apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I just got the Netgear Readynas NV . I picked it because it offers RAID capabilities with 4 drive slots for plenty of room. It is on-the-fly expandable using the x-raid feature so you can just pop in a new, larger drive as you go. Having a NAS provides benefits if you have multiple computers in your home network that all need to access files. The NAS provides a central, networked location to store and distribute those files. In my situation it is very useful b/c you can store your music on it and stream it to a Sonos system without having to have a computer on and running. I think the amount of storage you need and how you need to distribute it are the two key issues.

im dealing with the same issue. i recently bought a terabyte hard drive as an additional storage to my 4yr old 200gb and 1yr old 500gb MyBook. in less than 6 months i've filled more than half of it. lately i've been thinking of getting additional drives. my problem however, is that my desktop is an matx case so its not really suitable for any expansion. i've consumed its expansion capabilities to its limits. any suggestions? i'm looking for something that will be expanded in long term use. oh and i am only an undergrad student so budget is certainly an issue.

I guess my question is, "Can you play games?" on WHS? I'm looking for both a workstation and something that handles storage like WHS (continuous addition to a single letter drive with backups).

This question has come up a lot on sites like Slashdot and other tech forums. At the end of the day, you need a solution that will safely backup and maintain your data, and for pictures and video that is very dear to you, there is no software based solution that is going to do this for you. Software options such as WHS or software based RAID systems are only good for this when they are operational. You really want a hardware based solution.

I would recommend that you look at building a small powered PC that supports RAID configurations on the motherboard. I just built a small file server for less than $300. It draws little power, has 4 - 500G drives configured in a RAID 1 0 configuration. This makes 1 TB of storage available for backups, and up to 50% of my drives could have complete failures and I would still retain all my data. Even if a drive fails, I can add a new drive and the hardware will rebuild itself automatically. Barring a simultaneous three drive failure, fire, flood, or lightening strike, my data is protected.

The other option you might want to consider is doing manual backups using an external SATA HD reader (they are under $50) and some high capacity HDs. Just drop your files onto a HD, store the drives someplace safe, repeat as necessary. That might be your easiest solution. Plus it could grow in size when needed by simply purchasing new drives.

I use both these processes to save all my movies and photos. The reason is that you cannot rely on just one solution to protect your data. You need to consider all points of failure and then work towards reducing your overall risk.

This is where I have a problem with WHS. It's software based backup, so if the OS fails, you run the risk of losing data (yes I know you can pull the drives and read them without WHS, but you should not have to do this in the first place). You also run the risk of software bugs in the OS causing problems. You run the risk of compatibility issues. For instance a quick Google search shows a lot of issues with WHS on RAID systems. If you put your faith in a proprietary software package to backup your files, you are increasing your risk in these areas. You are much better off with a hardware based system.

My back-end storage is handled by regular old Fedora Linux systems and motherboards with lots of SATA ports. The software RAID and volume management built in to any version of Linux allow for online array expansion and allow me to put all my money directly in to storage, which is where I prefer it.

I have four systems with 12 drives apiece, each in 2 5TB RAID5 arrays, for a total of 40TB of available storage. I use rsync to back up the array on one machine to an array on a different machine.

At some point, I'll pull a pair of machines and re-build with 2TB drives, but the processes I use won't change. It's really a pretty sweet setup if you're willing to learn a little bit about Linux.

These are all good points, but I think it might be making the issue way too complicated. I also work in an IT dept, building servers and dealing with all the issues that come with that. Backup, redundancy, power, bandwidth, Linux vs. Windows, etc. It's great if you do this as your job - you can build some crazy stuff for your home. But not everyone is an IT expert. And frankly, I don't want to come home and deal with this stuff. I wanted simplicity.

A home is not an enterprise environment - its a home. That's an important consideration when deciding on networking and storage. I live in a condo, so huge, noisy, rackmounted servers will not work. A solution has to be out-of-sight, make no noise, but still work very well. And yes, the noise is a huge factor in this. Don't underestimate it.

Here is a cheap, easy, and proven solution:
(1) Buy a Dlink DNS-323 NAS box. It's $150 on Amazon. It's a 2-drive toaster-box NAS appliance. It has Gigabit ethernet, and when paired with the right drives, is inaudible. It is quick enough to stream full DVD movies to at least three computers simultaneously, and allow other computers to play music, transfer files, etc. I do it all the time at my house. The storage-snobs of the world will roll their eyes at this one, but trust me, it is plenty. And you can't beat the price.
(2) Grab two Western Digital Caviar Green Power 1TB drives. That will give you just under 2TB of storage on the server. These are $99 each on NewEgg / Amazon. These drives are silent, and run very cool. This will keep the fan-speed of the NAS box low. That's why it is so quiet overall.
(3) Grab a decent Gigabit switch. Netgear makes a couple decent "SOHO" switches, like the GS116 switch. On NewEgg for $150. You probably don't even have to go that nice. You can probably find a Gigabit switch for under $100 and it will do just fine.
(4) Use really good network cables. Hook up your cable modem, Router, Switch, NAS and your computers with good cabling. Cat5e, Cat6, etc. Don't use the kinked, nasty looking cable sitting in the bottom of the drawer. Get good ones.
(5) Sign up for a payed LiveDrive account. You pay a yearly fee and get unlimited online storage for backups. Configure one of your home computers to backup all your data to the LiveDrive account. If you do this a little bit at a time, it won't be painful. I have about 1.5TB of stuff backed up to it so far. And I use basic cable internet.
(6) That's it! If you run out of space on your NAS, just buy another one. Why fight with a super complex home-built server? For $350, you get another 2TB and will be up and running in 10 minutes. Stick it on the switch and give it a name! These things are so cheap at this point, it's silly.
(7) You can go a step further and set up HTPCs in your house that are hooked up to your TV, and run media-center type applications. Any good software (MediaPortal, for example) can be easily configured to see your media across your many NAS servers and present it to you in a unified format.

I have a ReadyNas NV and I love it. It's very simple to use (and expand): back-ups are a breeze (which means I actually do them), though I found the bundled software to be too difficult to use.