NAS advice anyone?

[Skywatch]

Hi,

I have decided to remove the USB HDD from the pi and instead get a NAS solution that I hope will remove some 'niggles' with the current set up.

I have tentatively decided on a Zyxel NSA325 with a pair of Western Digital 3TB drives in raid 1.

Can anyone tell me if they have experience of that NAS and/or if this would be a good solution. Are the better options for around the same price leve (that lot should be about £270 all in).

Thanks

skywatch

[rikardo1979]

just build one from old PC bits like I did Custom builds
Or buy a cheap computer junk from eBay and use it to build it

[f1vefour]

(27th Jul, 2013 09:11 PM)rikardo1979 Wrote:  just build one from old PC bits like I did Custom builds
Or buy a cheap computer junk from eBay and use it to build it

With the evolution of embedded hardware everyone now wants silent, low power devices.

I'm like you, less expensive and faster PC is the way to go for some things.

[Skywatch]

THanks for the input so far.

I was impressed by the Zyxel as it only uses 7W in standby and 27W max. This fits well with the pi as a low power option. I think PC bits would need a lot more energy than that and every 10W of extra power adds £110 to my electric bill over 10years. So a solution using say 100W would cost over £75 a year more to run in electricity! - And energy prices usually only go up! ;-)

Still, at least no negatives so far :-)

skywatch

[IriDium]

I've been using a DLINK DNS323 with a single WD blue 500gb for ages and have not had any problems with it. I too have my doubts about USB on the RPi.

The only small issue with it, is that the drives have to be formatted as either ext2 or ext3, so you can't just swap them out for Windoze. It also has a max capacity of 1.5tb per bay. I tried NFS, uPnP but found smb was the best.

The latest model DNS-320 is only £52 at amazon, so couple that with 2 x green wd 3TB at £88 squid each is £228 ish and uses only 16w.

You may need to check the max capacity. Worth a look anyway. The blurb looks good and has Raid1 built in.

[rikardo1979]

I use to have a 4 bay Zyxel and I was happy with it. Until I found that all these pre-made things have a limitations, HW or SW.
I came to the point where 4 bays wasn't enough and also I wanted to add torrent client example and it wasn't possible as the sys was closed. So that day I have decided to go for custom build which I can upgrade HW&SW how do I like it. I picked a really big case so as you can see it fits 4xCM cages ech fits 4 HDD's = 16HDD's


I would say thats is plenty of space and if no than I can modify the case and fit more inside
And the system, I can install what ever I like but so far I'm happy with Nas4Free.


Just my 5cents

[f1vefour]

Very nice Richard, that's some storage setup you cobbled together.

[rikardo1979]

(28th Jul, 2013 05:04 AM)f1vefour Wrote:  Very nice Richard, that's some storage setup you cobbled together.

thx
and as I said it is built from PC junk I found at home (except HDD's OFC and case )

[Skywatch]

So would I be better off if I got an old laptop and some usb drives?

Cost would be a little higher (probably) but would it be a 'better' option or just a 'different' option.

I need to do this soon as my PC drives are now too full and I need the space.

Cheers

Skywatch

[rikardo1979]

(28th Jul, 2013 06:49 PM)Skywatch Wrote:  So would I be better off if I got an old laptop and some usb drives?

Cost would be a little higher (probably) but would it be a 'better' option or just a 'different' option.

I need to do this soon as my PC drives are now too full and I need the space.

Cheers

Skywatch

using a laptop not make any sense, especially some cheap old stuff as you would have one one option to connect the HDD and that is USB and more likely USB 2.
You need a solution where you can add more drives over SATA connection so we talking about standard PC desktop case or rack cases.
So if you decide to go DIY way than you need to decide what you want, how many drives you would like to add now and if if you going to to make one time build or something what can be upgradable in future by adding more HDD's etc.
As all those NAS systems out there do not really need and extra CPU power and none GPU(the one on MB is enough) than you need to look for these parts

• case (type and size depends on how many HDD's you want to add)
• MB with CPU minimum P4 (some new low powered MBs would be my choice)
• minimum 2GB RAM
• SATA (as many as possible)
• PCI slot for extra PCI to SATA boards (more slots, more drives)
• PSU (depends on how many HDD's you want to add)
• drive for OS ( HDD is not needed as the OS's are usually small, so you can use small SSD or I using IDE to Compact Flash card adaptor with 4GB card)
  

No other accessories are needed as you will access the NAS over network only

[Skywatch]

Hi Richard,

Thanks for taking the time to post that, I am sure it will be a reference for others in the future looking at the same dilema. I looked into freenas last year, but the running cost of another full PC put me off. If only the cheap electric I was told we would all have now at school would be a reality!

I went for the pi as it's so economical to run XBMC with and it's been great. I hope my next house will run off of solar/wind so I need to think now about all appliances I buy.

I am still thinking of the Zyxel and a pair of WD red 3Tb drives. It should do me for now and if in the future things improve I might look at a PC based system, but for movies and music I think it'll do.

Love the photos you posted, glad I don't have to pay your electric bill though! ;-)

Skywatch

[mk01]

(28th Jul, 2013 09:43 PM)Skywatch Wrote:  I am still thinking of the Zyxel and a pair of WD red 3Tb drives. It should do me for now and if in the future things improve I might look at a PC based system, but for movies and music I think it'll do.

Skywatch, when I was looking for solution I almost went with NAS. But number of drives is limited and CPUs are slow and solution is not expandable to future. at the end I decided to assemble own system, bought box for mATX board, ATX AC and 6x3.5 drives. 4core AMD board+CPU was for 35, 2x8GB ram for no idea, 4x2TB drives for 4x80 and box 50, master silent pro AC which was most expensive among the other parts. You can't hear it in the room, it's fast like hell and you can run system as you like. drives are in mirror mode, so currently 2x2 mirror, still place for 2 drives and the mATX board has 2xeSATA connectors to allow attach of ext boxes to host drives as you need more.

at the beginning the investment is 2x more as with boxed NAS, but you don't need to buy new after two years. it's providing media storage as well as central backup destination for my other Macs. You will hardly use NAS box for this as well. It too slow and again capacity is limited.

At the same time it is hosting mysql db for xbmc video and audio library and of course one shared xbmc home folder which is used by all xbmc devices (installations I have - ATV, RPI, MACS). So actually adding new XBMC and configure it means just installing binary and mounting home folder.

[Skywatch]

Thanks for posting that mk01 - sounds like an impressive set up you have there

As for me, I am expecting a delivery on Monday with 2 x 3TB WD Red drives and a NSA325 (1.6Ghz CPU and 512Mb ram) and gigabit net. It'll be much better than the current usb2.0 HDD connected to the pi! - I only need media storage, backups are done on usb.

Main reason for this choice was power useage. At just 7W idle and 27W full out it will save me between £1000 and £3000 over the next 10 years on electricity compared to running a basic PC drawing 120W. That can pay for quite a lot!

This will be my first dedicated nas (currently running with shared internal and external drives) and will be something to learn with and help make future decisions based on this experience.

At under £300 for the lot it's not totally OTT. If in the future I change my mind I can still sell this. Time will tell!

Thanks again, I appreciate your input.

Skywatch

[mk01]

post short review when you get it.

or better, when it will be running