Has anyone here got any recommendtions/warnings on NAS drives, please?

I'm looking for something around 300 GB; its main use will be for
transporting my data between various locations. I guess USB mght be an
option, but I rather prefer the idea of ethernet.

Cheers,
-- 
Tony van der Hoff       | mailto:news_0711@vanderhoff.org
Buckinghamshire, England

Tony van der Hoff wrote:

> Has anyone here got any recommendtions/warnings on NAS drives, please?
> 
> I'm looking for something around 300 GB; its main use will be for
> transporting my data between various locations. I guess USB mght be an
> option, but I rather prefer the idea of ethernet.
> 
> Cheers,

Decent USB drives will have some protection against shock damage to the
drive; my WD one has soft "bumpers" on each end for example.

NAS ones will be built on the assumption that they will stay in one place,
so the drive may not have any physical shock protection.

For your intended use, USB may therefore be a better bet.

Chris

-- 
Remove prejudice to reply.

On Aug 10, 11:51 am, Tony van der Hoff 
wrote:
> Has anyone here got any recommendtions/warnings on NAS drives, please?
>
> I'm looking for something around 300 GB; its main use will be for
> transporting my data between various locations. I guess USB mght be an
> option, but I rather prefer the idea of ethernet.

A consideration is that a DAS (USB or 1394) will be much faster than a
NAS for transferring data to or from the disk.

Paul

On Sun, 10 Aug 2008 10:36:22 -0700 (PDT), Paul Black wrote:

> A consideration is that a DAS (USB or 1394) will be much faster than a
> NAS for transferring data to or from the disk.

The interface speed isn't everything I suspect the bottle neck will still 
be the disc inside the box. Also you are limited to a 4.5m cable length 
without active repeaters.

This may not be a problem for the OP using it as a portable storage 
medium. For ease of use I suspect USB would be the best option as all 
modern PCs have USB ports but not all have ethernet. Even if they do the 
OP would need to carry a reversed ethernet cable or a hub/switch and wall 
wart to connect the two together or if the PC was on a network access to 
that networks switch to plug his box in.

-- 
Cheers
Dave.

Tony van der Hoff wrote:

> Has anyone here got any recommendtions/warnings on NAS drives, please?
> 
> I'm looking for something around 300 GB; its main use will be for
> transporting my data between various locations. I guess USB mght be an
> option, but I rather prefer the idea of ethernet.
> 
> Cheers,


It's really strange that someone could prefer a NAS unit to take datas in
the pocket, rather than the common USB2 2.5' HDD enclosure...

To me, USB is not only an option, but it is mandatory and a NAS is a no go
for your "needs".

Ciao @+

In article ,
Tony van der Hoff   wrote:
>Has anyone here got any recommendtions/warnings on NAS drives, please?
>
>I'm looking for something around 300 GB; its main use will be for
>transporting my data between various locations. I guess USB mght be an
>option, but I rather prefer the idea of ethernet.

Might be a bit OTT for your needs, but the Drobo looks intersting
from the USB point of view - especially if you plan on needing more
storage in the future - www.drobo.com

(with a disclaimer that I know someone who works for them!)

Gordon

Dave Liquorice wrote:
> The interface speed isn't everything I suspect the bottle neck will still
> be the disc inside the box.

The disc is not the limiting factor on USB or NAS by a long way. NAS
devices will do 10-20MB/s max, USB 30-40MB/s. Current SATA disks start
at about 80MB/s (and most do more). The NAS devices are CPU bound, the
USB devices are limited by the inefficiencies of the USB protocol.

In case someone wonders, the USB inefficiencies are being addressed by
USB3 so hopefully the data rate will be closer to the line rate (which
is not the case for USB2).


> Also you are limited to a 4.5m cable length
> without active repeaters.

Since he was talking about moving the device between locations, this
is unlikely to be an issue.

Paul

On 10 Aug at 22:26 Gordon Henderson <gordon+usenet@drogon.net> wrote in
message <g7nmda$2jcu$1@energise.enta.net>

> In article , Tony van
> der Hoff   wrote:
> > Has anyone here got any recommendtions/warnings on NAS drives, please?
>>
> > I'm looking for something around 300 GB; its main use will be for
> > transporting my data between various locations. I guess USB mght be an
> > option, but I rather prefer the idea of ethernet.
>
> Might be a bit OTT for your needs, but the Drobo looks intersting from the
> USB point of view - especially if you plan on needing more storage in the
> future - www.drobo.com
>
> (with a disclaimer that I know someone who works for them!)
>
> Gordon
>

Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions. It looks like USB is the way to go -
it's a bit cheaper than Ethernet, too!

One of the reasons I liked NAS was that access is at the file level, so no
worries about OS compatibility. I assume these USB units are formatted
FAT32, so Linux/Windoze compatibility would not be a problem?

Looks like the Seagate Free Agent 250GB would fit the bill (£41.49+VAT from
Misco!)

Cheers, Tony

-- 
Tony van der Hoff       | mailto:news_0711@vanderhoff.org
Buckinghamshire, England

Tony van der Hoff wrote:
> One of the reasons I liked NAS was that access is at the file level, so no
> worries about OS compatibility. I assume these USB units are formatted
> FAT32, so Linux/Windoze compatibility would not be a problem?

You can reformat them how you like - they just appear as a SCSI disk
to Linux. Obviously if you are moving data between different OSes then
a format understood by all is desirable. Other than FAT32, this could
be managed with NTFS (NTFS-3G on Linux) and EXT2 (there are drivers
for Windows).

Paul

The message

from Paul Black  contains these words:

> Dave Liquorice wrote:
> > The interface speed isn't everything I suspect the bottle neck will still
> > be the disc inside the box.

> The disc is not the limiting factor on USB or NAS by a long way. NAS
> devices will do 10-20MB/s max, USB 30-40MB/s. Current SATA disks start
> at about 80MB/s (and most do more). The NAS devices are CPU bound, the
> USB devices are limited by the inefficiencies of the USB protocol.

 Even a respectably sized IDE (or PATA, if you _must_), say 320GB or
larger, will outdo USB2 (it's not the interface speed, it's the SDR
between the drive's platters and its heads that limits this).

 The really serious flaw with USB (as currently implemented) is it's
flakiness when trying to handle protracted data transfers to external
storage devices of any useful size (to be fair, this is also a problem
with firewire).

 NTFS and USB is not a good mix, USB flakiness is quite capable of
making the FS emulate the invisible man requiring an expensive data
recovery tool that assumes the drive has bad sectors and is about to die
and so uses the "Sledgehammer to crack a nut" method demanding you use
another, equally large drive, to act as the destination for the
'recovered' files. All in all, a really crap way to handle the result of
a few KB's worth of FS metadata corruption.

 There's a good reason why I've installed the Ext2 for windows driver on
my win2k boxes and only use Ext2 FS on my external usb drives. _When_
USB flakiness strikes, it's generally just a 20 to 30 minute job with
FSCK from a knoppix reboot (or on another PC booted to Linux) to correct
the problem, all without having to involve the use of yet another
'spare' 320/400/500 GB drive.

> In case someone wonders, the USB inefficiencies are being addressed by
> USB3 so hopefully the data rate will be closer to the line rate (which
> is not the case for USB2).

 If USB3 is finally going to become 'unkludged' by using DMA, then it
might start to match the reliability of a Network Interface Card (NIC),
provided the data transfer protocol offers similar data integrity
features normally found in the TCP/IP protocol used by NAS. The real
charm of a NAS solution is that the drive's FS doesn't suffer corruption
by mere network connection glitches.


> > Also you are limited to a 4.5m cable length
> > without active repeaters.

 Although a serious consideration, that's the least of your worries.

> Since he was talking about moving the device between locations, this
> is unlikely to be an issue.

 Quite!

-- 
Regards, John.

 Please remove the "ohggcyht" before replying.
The address has been munged to reject Spam-bots.

Tony van der Hoff wrote:

[...]
> 
> One of the reasons I liked NAS was that access is at the file level, so no
> worries about OS compatibility. I assume these USB units are formatted
> FAT32, so Linux/Windoze compatibility would not be a problem?
> 
> Looks like the Seagate Free Agent 250GB would fit the bill (£41.49+VAT
> from Misco!)
> 
> Cheers, Tony

You can do much better than that, IMHO:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/128465

That's the one I got a couple of months ago. I created two partitions on it;
one 400GB NTFS, and one using the rest as ext3.

My only regret is that I didn't do it sooner ;-)

Chris

-- 
Remove prejudice to reply.

The message 
from Paul Black  contains these words:

> Tony van der Hoff wrote:
> > One of the reasons I liked NAS was that access is at the file level, so no
> > worries about OS compatibility. I assume these USB units are formatted
> > FAT32, so Linux/Windoze compatibility would not be a problem?

> You can reformat them how you like - they just appear as a SCSI disk
> to Linux. Obviously if you are moving data between different OSes then
> a format understood by all is desirable. Other than FAT32, this could
> be managed with NTFS (NTFS-3G on Linux) and EXT2 (there are drivers
> for Windows).

 As previously mentioned, I've chosen the Ext2 option for my usb
attached storage since there is a free (and effective) FS repair tool
built into all Linux distros (FSCK) and other similar tools, such as
TestDisk to rescue your FS from "USB Flakiness"(tm).

 I've built a FreeNAS box using a recent P4 MoBo with SATA2, a 500GB IDE
drive and the pair of Samsung 1TB SATA2 drives that my older Desktop PC
refused to recognise, even _after_ applying the samsung patch to knock
them back to the SATA1 standard (I'm guessing a size limitation of the
VIA SATA controller used in the desktop PC, but I've _never_ been able
to find _any_ such size limit data to support this hypothesis).

 With a Netgear gigabit ethernet adapter fitted, I'm seeing transfer
rates around the 16 to 20 MB/s mark for writes and around the 20 to
22MB/s for reads. Not brilliant, but a good threefold improvement over
the 6.8MB/s typical of 100Mbps Fast Ethernet and _any_ linux distro
(win2k to win2k/winXP, generally does a little bit better at about
8.25MB/s on a 100Mbps network link, with 25 to 40MB/s being typical on a
1000 Mbps speed link).

 Of course, you may consider a readymade NAS box, but beware of those
not fitted with gigabit ethernet. Even those so fitted quite often have
worse 'over the wire' transfer rates than my 'home brewed' FreeNAS box.

 If you're going to go the homebuilt route based on a free NAS distro,
such as FreeNAS or the ClarkConnect project (or simply a server version
of a Linux distro), I'd advise on selecting a MoBo with built in gigabit
ethernet, as well as SATA II and IDE.

 Unecessarily for this usage, such MoBos over specc the CPU by two or
three orders of magntiude, so you need to pick one that allows you to
use the cheapest, least energy hungry processor and offers the most by
way of cpu power reduction (underclocking and undervolting facilities)
if you want to keep the power consumption below 50 watts when kitted out
with 2 or 3 drives.

 I'd also advise that the 'latest and greatest' version of a free NAS OS
may not be the best choice. This was certainly the case with FreeNAS up
to about 6 months ago (the situation may have improved by now) and I
found myself having to revert back by about 3 revisions to get the most
optimal solution. FYI, I'm currently running version 0.685b1.

HTH

-- 
Regards, John.

 Please remove the "ohggcyht" before replying.
The address has been munged to reject Spam-bots.

The message 
from Tony van der Hoff  contains these words:

> On 10 Aug at 22:26 Gordon Henderson <gordon+usenet@drogon.net> wrote in
> message <g7nmda$2jcu$1@energise.enta.net>

> > In article , Tony van
> > der Hoff   wrote:
> > > Has anyone here got any recommendtions/warnings on NAS drives, please?
> >>
> > > I'm looking for something around 300 GB; its main use will be for
> > > transporting my data between various locations. I guess USB mght be an
> > > option, but I rather prefer the idea of ethernet.
> >
> > Might be a bit OTT for your needs, but the Drobo looks intersting from the
> > USB point of view - especially if you plan on needing more storage in the
> > future - www.drobo.com
> >
> > (with a disclaimer that I know someone who works for them!)
> >
> > Gordon
> >

> Thanks, everyone, for your suggestions. It looks like USB is the way to go -
> it's a bit cheaper than Ethernet, too!

 For good reason, it's a cheap 'n' nasty solution.

> One of the reasons I liked NAS was that access is at the file level, so no
> worries about OS compatibility. I assume these USB units are formatted
> FAT32, so Linux/Windoze compatibility would not be a problem?

 The "500GB" USB2/E-Sata unit I bought from Aldi over six months back (a
snip at 70 quid :-) came pre-formatted with FAT32. I immediately
reformatted it with NTFS to log some transfer rate figures before
formatting it with Ext2 for 'Live' backup service.

 Whilst FAT32 can be used for terabyte sized partitions, it has serious
drawbacks, notably a filesize limited to a max of 1(or is it 2?) byte(s)
short of 4GB (which is a problem when recording more than about 2 or 3
hours worth of BBC DVB-T transmission time) and excessive slack space
when saving thousands and thousands of small (sub 100KB) files.

 The slack space issue can be avoided to a large extent when using the
drive for backup purposes since whole folder's worth of such files would
normally be archived into a single compressed file, but the 4GB limit is
more likely to 'bite' in this case.

> Looks like the Seagate Free Agent 250GB would fit the bill (£41.49+VAT from
> Misco!)

 As long as you're prepared to shell out some 70 'dollars' for a
suitable 'Data Recovery' tool when the time comes, you should be ok.

-- 
Regards, John.

 Please remove the "ohggcyht" before replying.
The address has been munged to reject Spam-bots.

On Sun, 10 Aug 2008 11:58:32 +0100, Chris Whelan wrote:

> 
> Decent USB drives will have some protection against shock damage to the
> drive; my WD one has soft "bumpers" on each end for example.
>
Even better, at least some of the 2.5" USB drives have a shock mounted 
drive. My Formac mini-drive for instance. It is also small (about the 
size of two packs of cards put side by side), cute and USB powered, but 
unfortunately tops out at 320 GB (mine is 80 GB), so smaller that you 
wanted. As a cart-round unit I think its pretty good, and not having to 
take a power brick with it is a plus.


-- 
martin@   | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org       |

Paul Black wrote:

> The disc is not the limiting factor on USB or NAS by a long way. NAS
> devices will do 10-20MB/s max, USB 30-40MB/s.

While that NAS figure may be true for "home" NAS I've seen > 100MB/s 
elsewhere (a NetApp on GB Ethernet).  The USB2 limit applies everywhere.

Tony van der Hoff wrote:
 >
 > One of the reasons I liked NAS was that access is at the file level,
 > so no worries about OS compatibility.

There is.  The NAS exports or shares a file system, and you client needs 
ot be able to understand that protocol.  You'll still see difference in 
text file formats (whcih may or may not be significant).

-- 
              Just because I've written it doesn't mean that
                   either you or I have to believe it.

Gordon Henderson wrote:

> In article ,
> Tony van der Hoff   wrote:
>>Has anyone here got any recommendtions/warnings on NAS drives, please?
>>
>>I'm looking for something around 300 GB; its main use will be for
>>transporting my data between various locations. I guess USB mght be an
>>option, but I rather prefer the idea of ethernet.
> 
> Might be a bit OTT for your needs, but the Drobo looks intersting
> from the USB point of view - especially if you plan on needing more
> storage in the future - www.drobo.com
> 
> (with a disclaimer that I know someone who works for them!)
> 
> Gordon


For flexibility and expansion possibilities, I use FreeNAS... Recycling can
be fun and my NAS can support up to 7 internal HDDs and 4 external HDDs on
USB2.0 from an old PII 400 box.

Ciao @+

In article <48a05157$0$21312$426a74cc@news.free.fr>,
F8BOE   wrote:
>Gordon Henderson wrote:
>
>> In article ,
>> Tony van der Hoff   wrote:
>>>Has anyone here got any recommendtions/warnings on NAS drives, please?
>>>
>>>I'm looking for something around 300 GB; its main use will be for
>>>transporting my data between various locations. I guess USB mght be an
>>>option, but I rather prefer the idea of ethernet.
>> 
>> Might be a bit OTT for your needs, but the Drobo looks intersting
>> from the USB point of view - especially if you plan on needing more
>> storage in the future - www.drobo.com
>> 
>> (with a disclaimer that I know someone who works for them!)
>> 
>> Gordon
>
>
>For flexibility and expansion possibilities, I use FreeNAS... Recycling can
>be fun and my NAS can support up to 7 internal HDDs and 4 external HDDs on
>USB2.0 from an old PII 400 box.

That's great - but huw much is your electricity bill... I recently moved
my home/office server from an 8-disk solution to a 2-disk one (and a low
power motherboard). Net savings of over 100 Watts...

(And yes, I do belive in recycling, but I'm also fed-up with the
money-grabbing power utilities, sucking us all dry of every last penny
we have...)

Gordon

On Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:33:37 +0000, Gordon Henderson wrote:

> (And yes, I do belive in recycling, but I'm also fed-up with the
> money-grabbing power utilities, sucking us all dry of every last penny
> we have...)
> 
I recently got an eight quid Maplins wattmeter and checked a few 
computers:

Computer		Active	Off (powerbrick plugged in)
========		======	======
IBM Thinkpad 560Z	21 w	2.7 w
Lenovo Thinkpad R61i	30 w	1.8 w
IBM NetVista		52 w	-	[1]

[1] the 866 MHz desktop with 1 GB Ram, 40 GB disk, floppy, DVD-RW, CD-ROM,
    Fujitsu-Siemens 15" flat-screen monitor on.

The NetVista flat screen uses 12w (checked by turning it off), so the box 
burns 40w in its usual 'headless' mode: rather less than I expected.

Assuming the Lenovo LCD burns 12w, an equivalent mini-ITX box would burn 
about 25w assuming that it had a WD green hard drive and a DVD (guess - 
5w for the WD and 2w for an idle DVD-RW)

I had been thinking about replacing the NetVista with a low power mini-
ITX system but I don't think I'll bother until the NetVista carks. As it 
only burns about 15w more than a replacement based on the same Core Duo 
that runs the Lenovo, so the disposal+new manufacture energy costs of the 
replacement would take a LONG time to recoup at 15 watts. 

Besides, the NetVista was used when I got it.
  

-- 
martin@   | Martin Gregorie
gregorie. | Essex, UK
org       |

In article <gbbpct$f9u$6@localhost.localdomain>,
Martin Gregorie  <martin@see.sig.for.address.invalid> wrote:
>On Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:33:37 +0000, Gordon Henderson wrote:
>
>> (And yes, I do belive in recycling, but I'm also fed-up with the
>> money-grabbing power utilities, sucking us all dry of every last penny
>> we have...)
>> 
>I recently got an eight quid Maplins wattmeter and checked a few 
>computers:
>
>Computer		Active	Off (powerbrick plugged in)
>========		======	======
>IBM Thinkpad 560Z	21 w	2.7 w
>Lenovo Thinkpad R61i	30 w	1.8 w
>IBM NetVista		52 w	-	[1]
>
>[1] the 866 MHz desktop with 1 GB Ram, 40 GB disk, floppy, DVD-RW, CD-ROM,
>    Fujitsu-Siemens 15" flat-screen monitor on.
>
>The NetVista flat screen uses 12w (checked by turning it off), so the box 
>burns 40w in its usual 'headless' mode: rather less than I expected.
>
>Assuming the Lenovo LCD burns 12w, an equivalent mini-ITX box would burn 
>about 25w assuming that it had a WD green hard drive and a DVD (guess - 
>5w for the WD and 2w for an idle DVD-RW)
>
>I had been thinking about replacing the NetVista with a low power mini-
>ITX system but I don't think I'll bother until the NetVista carks. As it 
>only burns about 15w more than a replacement based on the same Core Duo 
>that runs the Lenovo, so the disposal+new manufacture energy costs of the 
>replacement would take a LONG time to recoup at 15 watts. 

Indeed - I doubt you'll better that for a long time.

When I rebuilt the server, I picked a mobo that advertised 7W power -
however I now suspect that was just the CPU as the whole board consumed
somewaht more than that! (It's a 1.2GHz Jetway mobo with a VIA C7
processor - I think and dual Gb LANs) It's running at about 40W with 2 x
WDC 1TB drives in it. (My UPS sucks more than that just idling )-:

I use 1GHz fanless VIA mobos for my PBX systems - 

  http://unicorn.drogon.net/power.jpg

but that's not got any hard drives in it (other than a 128MB Flash DOM
unit)

Gordon

On Wed, 24 Sep 2008 07:27:37 +0000, Gordon Henderson wrote:

> I use 1GHz fanless VIA mobos for my PBX systems -
> 
>   http://unicorn.drogon.net/power.jpg

Please tell me those aren't scorch marks on your power strip!

-- 
 <http://ale.cx/> (AIM:troffasky) (UnSoEsNpEaTm@ale.cx)
 21:04:52 up 3 days,  3:14,  1 user,  load average: 4.00, 4.06, 4.09
 They call me titless because I have no tits

In article <48da9d81$0$516$bed64819@news.gradwell.net>,
alexd   wrote:
>On Wed, 24 Sep 2008 07:27:37 +0000, Gordon Henderson wrote:
>
>> I use 1GHz fanless VIA mobos for my PBX systems -
>> 
>>   http://unicorn.drogon.net/power.jpg
>
>Please tell me those aren't scorch marks on your power strip!

OK. Those aren't scorch marks on the power strip!

It's just very old... and sat in one place with plugs in it for some
years before I re-arranged my office..

That box is now mounted at the top of a "shed" on the side of a house
for a client who has a very nice office in their garden...

 http://unicorn.drogon.net/odd1.jpg

Possibly the oddest installation I've ever done...

Gordon

Gordon Henderson wrote:

> In article <48a05157$0$21312$426a74cc@news.free.fr>,
> F8BOE   wrote:
>>Gordon Henderson wrote:
>>
>>> In article ,
>>> Tony van der Hoff   wrote:
>>>>Has anyone here got any recommendtions/warnings on NAS drives, please?
>>>>
>>>>I'm looking for something around 300 GB; its main use will be for
>>>>transporting my data between various locations. I guess USB mght be an
>>>>option, but I rather prefer the idea of ethernet.
>>> 
>>> Might be a bit OTT for your needs, but the Drobo looks intersting
>>> from the USB point of view - especially if you plan on needing more
>>> storage in the future - www.drobo.com
>>> 
>>> (with a disclaimer that I know someone who works for them!)
>>> 
>>> Gordon
>>
>>
>>For flexibility and expansion possibilities, I use FreeNAS... Recycling
>>can be fun and my NAS can support up to 7 internal HDDs and 4 external
>>HDDs on USB2.0 from an old PII 400 box.
> 
> That's great - but huw much is your electricity bill... I recently moved
> my home/office server from an 8-disk solution to a 2-disk one (and a low
> power motherboard). Net savings of over 100 Watts...
> 
> (And yes, I do belive in recycling, but I'm also fed-up with the
> money-grabbing power utilities, sucking us all dry of every last penny
> we have...)
> 
> Gordon


If you need 8 disks, use 8 disks... If you only need 2 then, use 2

Grosso modo @10W for one HDD and a maximum of 30W for the BX440 and P II
Xeon mobo.

Sure I would not want to recycle any P IV/Celeron from the first or "D"
generation!!!