If you have drives of different sizes a Drobo will work nicely.
The only reason people would have to rebuild raids frequently is if
drives are failing. Having a fault tolerant raid means that when this
happens you don't lose any data.
If those same drives are in a NAS as JBOD, they still fail and now you
have lost data as well.
-------
Brian Weeden
Technical Consultant
Secure World Foundation
Sent from my iPhone
On 4-Apr-09, at 7:05 AM, Steve Tomporowski <[email protected]> wrote:
Admittedly the cheapest solution would be to use an old box,
however, I was really looking for something compact. Maybe after
hearing some real life experiences on the cheaper stuff I'd go that
way. I won't be going to a raid, the two drives that I'll be
shoving into it are not set up for raid, nor do I want to go the
gyrations and buy the extra drives to do that (drives are two
different capacities). Plus, from what I've heard, people with
raids spend a lot of time rebuilding them. Frequently. Note, if
it's once a year, that's too frequent.
On the upside, doing an old box as a NAS let's me do all the
configuring and I don't have to worry about the number of drives.
On the down side, from what I've got, it'd be a mid size tower case
(I was hoping for smaller) without gigbit lan.
So I'm still looking for someone with experience on the sub-$400
units to see if it's worthwhile. I have a healthy skepticism on
site reviews, especially when they seem to be either 1's or 5's with
very little in between.
Thanks for the info so far. I am going to look into the free NAS
software.
Steve
Neil Davidson wrote:
If you have more than one drive you are going to want to do some
kind of
raid, unless you are just going to have the two/three drives as
individual
shares. personally, I'd have them all as one network share.
I have two Thecus N5200Pro's. Complete overkill for most, and they
are
expensive. At the time I didn't want to build my own box, I just
wanted an
appliance type device. However now I'm looking at building my own and
selling the NAS boxes as my needs have changed in the past year.
What I'm saying is there is a certain simplicity to NAS boxes that is
appealing. You aren't tempted to tweak and fiddle with them like
you are
with regular PCs.
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Steve
Tomporowski
Sent: 04 April 2009 02:16
To: [email protected]
Subject: [H] Network Storage
Okay, I'm looking at network storage boxes. Simple needs: at
least two open bays, 3 would have been perfect but willing to go to
four. I have two drives that hold all my video and Dr Who stuff
that I want to stick in it and be able to move the computer they're
from upstairs for my son. Not planning on doing any raid, although
I'll eventually upgrade the router/switch to gigabit.
I've looked at Newegg, specifically at the Synology CS407e and the
Promise NS4300N. Both have mixed reviews there, either really bad
or really good. If either are noisy, I'll find a place to hide
'em. Otherwise I'm looking for reliable for decent price.
Any suggestions?
Thanks....Steve
