I am new to the NAS setups and am having trouble deciding on what is best for a NAS and for me not having a ton of experience with them. It seems like the more you read about these things the more confused you can get. I am hoping that some people can share what they use as a fail safe and why. I would like a setup that is easy to use and secure so that I wont lose my data or at least the smallest percentage possible. It would help to know that I will have a case that can hold 20 drives but I will only be using 10 2tb. I am not sure if Flex will let you add drives as you go as that would be a huge plus. I am told that I cannot add drives to a RAID 5,6 setup so I would have to run a second RAID setup to run in conjunction with the first which isnt a huge problem for me.

My work IT guy is suggesting RAID 5 or 6 because he likes hardware protection to where FlexRAID is software based.

I like that with FlexRAID you have a more forgiving loss of data system. Only above and beyond your backup space is what you will lose.

I havent purchased anything yet so that is open to what setup I will use.

O. and FlexRAID will be cheaper.

Experienced guidance would be much appreciated and real world experience with the two would help also. Hopefully this thread can help alot of people out there as I think this is the most confusing part.

Thanks,
Adam

I am new to the NAS setups and am having trouble deciding on what is best for a NAS and for me not having a ton of experience with them. It seems like the more you read about these things the more confused you can get. I am hoping that some people can share what they use as a fail safe and why. I would like a setup that is easy to use and secure so that I wont lose my data or at least the smallest percentage possible. It would help to know that I will have a case that can hold 20 drives but I will only be using 10 2tb. I am not sure if Flex will let you add drives as you go as that would be a huge plus. I am told that I cannot add drives to a RAID 5,6 setup so I would have to run a second RAID setup to run in conjunction with the first which isnt a huge problem for me.

My work IT guy is suggesting RAID 5 or 6 because he likes hardware protection to where FlexRAID is software based.

I like that with FlexRAID you have a more forgiving loss of data system. Only above and beyond your backup space is what you will lose.

I havent purchased anything yet so that is open to what setup I will use.

O. and FlexRAID will be cheaper.

Experienced guidance would be much appreciated and real world experience with the two would help also. Hopefully this thread can help alot of people out there as I think this is the most confusing part.

Thanks,
Adam

Dunno about flex raid. I use unraid and think its a great solution.....


http://www.lime-technology.com/joomla/

how bout a pointer to flex raid. HW raid is generally faster than software raid but its no less reliable.... unraid has several advantages over traditional raid systems that make it appealing to many. you can use the 3 drive version for free to test it out if you wish......

how bout a pointer to flex raid....

Sean

It sounds like unRAID is similar to FlexRAID. I like that you can just keep adding drives to it. I wish you could have more than one HDD for backup though.

OK I did a little reading on flexraid and its sounds very flexible like unraid but It does not seems like its a NAS oS. Looks like you will have to figure all that on top of flexraid. unraid you can be up and running and sharing files in about 10 minutes... its trivial to setup.....

keep us posted on how you proceed.....

Sean

http://www.openegg.org/FlexRAID.curi (FlexRAID)

My brief experience with flexRAID...

I'm no data protection expert, but I would suggest that it's main claim to fame would be to being able to RAID protect/restore any piece of data that the OS can see. Any file or folder on any drive letter or \\servername\sharename\.

I used to not bother backing up my recorded OTA HD TV on my SageTV box... then I lost the main recordings drive, (it is just TV, and somewhat replaceble after all). But it was a hassle. So I decided I would double up on disks, and use FlexRAID to back it up nightly. A bit of fiddling, and reading and I had it set-up.

After the initial Parity build I set flexRAID to snapshot the main recording folder starting in the wee hours of the morning. Thinking it would be done by morning, after all it only had to re-par what had changed (at least this was my understanding at the time). At worst...a few new recordings and a few deletions from that night's couch potatoing.

Well come 6:00am I flip to the local morning zoo type waky waky news show...and my HD-200 client was giving me the spinning circle of 'hold-on buddy'. The server was still crunching away flexRAIding. I was shocked at how much CPU it was taking, and that flexRAID was still working.

So I said damn the slick interface, and multi-platform, multi-os raid features and opted for a more simple approach. I setup AllwaySync, with windows scheduler to mirror my recordings from drive to drive. No issues with speed or CPU, but no storage benefits of flexRAID. Hindsight this solution was even better because a simple drive letter re-assignment and my Sage box is back up and running. Whereas with flexRAID I would have had to waitout the restore.

In nutshell I found flexraid to be slow on my box. (Not a real powerhouse, mini ATX, AMD 3200 I think.)

After alot of reading I now encounter unRAID which may even be a better choice for me as you can add drives as you like which is ideal for me. I was going to start with 10 2tb drives but now I can start with say 6 or 7 drives and add them as I need them. I am so confused.

Where do you purchase unRAID? I did a quick search thinking it was going to come right up and it didnt. I read that someone said they have a trial version where you can use 3 drives which wont be enough for me but I would like to know where you purchase unRAID.

Also would that make my server DLNA compliant or would I also need to install Twonky or other DLNA software?

you buy unraid from here...

http://www.lime-technology.com/joomla/products/registration-keys


I pointed you to the free version so you can try it before you buy it.

unraid does SMB and NFS. you need to install tverisity or twonky for UPNP.

both of those seem to be fairly easy but they are not built in....


UPNP:
http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=3532

Twonky:
http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/Install_Twonky_Media_server

Sean

you buy unraid from here...

http://www.lime-technology.com/joomla/products/registration-keys


I pointed you to the free version so you can try it before you buy it.

unraid does SMB and NFS. you need to install tverisity or twonky for UPNP.

both of those seem to be fairly easy but they are not built in....


UPNP:
http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=3532

Twonky:
http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php/Install_Twonky_Media_server

Sean

So with unRAID you can only go up to 16 HDDs? Just looking on the site and the Pro key only supports up to 16 hdds. I am a happy WHS user, but always good to read up on the other technologies out there.

Thats what I was thinking too. 16 hdds right now means a max of 30tb which is more than enough for me for a few years. By then 4tb drives will be out making it a max of 60tb.

So with unRAID you can only go up to 16 HDDs? Just looking on the site and the Pro key only supports up to 16 hdds. I am a happy WHS user, but always good to read up on the other technologies out there.

Actually 20 which is equivalent to 38 HD's on WHS in terms of usable space using redundancy.....

Sean

So if I want to us unRAID I would buy my components and unRAID and I will not need an OS? Then I would buy Twonky for future DLNA use.

Where can I read about WHS and is this a standalone option or an add on to something else?

Yes unraid is its own OS, based on linux

you can buy tversity or use a free one for UPNP.

I would read up on WHS on microsoft.com since its an MS product but I am sure there are other sites for that....

There are other options like FreeNAS whch appeal to many folks...

unraid appeals to me because it offers very highly space utilization and better failure modes when more than one disk fails..... Its not my Netgear ReadyNAS in terms of rich features and ease of setup.Its pretty easy to setup. Far better than my thecus N5200 POS.

WHS big advantage/disadvantage (its both) is that its windows. THe fact that it only does Raid1 is a deal breaker for me in otherwise what appears to be a fine product.

So if I want to us unRAID I would buy my components and unRAID and I will not need an OS? Then I would buy Twonky for future DLNA use.

Where can I read about WHS and is this a standalone option or an add on to something else?

To check up on WHS you can visit Microsoft (as Sean suggested). Some other good sites are www.wegotserved.co.uk, www.mediasmartserver.net, homeservershow.com to name a few.

I do wish WHS had better use of HDD than the equivalent of RAID 1, but given the drastic drop in HDD prices and larger capacity it is not as important as in the past.

I think I'll stick with unRAID. It sounds like a better fit for me.

Any suggestions on an external bluray player to transfer my blurays to NAS via seperate computer over network?

I have 2 LG internal sata drives. They were about $100 a newegg. They read HDDVD's too. I am sure there are newer faster drives out....

read some reviews over at newegg.com

Sean

I'm a happy unraid user. I downloaded the free version last week and tried it out and I upgraded to the pro a few days later. I've already added some new drives and the process is easy as it can be. I've never used flexraid but I like the fact that unraid is a simple low level linux os.

With the new beta version of unraid you can have up to 21 drives.