NAS Home Storage Options?

Battledad

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Nov 23, 2008
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I have 5 systems on my home network. I'm looking for a solution that will allow the various units to save and access pictures, music and do backups of important files. My assumption is that a NAS or home server would be the right choice.

I've looked at the HP home server solution, various NAS systems by various vendors and nothing seems to jump out and grab me. It appears many are severely gimped or the prices are outrageously high for what they offer.

I would hard line the unit to my wireless router. From there I would assign it a fixed IP on the network and all other computers would access the storage via wireless (g and n).

I build my own systems so my comfort level is reasonably high.

Looking for suggestions on solutions that would meet these needs. It would be helpful to get your comments on what has/hasn't worked for you and any details you think important.
 

col-p-todd

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Feb 1, 2006
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I put together a home server myself and i,m running windows home server. works really nice. That's what i would suggest over most of the prebuild NAS sets, since the don,t perform that well. Only the 600+ models perform well, and for that much i would just build my own.
 

enlightenment

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Mar 9, 2007
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I'm primarily interested in NAS systems, specifically those which run FreeBSD or its derivative, FreeNAS. Both support software RAID5, journaling and encryption to keep your data safe. To understand what would best suit your needs to need to know alot more about your situation, your budget and your demands, your level of expertise (you already mentioned building your own system; what about working with Linux or BSD?)

An ideal setup would be to use a very low-power NAS system with at least a dualcore and 2GB memory, an array of low-power WD Green 1TB drives which only consume 2,9W each and a gigabit network.

I suggest you read up on ZFS and RAID-5 if you haven't already done so. Note that software RAID5 can be superior to hardware RAID5 in terms of performance, flexibility and reliability. You can save yourself the cost of a real controller, and use 35-euro motherboards featuring 6 SATA ports.

If you need to find compatible hardware, drop me a line. I got over 20 motherboards here, all AMD-platform. Most are micro-ATX and come with 6 SATA ports. A good PSU i can recommend is the Amacrox 400W Fanless, which is very efficient (89%).