Building a NAS
 

The goal:

I'm willing to build something to store data on once place. Easy accessible. Now all the data is spread over multiple disks in multiple pc's.

The needs:
- (trans)portable. Something that fits in backpack.
- 1.5 to 2 Tb is more then enough.
- accessible and readable for multiple OS (OSX; Linux and Windows)
- Silent

Extra info:
- There won't be any life crucial info stored. So there won't be a need of super duper redundancy. If it's lost, it's redownloadable.
- Multimedia functions, such as mediacenter like solutions would be nice, but also not the main goal.



Solutions:
1. A real home solution NAS. conceptronic with two 1 TB disks. Total price is about 310 euro.
++ cheap
++ plug and play
-- slow
-- limited in options

2. A small pc, with 2 disks. That would cost:
- 50 Small case
- 85 Dual core atom based mobo
- 20 2 gig DDR2
- 160 the two 1 Tb disks
Total: 315
++ Also cheap
++ Faster
++ I can add easy wifi
++ can also suit other purposes
-- bigger
-- more configuration work
This can even be cheaper, when using single core atom and/or less memory.


Another option is to make it more performant. Then I would choose:
- 50 Small case
- 135Fast G45 based board
- 70 Intel E5200 Dual Core (But this one I already have)
- 20 2 gig DDR2
- 160 the two 1 Tb disks
-- Total Price: 435
++ Very fast
++ I can add easy wifi
++ Lost of extra's possible, also use it as a PC / movie computer / ...
-- more expensive
-- a bit more power hungry (the 5200 idle is very economic)


At first I would just install a Simple Windows XP, and an FTP server.

What do you think ?

Conceptronic has you beat in size and portability and weight; a PC will be 2-3x bigger/heavier

yes, but from what I've seen, it's utterly slow :(

C'mon 3 Mb per sec....

uPNP was indexing all the files during that test... I've edited those results in the original thread;)

current results are:

single session FTP 3-4mb/s, up to 10 current session speed goes up to 18-22mb/s

single session SAMBA (windows share): 12-13mb/s
multiple sessions average speed remains pretty much the same

these are READ speeds

copying TO the RAID0 array is for both FTP/SAMBA 15mb/s+
granted that it's not 30-40mb/s as I see between two workstations on Gigabit, but for the price & portability, it's really sufficiently fast:)

when not using any raid. Is the performance better ?

I've read that JBOD vs RAID 0/1 the CPU load is lower, but performance remains the same. Writing speed is higher to the NAS single session wise; very weird. I send an email to Conceptronic to ask what's up.

also FTP server has only very basic user access rights, not enough to satisfy my needs;)

Keep me updated :)

I didn't follow the advise here....

Got me a shuttle K45 barebone with a E2220 from intel. Together about 160 euro.
As harddisks I have 2 Samsung Spinpoints 1 TB 32 Mb cache.
Using a cross UTP cable, to anther PC (Samsung 750 gig) I get copy speeds of +/- 50 Mb / sec (with small files) and it goes up to 60 / 65 when copying big files. Eat that NAS of JMke ;)

It's bigger, but still transportable. It's faster. And price is about the same.

you did follow your advice;)

you build one;)

but I don't agree on transportability

Shuttle: 280 (l) x 190(b) x 170(h) mm = 9044 cm³
NAS: 194 (l) x 102(b) x 137(h) mm = 2711 cm³

your Shuttle is 233% bigger. I can almost put the Conceptronic in pocket of my coat ;)

Have to admit though that performance kicks ***! what OS are you running on it?

price wise you have mobo/case/cpu/ram/optical drive which will put in near/over €200 mark without HDDs, right? not too bad for €50 more. How many HDDs can you fit max?

what's the power usage of the thing btw?

here with 2xHDDs: 22W idle, 26W load


hot running potato too it seems http://www.thetechlounge.com/article...ebones-System/

where did you buy it ?

Shuttle K45 - 109 @ alternate
Intel Dual Core E2220 (2,4 Ghz) - 49 @ Forcom
2 gb memry I had here
And 2 times Samsung Spinpoint 1 TB at 92 each at alternate.

About running hot, not at all. The E6600 they used is one of the first Core 2 duo's. Consumes a lot more, as wel as older hard disks. Thing stays very cool here. More numbers later...

I installed windows XP by plugging in a IDE drive temporaly. This thing has no space for a regular optical drive, but has for a slimline. I don't need one....

In the PCI slot I installed a Linksys WIFI card.

Idle about 55 - 65 watt. "Stressed" copying data about 65 - 75 watt. That's more. But swapping to a single core low end Celeron would cut of 25 to 30 watt.

Installation is Windows XP SP3. Drives just connected, no RAID. I'll run some scripts that double copy crucial data.

It weight about 4 to 5 Kg, and fits a backback with my laptop in it. Thus transportable :) Certainly a lot bigger then yours. But it's faster and more options....

yup, if it doesn't have to be lugged around a lot, but needs some kind of transportability, definitely the better choice. Bring it to the LAN in April and ask for extra 1gbit port :D

already done :)

Interesting, how much energy can be saved by undervolting?

a lot, if he can underclock that E2200 to 1ghz or something with low voltage you can reduce it another ~10W

crap, you make me regret getting this NAS:) have been trying to get a better FTP server on it, the standard one is limited config wise, so I installed SSH server, after a bit of searching (a whole lot of searching to be honest) got vsftpd installed but after few hours configuration it doesn't do what I want to do, and my knowledge of Linux is too limited to solve it... now for $50 I could have had a WinXP with Serv-U or other easy to use FTP server and download/upload speeds 5-10x faster... crap.

check your standby power usage, 20W here when plugged in but system turned off ?

4 - 5 watt overhere

go figure :)

265Mhz max FSB on Shuttle... CPU has plenty of OC room
265x8 = 2121Mhz E1200

K45 shuttle mobo has no undervolting or underclocking; OCing to max adds about 10W (1.6ghz vs 2.21Mhz) so will most likely just run it at 1.6ghz unless CPU becomes bottleneck

I'm converting my NAS into HTPC I think :)
this interface beats the crap out of the classic XBMC and certainly beats popcorn hour
https://sourceforge.net/projects/xbm...1.exe/download

What's this XBMC thingy?

Media Center, awesome interface... best ever.





for building home NAS with free software http://freenas.org/freenas

So, install the FreeBSD distro and afterwards install the XBMC thingy, or how exactly does this go?

both are separate solutions; if you want a NAS to hide away: FreeNAS
if you want a HTPC either the XBMC live! CD or go Windows XP; some linux knowledge required to use XBMC linux version to add NAS functions