How big of hard drive(s): NAS box

[LinuxRandal]

How big are the hard drives in your pc('s)? How full?
Home use (three users max)
I am wanting to build a NAS box (networked attached storage), with a small Linux distro, on (highly likely) an Atom based motherboard. I have some idea's that I am finally going to play with, so off my main pc storage, makes more sense.



PS. Crokett and others; have any good links on software raid? (the only bad part about the motherboard for my needs)

Thanks all

[milanuk]

I've been kind of toying with the idea of doing something similar... mostly for the sake of backing up various machines - my MacBook, the wife's MacBook (from school), whatever the kids bring home, etc. to one central place, then doing regularly scheduled backups to removable media from there.

The two options I'm considering at the moment are FreeNAS (FreeBSD based NAS implementation - but that's *all* it does, not necessarily a bad thing), or Ubuntu Server.

We don't really do a lot of multimedia recording, so hard drive space hasn't been an issue - the 60GB on my MacBook gets a little cramped at times, but thats about it.

Should be interesting.

[sd]

I'm leaning towards setting up a Solaris/ZFS system. There are some interesting ZFS demos on Youtube where a Sun guy whacks one or two of the drives in an array with a sledgehammer. This site has some info about setting up a home ZFS fileserver.

[crokett]

If you are looking at a straight fileshare, I was looking hard at unRAID before I decided I would do better with a server that could do other things, so I decided I will install Ubuntu server. It will become a web and ssh server and possibly FTP. I also am rethinking the RAID. I have 100GB available on my Windows machine and haven't come close to filling that up. I figure I can just use the Linux machine as a backup server. I don't need the data instantly available as much as I need it backed up somewhere. I may put SW RAID on Windows, we will se.

Ununtu SW RAID: http://www.howtoforge.com/how-to-ins...software-raid1

Check my other SW RAID thread for other links. there were some good ones there that apparently I don't have bookmarked.

[Kristofor]

I'd approach the problem from the other end. What things do you have that you need to backup? If you're talking about email, documents that your kids create for school, and pictures you could get by for years on 100GB.

If you want to host your video libraries (my primary use) you'd be talking about 10's of terabytes or more... It would be a poor use of resources to size a system for that if you're never going to use it for that purpose.

The idea of having a single 24x7 "server" type PC that can run all of your backend apps is appealing. The lower power consumption of an Atom system would be nice in that situation too, if it meets your performance needs...

Kristofor.

[dbhost]

How big are the hard drives in your pc('s)? How full?
Home use (three users max)
I am wanting to build a NAS box (networked attached storage), with a small Linux distro, on (highly likely) an Atom based motherboard. I have some idea's that I am finally going to play with, so off my main pc storage, makes more sense.



PS. Crokett and others; have any good links on software raid? (the only bad part about the motherboard for my needs)

Thanks all

I've got a RHEL (CentOS actually) NAS box on my network. 4 @ 1.5TB drives in RAID 5 controlled by a High Point Rocket RAID 1740 controller.

The workstations have 2 @ 300GB drives in a mirror.

I have lots of storage space. What I really want / need is a good backup media not just backup to disk.Tape is so expensive though.

[LinuxRandal]

I'd approach the problem from the other end. What things do you have that you need to backup? If you're talking about email, documents that your kids create for school, and pictures you could get by for years on 100GB.

If you want to host your video libraries (my primary use) you'd be talking about 10's of terabytes or more... It would be a poor use of resources to size a system for that if you're never going to use it for that purpose.

The idea of having a single 24x7 "server" type PC that can run all of your backend apps is appealing. The lower power consumption of an Atom system would be nice in that situation too, if it meets your performance needs...

Kristofor.

Lately I have been ripping my dvd's as I was thinking of building a Myth box (Mythtv). I keep my email web based, but entertainment files, and doc's would be nice to have centrally located.
I have been looking at Hamachi (vpn software), and figure I could leave a low power pc online, have it mount various drives (Nat box with NFS), so it acts as one pc, to WOL my network (eliminates firewall issues and things like Magic Packet, etc).

My main system has been my file server, but it only has 500gb, and is almost filled up, and its burner died.

[jcjrsmith]

My desktop PC has a 320 GB drive. The kids computers are 160 GB each. Last year I got one of these: http://www.shopping.hp.com/product/c...1Cv!1126497430 It runs a version of Windows Server 2003 called Windows Home Server. I have 1 TB of storage configured on it with two empty drive bays. I have all our computers back up to it nightly. Recently had to rebuild one of the systems due to a failed hard drive. I put the Home Server CD in the drive of the failed computer with the new hard drive instalelled, and had it back up and running with everything restored in 45 minutes.

[jonmulzer]

How big are the hard drives in your pc('s)? How full?
Home use (three users max)
I am wanting to build a NAS box (networked attached storage), with a small Linux distro, on (highly likely) an Atom based motherboard. I have some idea's that I am finally going to play with, so off my main pc storage, makes more sense.



PS. Crokett and others; have any good links on software raid? (the only bad part about the motherboard for my needs)

Thanks all

As others have said, it all depends upon your needs. How much stuff do you need to store? How much stuff would you have needed to store a year ago? That will give you a good idea at your accumulation rate. If all you need to store is emails and family pictures and music, a couple of 320GB drives in RAID 1 would be more than sufficient most likely. Unless your wife is a photographer and your kids are audiophiles.

The last NAS I set up for myself used ClarkConnect. A very secure, very easy to use Linux distro that has tons of functionality. More than I ever used. It also has pretty low minimum requirements and is free for home use. I liked it and with a spare 2ghz P4 512MB RAM box it handled all of our NAS, proxy cache, content filtering (I used that one just to mess with my current roommate, lol), printer sharing, antivirus and firewall functions.

[just started]

I wold just figure out how much I could never fill up, and then multiply that by 3 to get the correct size for 1.5 - 2 years max. By then you should be ready for a new system anyway, and you then multiply this drive by 7 to get the correct size for the next one.

[LinuxRandal]

I wold just figure out how much I could never fill up, and then multiply that by 3 to get the correct size for 1.5 - 2 years max. By then you should be ready for a new system anyway, and you then multiply this drive by 7 to get the correct size for the next one.

I don't have Petabyte $$$$$.

I don't think filling up is ever a problem, with any drive or pc.

[milanuk]

Jerry,

That is a pretty slick setup... I'm kind of behind the times on the current state of Windows home servers, so I have to admit, if that works even half-ways reliably, I'm impressed. I'd be sorely tempted to wipe it and install a Linux server distro, but if it works... the bit about working with Apple Time Machine (which I don't have yet, but the next Mac I buy *will*)

Thanks for the link,

Monte

[maxparot]

For a NAS box figure the storage needs of the user with the greatest needs. Multiply that number by the number of users on the network. Now based on that number multiply it by either 2 or 3 that should fill your needs for 5 years or so barring equipment failure. Better yet just purchase as much drive space as you can afford and hope for the best.

[gary]

Use Raid 1 or Raid 5 if you're going to the trouble to set it up.