Network storage - what would you recommend?

antowan

antowan

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What would you recommend for proper network storage? I am just looking for ideas beyond my own. Something PC independant. I have a couple of D-LINK options with remote access functionality that look pretty cool, but what else are you perhaps already using and finding useful?
 
<RAS> got a dlink dns-323 sitting at home gathering dust I am looking to sell</ras>

used if for 3 months then had to upgrade..
 
The question is how much do you want to spend?? Do you want NAS or SAN? I'm busy setting up a piece of **** Dell SAN that you can have!!!!
 
Hi,
I am looking at the MvixBox at the moment for myself. I already have a player so I am thinking that this is a logical next step. It seems fairly feature rich. Need it to store my pics, videos and music. I have 4 ipods/iphones a mac and xp pro machines, digital video camera and stills camera all with info sitting on them which i want to consolidate and backup.
Even looked at a Drobo device but it doesnt look like there is a network point on it, the one I was looking at in any case.

Would you mind posting which one you are going for?
 
Does "pc independant" mean not-using-pc-hardware or does it mean not-in-a-desktop-box? Reason being you should really take a long, hard look at Windows Home Server or, if you don't like that, maybe Amahi for the OSS (next best but falls very short in one critical area) alternative. And I say WHS because, marketing crap aside, from what I've read you can:
  • start with what you've got now
  • at some stage later toss in a bigger drive
  • at some stage later still, toss in even bigger drive
  • at any stage rotate smaller drives out as you put bigger drives in
  • ...IOW, it basically replicates Drobo's party trick (without the *punishing* cost!)
On top of that you can do full restore-from-dead (with accompanying boot cd) backups your local (id est LAN) machines. And then, just to make it even more fun, there's a fairly thriving add-on community that extends its functionality in all sorts of interesting ways.

Do this right and you'll end up with something that comes with much the same power cost as a branded NAS but for
  1. a LOT less upfront and ongoing layout
  2. way more flexibility
  3. ...basically better value for money.
Well, I think so at any rate; naysayers are welcome to shoot my case full of holes! :D
 
Antowan, take a look at the 4 bay promise nas, coming to frontosa next week.

I am definitely getting one of those.
 
bdt said:
Does "pc independant" mean not-using-pc-hardware or does it mean not-in-a-desktop-box? Reason being you should really take a long, hard look at Windows Home Server or, if you don't like that, maybe Amahi for the OSS (next best but falls very short in one critical area) alternative. And I say WHS because, marketing crap aside, from what I've read you can:
  • start with what you've got now
  • at some stage later toss in a bigger drive
  • at some stage later still, toss in even bigger drive
  • at any stage rotate smaller drives out as you put bigger drives in
  • ...IOW, it basically replicates Drobo's party trick (without the *punishing* cost!)
On top of that you can do full restore-from-dead (with accompanying boot cd) backups your local (id est LAN) machines. And then, just to make it even more fun, there's a fairly thriving add-on community that extends its functionality in all sorts of interesting ways.

Do this right and you'll end up with something that comes with much the same power cost as a branded NAS but for
  1. a LOT less upfront and ongoing layout
  2. way more flexibility
  3. ...basically better value for money.
Well, I think so at any rate; naysayers are welcome to shoot my case full of holes! :D
Click to expand...

PC independant as in stand alone and lockable... Something that doesn't have a big heat profile and can be fitted inside a safe with relatively little airflow. Should have elaborated. Sorry my mistake. :)
 
antowan said:
PC independant as in (1)stand alone and lockable... Something that doesn't have a (2)big heat profile and can be (3)fitted inside a safe with relatively little airflow. Should have elaborated. Sorry my mistake. :)
Click to expand...
:cool: ok, lessee here... (and, at this time, this is all from reading/research)
  1. WHS is made to operate headless
  2. an Intel 945GCLF2 Little Falls 2 (just the first hit, not a shop recommendation) has a low *board* heat signature ..and it's really the drives that make the heat anyway
  3. same goes for your branded NAS or doing it this way
..and then, you get the benefit of having EIGHT USB2 ports for expansion possibilities (WHS explicitly supports adding your storage via USB). Now show me a branded NAS that gives you that much capacity upgrade while starting small 'n cheap and letting you upgrade incrementally. :rolleyes:

Still, that's not to say branded NAS boxen are a BAD thing, just don't shoot this down is all. Oh, and with your shoving that thing into a safe (IOW a thermal accumulator), you definitely want to know that drives spin down when not in use: the d-link 323 does this. Which is annoying when you call it for something it has as there's a delay while the drives spin up again.

And if you get the moer in with it, you've got a funky li'l miniITX board you can reuse somewhere else... :p
 
Drake2007 said:
http://www.seagate.com/blackarmor/
Click to expand...
*whimper* :p ..on looks alone, that thing has the pulling power of a black hole. And, these two reviews say that it isn't just a good looker and it's got a pretty damn good feature-set - down to bare-metal restore and, for now it seems, 45W power draw and the table in the infoworld.com review shows great throughput numbers ...but.

But R11000 to R24000 price range ..again, and for a different reason, *whimper!*
 
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