USB thumb drive is faster by the way). A RAID10 array out of 4 7200RPM drives has an approximate maximum bandwidth of 160-260MB/s, depending on the drive size, so every NAS will slow down such an array. But the faster the processor, the closer you'll get to the approximate maximum bandwidth of gigabit ethernet.

Anyway, for a 4 bay NAS system, I'd rather recommend RAID5 instead of RAID10, simply because of the reason that you'd only loose 25% of the net capacity.
 
Well, it says in their site that inXtron is the new name since December.
 
flynz4 said:
I am very familiar with RAID, but I have come to the conclusion that while RAID is good for corporate use... it is less than ideal for home use. RAID is often finicky about having identical drives (capacity, manufacturer, and sometimes FW revision level). An enterprise can inventory enough spares to keep things running... but few home users would want to do that.
Click to expand...

Why wouldn't you use identical drives in a raid? If you are that concerned with spares, buy your own.

I implement on OpenSolaris, with RAIDZ2 (two parity drives). This takes 3 drive failures to knock down the array. The likelihood of this happening are vanishingly small but not zero either.




I have decommissioned both of my RAID boxes, and have moved to a WHS box (HP MediaSmart Server). With a WHS, you can just add any mismatch of drives... and it just works. It is not quite as dense as Raid... but I think it is superior for home use. Even if there is a total system failure... you can remove the drives and connect them to any PC... and read the data since it is in NTFS format. This in itself is a huge advantage.
Click to expand...

Personally I don't think that Windows is superior for home use. To have any measure of redundancy, you have to mirror which either cuts in half your storage density or doubles your cost per GB.

I can extend pools or add new pools at my choice.

In fariness, I make my living with *nix so this is a perfect choice for me. Not the best choice for a person that isn't skilled in the area though.

To each their own.

My MSS has 7.5 TB of storage. I use folder duplication for everything... which gives me about 50% of my total capacity (the same as RAID 10). Obviously RAID 5 offers better capacity, but I am willing to sacrifice the extra space for the advantages that WHS offers.
Click to expand...

It isn't like RAID 10, it is RAID 10 ;-)
Click to expand...
 
Transporteur said:
With a budget of $300 for a 4 bay NAS you will definitely have to get comfortable with slooooow speed!
Boxes for that price (if you can even find them) have a very, very slow processor that has to handle all IO operations including the RAID functionality (actually there are very few NAS systems with a dedicated hardware RAID controller, all of them are for business use and cost thousands of dollars), which results in very poor throughput.
Click to expand...
if you're paying $300 for a RAID, you would be silly to expect fast throughput ;)

the one i am getting (linked up there ^^ a bit) i dont really expect much throughput, as long as it can max out my fw800/eSata connection in RAID1 + ill probably put another RAID1 in there later on, ill be happy :D

cube said:
Well, it says in their site that inXtron is the new name since December.
Click to expand...
aaahhh!! no wonder when i searched "macpower" nothing came up but this "inXtron" crap :p
 
DoFoT9 said:
aaahhh!! no wonder when i searched "macpower" nothing came up but this "inXtron" crap :p
Click to expand...

Try Google News on Macpower. All you get is "Mac Power". No wonder they changed the name.

I was always dubious if that "Mac" really meant anything. I guess now we have the answer.

I have a Macpower quad interface. I better than my OWC triple. No fiddly screws and it has a top EMI shield.
 
DoFoT9 said:
the one i am getting (linked up there ^^ a bit) i dont really expect much throughput, as long as it can max out my fw800/eSata connection in RAID1 + ill probably put another RAID1 in there later on, ill be happy :D
Click to expand...

Depending on the drives you gonna use, maxing out FW800 with a RAID1 might well be possible, but you definitely can't max out the latest eSATA iteration (3Gb/s) with mirrored set of mechanical drives.
 
cube said:
Try Google News on Macpower. All you get is "Mac Power". No wonder they changed the name.

I was always dubious if that "Mac" really meant anything. I guess now we have the answer.

I have a Macpower quad interface. I better than my OWC triple. No fiddly screws and it has a top EMI shield.
Click to expand...
makes sense.

i have 2 mac power cases, but they are branded under different companies. the quad interfaces are really useful :D i think mine are tripple interfaces.

Transporteur said:
Depending on the drives you gonna use, maxing out FW800 with a RAID1 might well be possible, but you definitely can't max out the latest eSATA iteration (3Gb/s) with mirrored set of mechanical drives.
Click to expand...
thought it wouldnt max out eSata, not that i care (imacs dont have esata!). its a cheapish case and will hopefully keep everything working well. ill do software RAID so everythiing should be ok.
 
Wirelessly posted (nokia e63: Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.2; U; Series60/3.1 NokiaE63-1/100.21.110; Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 ) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413)

cube said:
DoFoT9 said:
mapower? Seriously? Never heard of that one lol...
Click to expand...

Easy to stumble upon that on the web.
Click to expand...

ill give them a google when I get onto my computer - any idea how reliable they are?
 
A little bit more money but im about to go with the HP EX495 for $600. Thing is very nice. Core 2 Duo, 2GB Ram, 1.5 TB. Time Machine support. iPhone and Web Access streaming with iPhone app. 4 drives inside and 4 USB and 1 eSata port outside.

Can convert video for streaming and is a iTunes/iPhoto/iMovie server.

If you want the same thing with a Celeron and 1TB drive, then they go for around $540ish. the EX490.
 
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