[geeks] NAS storage opinions and bitching wanted

[Charles Shannon Hendrix]

Lionel Peterson wrote:
>> From: Charles Shannon Hendrix <shannon at widomaker.com>
>> Date: 2007/06/24 Sun AM 11:23:27 CDT
>> To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>> Subject: [geeks] NAS storage opinions and bitching wanted
> 
>> I'm going to get a file server running soon.
>>
>> I can either build one of my own, or I can get a NAS box.
>>
>> Sun or other UNIX equipment is out of the question due to costs.
>>
>> The NAS boxes all seem to come with a user interface that hids the
>> guts of user management, access control, permissions, etc. You set
>> permissions and it handles dealing with SMB, FTP, NFS, etc and
>> keeping it all in sync.
>>
>> If I build my own server, is there any software like that I could get to
>> run on it?
> 
> Windows Home Server is in beta, you could try that ;^)
> 
>> ...preferrably for NetBSD or FreeBSD? If I can avoid the work
>> of doing it myself, that would be nice. Not necessary, but very nice.
> 
> There are some small-office linux "builds" (or distributions, if you prefer), their names escape me, but they are designed to act like a small network appliance...
> 
> Consider unRAID: http://www.lime-technology.com/wordpress/?page_id=19
> 
>> That out of the way...
>>
>> I'm interesting in opinions of the various small NAS machines.  I really
>> can't spend over $500 no matter what I get.
>>
>> Here are the requirements:
>>
>> 	- at least two internal drives with RAID 1
>> 	- at least 500GB
> 
> 2x 500 Gig HDs are $225 +/- - not alot left for anything else...

I've modified my budget to $630 because one of my old contracts just paid me for 
some leftover hours.

But cheaper is still nicer... :)

>> Building the PC server would probably cost more, but would of course be
>> more flexible.
> 
> Agreed - esp. since you can robably get by with a generic P4 system and buy a 
 > couple (three for RAID5?) 500 Gig SATA drives and still have a wee bit
 > of change available afterwards...

I don't know... the cheapest I've come up with is around $570.

Antec NSK2400 case: $99
Asus P5B-VM motherboard: $125
Intel Celeron 420 Conroe, $45
1GB Kingston ValueRam: 46
pair of 500GB Barracudas: $240.

Total cost around $556.

The NSK2400 case isn't really good enough, because it only has 2 drive bays.

Also, you have to figure another $100 at least if you want the drives to be easy 
to swap out, something that most of the NAS boxes provide.

I was wanting to avoid a full size PC.

It's hard to find a small cases for file server duty.  You really don't need 
much room or power for a file server, but most cases have space taken up
by stuff you don't need.

The NSK2400 is nice, but only has two internal bays, so I really can't use it, I 
was just using it to establish a base price.

Most cases that do have more bays... their location makes it hard to swap a 
drive out should something happen.  I suppose I might have to live with that part.

The D-Link DNS-323 plus two 500GB drives is around $430.

It *almost* does what I want.  If it had two hi-speed USB ports and could use 
external drives with Linux or BSD filesystems, I'd have already bought it.

The Hammer unit looks nice, but you can't buy them bare, and they put crappy 
Maxtor drives in them.




-- 
shannon           | An Irishman is never drunk as long as he can hold onto
                   | one blade of grass and not fall off the face of the earth.