Suggestions for type of solution i need for Backup/NAS

[jiewmeng]

i want to get a NAS/Storage solution probably with some kind of reliability to it, but not so much compromising speed. my previous NAS i forgot what model but it was a 2 bay fast Ethernet NAS. i think the max write speed was abt 2MB/s i gave up on it and used the HDD in a USB case.

this time i think i better get a gigabit ethernet one and prefably connection via USB for max speed?

its usage will be something like a backup/general storage solution. for backups, mainly data files, i dont think i want to image them so i can access the files easily and quickly. so i am thinking RAID, shld i use RAID 1 for some other level? i think RAID5 will provide more space efficiency but i heard the some overhead (more than RAID1/0)? with a gigabit ethernet NAS what kinds of write speeds will i be expecting? i think at most i can connect via USB for max speed? shld i wait till USB 3 is cheaper? i dont see a USB 3 NAS yet tho.

i am thinking RAID 1 maybe a ok choice for me, for now. cheaper. but less upgradable, i cant add more disks when i need too. amyway, which NAS/Storage solution shld i use? i am actually looking at WD Caviar Green 2TB and Thecus N2200 isit a good choice? what kind of speeds will i be looking at if i use gigabit ethernet vs its wireless vs USB?

[Tripredacus]

WD Greens run at 5400rpm (although some advertising reports it as 7200rpm) and that is going to be too slow. I know that Greens are cheaper but if you are going WD and going RAID, you should get some RE2 or RE3 drives. They are more reliable than Green or standard drives. Other companies make RAID Edition drives too, but I haven't used them.

RAID5 has an overhead where if you go over 3 drives you "lose" a drive. You don't technically lose it, but you won't see the size, as one would/should be used as the spare. RAID0 is very fast but no data protection like RAID5. Wiki isn't known for always having the best info, but their RAID article is fine:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID#Organization

Oh, thanks for this post as I forgot I have to get our NAS up and running! Ok maybe I will do it later, its making a really loud beep that won't stop. Anyways I found out it has 4 1TB WD RE3 drives in a RAID5 on an Adaptec card, max capacity is 3.633TB. OS is kept on 2 80GB RAID1 WD RE3 drives on the motherboard. This is probably too overkill for you, but this NAS actually just does (or will once I can get it to turn on without that beep) do its job over the network, as implied by the N in NAS.

It is not a NAS if you are transfering data via USB.

[jiewmeng]

WD Greens run at 5400rpm (although some advertising reports it as 7200rpm) and that is going to be too slow. I know that Greens are cheaper but if you are going WD and going RAID, you should get some RE2 or RE3 drives. They are more reliable than Green or standard drives. Other companies make RAID Edition drives too, but I haven't used them.

It is not a NAS if you are transfering data via USB.

hmm i dont see RE drives in my local retailer price list, maybe i can see other shops but anyway, will their Blue or Black options be good enuf? what abt hitachi drives which are cheapest i think? or seagate most ex?

and i guess transfer via USB will be last resort?

[allen2]

The speed of a hard drive can be seen under two aspects:

- access time implying a higher rpm speed

- throuput => check benchmarks for the best.

When using raid array, access time is slower (except for raid 1 and raid 10), that's why a faster speed (rpm) is usually needed when you need many people to use it.

In cases you're planning to only use it for 2 computer clients (at the same time), you could choose whatever brand and model of disks. For more than 5 clients, you'll need at least 7200rpm drives or faster.

If you're after high transfer rates, you'll need a hardware adapter with at least read cache (preferably write cache with backup battery) and faster drives (transfer rates).

Depending on the data to be stored, you can also adapt the drives specs: when storing more small files (<1MB), you need faster drives (rpm).

Raid 5 is great when using many drives but it increase the possibility of the one drive failing so you'll have to find a balanced number. Also the adapter needs to very realiable in raid 5 cases or raid 10.

Then as Tripredacus said, there are drives optimised for raid array like Seagate ES series and Western Digital RE and other professional (mostly sas) drives. You could use in theory every brand and model you might want but reality might be a little disappointing: for example samsung F1 (non raid as there is a raid edition of this model) won't work well with some raid adapter. I never got any problem with seagate when using baracuda instead of ES ones but it is heavily depending on the raid adapter.

For raid adapter, 3ware (amcc or lsi now), areca and adaptec are the best brands.

[jiewmeng]

hmm i am thinking ... the main user will be me, at least most of the time, will it make more sense if i put all HDDs in my desktop i may be building soon? i guess it will be faster? or will it be safer (from virus or other infections) in a NAS. plus, i am thinking with the download manager in most NAS, it may save utilities if i need to dl files overnight?

[puntoMX]

What I'm going to do is to use freeNAS on a simple and low power consumption headless PC. This way I can build it like I want, upgrade it when needed and install all the modules for streaming video and audio. I must say I still have to play with freeNAS. I will use onboard RAID as the performance ain't so important but safety of my files is. I also use mostly Hitachi drives as they are cheap but very well made, sure 10 to 15% slower but I take than for granted.

[CoffeeFiend]

i want to get a NAS/Storage solution probably with some kind of reliability to it

RAID1 like you were talking about is only useful in case one drive dies. It's NOT a substitute for proper backups (just saying). It doesn't help at all against failures due to electrical problems (e.g. if the PSU in the unit fails or lightning hits power lines nearby, both drives will die anyway), it is of no help at all against accidental deletion (or virus/malware/hackers-related damage, theft, water damage, fires, etc) so I don't see it as overly useful for home usage.

i am actually looking at WD Caviar Green 2TB

Not a bad drive at all (I just bought one last week actually), but I'm not sure how a NAS would deal with the 4KB clusters. It's actually plenty fast for the kind of tasks you mentioned (unlike someone else said). Even compared to "normal" drives (non-"green" and 7200rpm) it often still wins, even in the latency department -- just look at any benchmark. It's definitely NOT going to be the main performance bottleneck with any kind of NAS (*nowhere* near!)

and Thecus N2200 isit a good choice? what kind of speeds will i be looking at if i use gigabit ethernet vs its wireless vs USB?

Just DON'T. You want speed? Then you don't want a NAS. It's that simple. That particular NAS, in RAID1 will give you 20MB/s at most, closer to 10MB/s with larger files (anything bigger than its RAM buffer -- like the backups you're talking about), and if you ever want to use anything even remotely fancy like FTP transfer than you'll drop below 10MB/s. When you say NAS, you're also saying slow.

As for USB-attached HDs, it very much depends on the enclosure you're getting. Some are pretty decent, others suck hard. A co-worker bought one 2 weeks ago at bestbuy (on special, a 1TB unit), and writing large files it drops around 6MB/s (for small transfers, it hits 35MB/s then still quickly drops). I've also seen plenty of enclosures that just died from the heat repeatedly. The convenience of USB is attractive (take it anywhere, plug it to anything, anytime) but other than that it's not great. Personally I'm always scared that I'd manage to bump into it somehow and it would land on the floor, instantly causing massive data loss.

Now that we're put aside the two options that suck, that leaves you with a couple more options:

-eSATA-based storage. Super fast, inexpensive, works great. But you do need a eSATA port on your PC (plenty of dirt cheap addon cards offer this though if you don't have one). There are also DAS (direct attached storage) enclosures that use it which are priced around the same price as a basic NAS, except that the performance doesn't incredibly suck unlike a NAS. For example, look at this unit which gives you 4 bays for $110 (speed being mainly limited by the drives themselves, and the eSATA port multiplier to a far lesser extent). And if you don't like this particular unit, there's dozens of others to chose from. There's nicer units out there for not a whole lot more, like this one which gives you 5 bays (and RAID and everything) to eSATA for the same price as the crappy NAS in the first post (or $300 for 8 bays). The main downside is that it's not networked (just like for a USB device), but if you need it and your computer is on then just use file shares.

-a DIY NAS, like puntoMX said (Rule #1: puntoMX is always right; Rule #2: in case of doubt, see rule #1! ). For the price of a basic $200 NAS, you can get a fairly decent motherboard/CPU and some RAM (on special, 2nd hand if you want, or even reuse some of your old gear). Then throw FreeNAS or OpenFiler or whatever else you like on it (some people swear by unraid, and others by solaris for ZFS). Pretty much all of these solutions will let you use any level of RAID without a card or even support on your motherboard too. If the motherboard doesn't have a gigabit ethernet port then buy a GBit NIC (they're like $15). Need more SATA ports? Just get one of those $30 controllers with 4 ports. This is going to give you FAR better performance than any NAS on the market (especially dollar for dollar) and also far more features. It's also customizable, the hardware is upgradable and also the software is (run any app or service you want -- you could even run Windows on it) unlike a NAS. The main drawback is that it's DIY (i.e. assemble then install the OS yourself). WD Green drives would be a good pick IMO. Plenty fast, silent, low power, reliable and cheap too. If you go the DIY NAS way, then make sure you also get a Gigabit ethernet switch, and preferably one that supports jumbo frames (your computers must also support it). They can be had for cheap too (my Netgear 8 port GBit switch with good jumbo frame support was like $50)

[puntoMX]

-a DIY NAS, like puntoMX said (Rule #1: puntoMX is always right; Rule #2: in case of doubt, see rule #1! ).

thank you, you ain't doing so bad yourself at all

Now, let me clean my screen, next time warn me .

[jiewmeng]

The convenience of USB is attractive (take it anywhere, plug it to anything, anytime) but other than that it's not great. Personally I'm always scared that I'd manage to bump into it somehow and it would land on the floor, instantly causing massive data loss.

i think thats what happened to my current USB HDD, maybe