Forum
Avatar
Please consider registering
Guest
Advanced Search
Forum Scope


Match



Forum Options



Minimum search word length is 3 characters - maximum search word length is 84 characters
message
Nerdatorium: NAS and RAID for home filesharing and backup
September 11, 2008
2:22 am
Avatar
Dan-H
Member
Subscriber
Forum Posts: 1378
Member Since:
February 5, 2003
sp_UserOfflineSmall Offline

I'm looking into an 100Mbit ethernet Raid enclosure/drive setup.

anyone looked into this?

I want safe backup for photos, but also a way to share files for more than one computer.

I don't have high performance demands, so dual disk RAID 1 seems like a decent fit.

What I'm looking to find out is
1) whats really reliable
2) what software is needed, ether on the NAS or on the client for access

ps: for the non-nerds

NAS is Network Attached Storage -- think shared drive, but without a computer

RAID is Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks -- think hot backup. if one fails you still have all your data.

why?

Closed Mondays.

September 11, 2008
2:27 am
Avatar
JohnDF
Member

Club Member
Forum Posts: 9521
Member Since:
July 10, 2003
sp_UserOfflineSmall Offline

"Dan-H" wrote: why?

Why not just use an external hard drive?

I used to wheel a lot. . .

September 11, 2008
2:32 am
Avatar
Dan-H
Member
Subscriber
Forum Posts: 1378
Member Since:
February 5, 2003
sp_UserOfflineSmall Offline

an external hard drive connects to a computer (usually via USB ) and needs a computer running to serve the files to other computers.

The files aren't available unless the computer its connected to is running.

Also, a single external drive has no redundancy. If the drive dies, your backup is dead.

finally, the performance of a shared drive running behind windows isn't that great. Not that big of an issue, especially if wireless laptops are accessing the shared drive (wifi is really slow compared to everthing wired).

Closed Mondays.

September 11, 2008
3:41 am
Avatar
Guest
Guest
Guest

I set a raid at my business years ago and it has worked flawlessly for well over 5 year. (knock on wood) It is in a standalone case with it's own power supply and runs off of a pc. I have been rally happy with it. About the only downside is that the drives are only about 7gigs. From there I back up to CD.

September 11, 2008
5:24 am
Avatar
Guest
Guest
Guest

funny you should post this. i was just talking to heidi about this. we've been looking at something simple and i think the winner in our home will go with the netgear 500gig nas removable hdd. the cool thing about that is its already set up to image the first drive once you slide a second drive in. no having to configure the raid yourself. then once its full pop in another drive and keep on truckin. more than likely go to a terrabit drive once the 500 is full. we have lots of photos and music. its also compatible with the ps3 so i can stream video, music and photos without turning heidis pc on. also it is a print server so i dont have to have heidis cpu on when i want to print from my laptop. 8)

September 11, 2008
5:30 am
Avatar
Dan-H
Member
Subscriber
Forum Posts: 1378
Member Since:
February 5, 2003
sp_UserOfflineSmall Offline

I was looking at the exact same setup.

I have no need for a print server. I run a wired print server off of my wifi network direct to a parallel port. (HP Jet direct printer port). I think it was 15 bucks on eBay.

Closed Mondays.

September 11, 2008
5:37 am
Avatar
Guest
Guest
Guest

"Dan-H" wrote: I was looking at the exact same setup.

I have no need for a print server. I run a wired print server off of my wifi network direct to a parallel port. (HP Jet direct printer port). I think it was 15 bucks on eBay.

lol thats what we used to use at work before they actually started buying printers with them built in. it sucked because they stick out depending on where the parallel port was located. ours were big too. kind of like a small ethernet hub. lol

September 11, 2008
1:26 pm
Avatar
Fred
Member
Subscriber
Forum Posts: 3609
Member Since:
May 4, 2004
sp_UserOfflineSmall Offline

I've been using a Maxtor Shared Storage network attached drive & print server. It's not the fastest thing around but it's worked well for a few years now. It doesn't have raid, but I use is as a second level backup anyways so it doesn't matter too much.

I backup our laptops to a Linux server. The linux server backs up to the Maxtor Shared Storage drive.

September 11, 2008
1:43 pm
Avatar
Justin
Member
Subscriber
Forum Posts: 1416
Member Since:
January 12, 2007
sp_UserOfflineSmall Offline

"Dan-H" wrote:

ps: for the non-nerds

Thank you.

September 11, 2008
1:56 pm
Avatar
Guest
Guest
Guest

"Justin" wrote: [quote="Dan-H"]

ps: for the non-nerds

Thank you.

Thank you for reading the whole post and highlighting the p.s. part. My eyes had glazed over by that point. 😀

I just back up everything on a portable hard drive that I lock in my safe. Is that a bad thing?

September 11, 2008
2:22 pm
Avatar
Dan-H
Member
Subscriber
Forum Posts: 1378
Member Since:
February 5, 2003
sp_UserOfflineSmall Offline

"Bender" wrote:

I just back up everything on a portable hard drive that I lock in my safe. Is that a bad thing?

If backup only was my concern that might work. the risk is your backup drive in your safe decides to stop working, or part of the drive becomes corrupt and you don't learn this until you need it to restore something you lost.

Backup to CDs or DVDs is also possible (what I do now) but I've got a pile of them lying around.

another approach is network backups to some provider on the internet, but I don't want my data just "out there".

Closed Mondays.

September 11, 2008
2:30 pm
Avatar
JohnDF
Member

Club Member
Forum Posts: 9521
Member Since:
July 10, 2003
sp_UserOfflineSmall Offline

The only data I store on my computer are pictures and some blank work documents. I lead a simple life.

I used to wheel a lot. . .

September 11, 2008
3:12 pm
Avatar
Justin
Member
Subscriber
Forum Posts: 1416
Member Since:
January 12, 2007
sp_UserOfflineSmall Offline

I back up my laptop to our server at work, and also to my desktop at home. What are the chances of all 3 (Laptop, Server, Desktop) taking a dump?

September 11, 2008
4:31 pm
Avatar
Dan-H
Member
Subscriber
Forum Posts: 1378
Member Since:
February 5, 2003
sp_UserOfflineSmall Offline

"Justin" wrote: What are the chances of all 3 (Laptop, Server, Desktop) taking a dump?

pretty small .

Closed Mondays.

Forum Timezone: America/Los_Angeles
Most Users Ever Online: 81
Currently Online: BKGM Jeepers
Guest(s) 1
Currently Browsing this Page:
1 Guest(s)
Top Posters:
JohnDF: 9521
Fred: 3609
Gregulator: 3071
Jeff_R: 1800
RobD: 1721
Josh: 1630
Tom: 1465
Justin: 1416
Gilbert & Betty: 1410
Dan-H: 1378
Member Stats:
Guest Posters: 12
Members: 143
Moderators: 5
Admins: 1
Forum Stats:
Groups: 5
Forums: 24
Topics: 4292
Posts: 66451
Newest Members:
billyvincent26, chassidyoatley1, heykell, Julie Dwyer, [email protected], follosdin, TerryL, [email protected], Ski man, RomikaHill
Moderators: Posse4x4: 1, BKGM Jeepers: 7060, Lynda and Guy: 225, kris_olof: 1132, Jamie (K6NUB): 779
Administrators: k-jeep: 2240
Members Birthdays
sp_BirthdayIcon
Today: None
Upcoming: huck271