Any Thoughts About Network Attached Storage (NAS)?

[Steve1960]

I am running Apple Mac hardware but still using networked storage so here is my experience based on doing as the OP suggested digitising all my movie and music collection and doing away with the DVD / CD's completely (clenched my buttocks when I got rid of all the discs it made me nervous!).

I chose the WD Thunderbolt 8TB unit (2 x 4TB drives) and have it set up RAID 1. No issues with setup and use including streaming although I didn't really buy it for that.

I also have my collections stored on the Macbook hard drive so everything is in 3 places. Photograph collection is in 4 places as I also have an Apple Time Capsule on the network with a 1TB USB hard drive hanging off it.

The Singtel router and the Apple TC both have WiFi networks but most of the apartment is wired with CAT 5e cables i.e. Smart TV's, UK TV VPN box, Smart DVD player (for the few Blueray and 3D movies I have), Apple TV boxes, Belkin Thunderbolt hub etc etc

Using Singtel 200Mbps fibre connection.

[zzm9980]

Good, we will have to wait for opportunity to arrive and with your nicely relaxed criteria I may even consider writing my own file system to maximize the outcome.

Be careful x9200. You know what happen to geeks that write their owb fiesystems?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReiserFS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Reiser

I'd hate to see you in an article like that

BTW, It looks you meant a permanent loss and I meant any. Most of the time it is recoverable, but it is highly circumstantial as it depends also on the software, but still, why to take the unnecessary risk potentially wasting time or money?

Dead horse being beaten alert. I think we just have much different perceptions of and appetites for the possible risk this causes. I'll re-quote myself on my thoughts on this.

While yes your way is safer, so is jaywalking while wearing a helmet or double bagging it when you go to OT. IMO it's just not needed.

[zzm9980]

I chose the WD Thunderbolt 8TB unit (2 x 4TB drives) and have it set up RAID 1. No issues with setup and use including streaming although I didn't really buy it for that.

I actually have something similar at work, one of these in the 8-disk 24TB configurations:

http://www.promise.com/promotion_page/p ... al&rsn=101

It's running in Raid5, so you get 21TB. Right now it is performing such important tasks as `cat /dev/urandom > ./bored.lol`.

If you'd like x9200, I'm happy to setup a WebEx with video and screen sharing. We can watch as I pull drives out one at a time and run fsck or something. You'll just have to find a place you can order beers online and send them to me. (Shouldn't be hard given where I live)

[zzm9980]

Is this challenge open to audience? I will bring buffalo wings along to watch.

you're in, as those can be delivered!

https://www.delivermefood.com/print_men ... 36B6546%7D

[Strong Eagle]

After reading how some of you used storage attached to a router, I updated the firmware on my TP Link TL-WR1043ND, attached a 1 TB drive and tested its performance.

I have movies on this drive and wirelessly, they play OK in XBMC, although there seems to be a latency issue when first loading movie files (I've kept my DVD's in VOB format).

Then, I ran a file read/write speed test. The results were dismal. Connected wireless I got about 2.7 MBps sequential write and 3.5 MBps sequential read. Doing the same test wired to the router, I got 3.3 MBps write and 6.3 MBps read.

Needless to say, this makes copying anything to the drive excruciatingly slow, but I'll say it anyway... it's excruciatingly slow.

This compares to the internal hard drive on my laptop (70.4 MBps write, 66.4 MBps read) and for a cheap Seagate 500 meg USB drive (16.5 MBpd write, 18.7 MBps read).

The disk I had plugged into the router is a USB 3.0 (router is only 2.0) and when I plugged it into a 3.0 port on my laptop I got write speeds of 96.4 MBps and read speeds of 98.2 MBps.

I conclude then that the attached drive on the router is not really useful for backups or loading movies and that I still want to go to a NAS.

Cheers.

[zzm9980]

After reading how some of you used storage attached to a router, I updated the firmware on my TP Link TL-WR1043ND, attached a 1 TB drive and tested its performance.

I have movies on this drive and wirelessly, they play OK in XBMC, although there seems to be a latency issue when first loading movie files (I've kept my DVD's in VOB format).

Then, I ran a file read/write speed test. The results were dismal. Connected wireless I got about 2.7 MBps sequential write and 3.5 MBps sequential read. Doing the same test wired to the router, I got 3.3 MBps write and 6.3 MBps read.

Needless to say, this makes copying anything to the drive excruciatingly slow, but I'll say it anyway... it's excruciatingly slow.

This compares to the internal hard drive on my laptop (70.4 MBps write, 66.4 MBps read) and for a cheap Seagate 500 meg USB drive (16.5 MBpd write, 18.7 MBps read).

The disk I had plugged into the router is a USB 3.0 (router is only 2.0) and when I plugged it into a 3.0 port on my laptop I got write speeds of 96.4 MBps and read speeds of 98.2 MBps.

I conclude then that the attached drive on the router is not really useful for backups or loading movies and that I still want to go to a NAS.

Cheers.

This is similar to the results I also had with USB drives attached to routers a few years ago. The bottleneck always appeared to be the USB interface on the router (and not the spec, as USB2 itself should be much faster). I havent tried anything in the past few years though.

[x9200]

If you'd like x9200, I'm happy to setup a WebEx with video and screen sharing. We can watch as I pull drives out one at a time and run fsck or something. You'll just have to find a place you can order beers online and send them to me. (Shouldn't be hard given where I live)

Not that I don't trust you particularly or something but I would rather prefer to take a look at the drive and the OS first. This probably means we have to still wait a bit.

[x9200]

After reading how some of you used storage attached to a router, I updated the firmware on my TP Link TL-WR1043ND, attached a 1 TB drive and tested its performance.

I have movies on this drive and wirelessly, they play OK in XBMC, although there seems to be a latency issue when first loading movie files (I've kept my DVD's in VOB format).

Then, I ran a file read/write speed test. The results were dismal. Connected wireless I got about 2.7 MBps sequential write and 3.5 MBps sequential read. Doing the same test wired to the router, I got 3.3 MBps write and 6.3 MBps read.

Needless to say, this makes copying anything to the drive excruciatingly slow, but I'll say it anyway... it's excruciatingly slow.

This compares to the internal hard drive on my laptop (70.4 MBps write, 66.4 MBps read) and for a cheap Seagate 500 meg USB drive (16.5 MBpd write, 18.7 MBps read).

The disk I had plugged into the router is a USB 3.0 (router is only 2.0) and when I plugged it into a 3.0 port on my laptop I got write speeds of 96.4 MBps and read speeds of 98.2 MBps.

I conclude then that the attached drive on the router is not really useful for backups or loading movies and that I still want to go to a NAS.

Cheers.

With my RT-N66U and an old 40GB 1.8" Toshiba disk it is ~10MB/s writing, wired (~20MB/s directly usb/PC). Backups can be incremental and copying ran overnight, but agree, it's far from anything ideal.

[x9200]

This is similar to the results I also had with USB drives attached to routers a few years ago. The bottleneck always appeared to be the USB interface on the router (and not the spec, as USB2 itself should be much faster). I havent tried anything in the past few years though.

Have you tried usb-usb within the same router?

[Steve1960]

I agree the USB interface on the device connected to the drive is often the issue. I experienced this myself. I bought the Belkin Thunderbolt hub and whilst it is very useful in reducing the number of wires attached directly to the laptop I only found out after purchase that Belkin implemented USB 3 at half speed

One of the reasons I wanted the hub is that my Mac Pro is 3 years old and only has USB 2.

On the subject of effective backups the Thunderbolt interface is very good, gigabytes of data backed up effortlessly in minimal time

[Brah]

Ok something shocking just happened......

MY PC has been bluescreening the past week or so, no idea why.

This morning the PC was up, but not in the state I left it last night, it had rebooted and was at the login window.

Logged in, started my usual apps, then looked in a folder on one of my external drives, the newest one, a WD single disc non-RAIDed 2tb, and could not find any directories. The drive has been about 60% loaded for a long time.

Naturally I panicked, but when I check the utilization, the disc is still utilized but no files, except for a (new) iTunes dir from today's automatic downloads.

I haven't run any diagnostics yet on it.

[Brah]

Will check the model later, it's about 3-4 years old. The light is blinking on an off, it never did that before.

[Steve1960]

Maybe try restoring the PC to a point before the blue screening started?

I would try to get the PC stable before worrying too much about the external drive.

[Brah]

Maybe try restoring the PC to a point before the blue screening started?

I would try to get the PC stable before worrying too much about the external drive.

Thanks Steve, the PC is stable, though it could always BS again today, and other drives are visible and accessible.

I just noticed that those new iTunes dirs created today when I fired up iTunes and downloads started, are no longer there, the drive is mountable but no data despite >1tb utilized.

[Steve1960]

You got anything else you can plug the drive into, I am assuming its a USB drive.

Another PC, Smart TV, anything that would give you a second opinion on whether or not the drive structure is readable?