Mass Storage

[Chicog]

Oh I forgot. The Drobo has a slot for an SSD so it functions like a hybrid.

[JetsetBkk]

I have 5 x 2TB internal drives backed up to 5 x 2TB external drives using "Beyond Compare" utility.

[Saradoc1972]

Oh I forgot. The Drobo has a slot for an SSD so it functions like a hybrid.

That would be a mSata. Nice feature, but for what? Play back movies and mp3? For running apps like games on your PC and use as an extended ultra secure hard-drive, ok.

From what I read, this Drobo thing is really nice, but unless you are expecting to have data exceeding 4TB, (and we're talking data here, not those precious game .exe or backups of those) that is some money to shell out. a 5-bay drive is about the limit of what you could take on a plane in hand-luggage, it's going to be round 5+ kg.

Btw, I forgot, because I don't know exactly what our OP is after and what his setup is.

If it's only backup and transportation, I.e. take movies and stuff along for a little vacation on a visa run or what, WD makes 2,5" HDs with 2 TB capacity. Much less unwieldy, could even get a bay for a notebook to replace the DVD-drive or what it's got.

[JohnnyJazz]

Does anyone know what the "4TB" sticker on a number of NAS boxes means ?

I'm aware of the 2.2 TB limit but can't find any information about a 4 TB one

[dave_boo]

Does anyone know what the "4TB" sticker on a number of NAS boxes means ?

I'm aware of the 2.2 TB limit but can't find any information about a 4 TB one

Possibly the drives shipped..

Or like the situation with devices supporting SDXC (where it says up to 64 GB) the 4 TB drives are all that were available to validate up to.

[Chicog]

Oh I forgot. The Drobo has a slot for an SSD so it functions like a hybrid.

That would be a mSata. Nice feature, but for what? Play back movies and mp3? For running apps like games on your PC and use as an extended ultra secure hard-drive, ok.

From what I read, this Drobo thing is really nice, but unless you are expecting to have data exceeding 4TB, (and we're talking data here, not those precious game .exe or backups of those) that is some money to shell out. a 5-bay drive is about the limit of what you could take on a plane in hand-luggage, it's going to be round 5+ kg.

Btw, I forgot, because I don't know exactly what our OP is after and what his setup is.

If it's only backup and transportation, I.e. take movies and stuff along for a little vacation on a visa run or what, WD makes 2,5" HDs with 2 TB capacity. Much less unwieldy, could even get a bay for a notebook to replace the DVD-drive or what it's got.

I'm never away from home that long that I need more than 1TB to keep me occupied, and you can get those in pocket size with USB 3.0 these days for relative peanuts.

[IMHO]

Does anyone know what the "4TB" sticker on a number of NAS boxes means ?

I'm aware of the 2.2 TB limit but can't find any information about a 4 TB one

Could mean a couple of things:

1) That they include 4TB worth of drives (number always shown in total)

2) That they support 4TB drives.. Some older ones couldn't, but pretty much all can now with a firmware update

What 2.2TB limit? The file systems the NAS's support (ext4, ntfs, hfs+) have limits in the EB range.

[Saradoc1972]

Does anyone know what the "4TB" sticker on a number of NAS boxes means ?

I'm aware of the 2.2 TB limit but can't find any information about a 4 TB one

Could mean a couple of things:

1) That they include 4TB worth of drives (number always shown in total)

2) That they support 4TB drives.. Some older ones couldn't, but pretty much all can now with a firmware update

What 2.2TB limit? The file systems the NAS's support (ext4, ntfs, hfs+) have limits in the EB range.

Agree. Probably not a warning about limitations but advertisement about what the thingy is compatible with or indicative of harddrive already built in. You could by now get HDs with 6TB capacity, but those are really pricey for the time being.

Most NAS run under some implementaion of Linux to safe on licenses to Microsoft, those filesystem can handle harddisk sizes of which I'm not sure we'll see in our lifetime (EB=Exabyte). The 2.2 TB limit is for 32bit OS, such as MS Windows XP and NAS32 formatting (as the name implies).

If you're about to shell out that amount of money have a look a the manufacturer's website as to compatibility of HDs first anyway.

[JohnnyJazz]

Most NAS run under some implementaion of Linux to safe on licenses to Microsoft, those filesystem can handle harddisk sizes of which I'm not sure we'll see in our lifetime (EB=Exabyte). The 2.2 TB limit is for 32bit OS, such as MS Windows XP and NAS32 formatting (as the name implies).

If you're about to shell out that amount of money have a look a the manufacturer's website as to compatibility of HDs first anyway.

You're right, the price is an issue

Yesterday I found the Synology DS413J for THB 16,500 without disks.

Seagate, 2 bays including 4TB : THB 12,500

WD EX2 including 4TB : THB 12,900

Now compared to a WD Caviar Green 2 TB at THB 2,800

I wonder if the best option is then to add the disks to the computer that is going to run XBMC

Your opinion ?

BTW, as I'm running Win7 64, do I have still to worry about the 2.2 TB limit ?

Edited June 21, 2014 by JohnnyJazz

[Saradoc1972]

You're right, the price is an issue

Yesterday I found the Synology DS413J for THB 16,500 without disks.

Seagate, 2 bays including 4TB : THB 12,500

WD EX2 including 4TB : THB 12,900

Now compared to a WD Caviar Green 2 TB at THB 2,800

I wonder if the best option is then to add the disks to the computer that is going to run XBMC

Your opinion ?

BTW, as I'm running Win7 64, do I have still to worry about the 2.2 TB limit ?

12,5 K Baht is steep for the WD X2 without disks, should be less than 9k (by my German price quotes). Filled with 2x4 TB WD Red it should be in the 22k range...

I wasn't aware of XBMC, might be exactly what I was looking for myself. Looks pretty nifty and freeware at that.

I'd say, get yourself 2 Caviar Green or Red, use one in a USB3 case for external backups of media, data and OS.

Win7 will by default use the NT FileSystem (NTFS), no 2,2 TB limitation. Unless you format the disks under FAT32, you can then have 2 or more partitions with up to 2,2 TB each.

When installing the disk be aware that you need to acquaint it to your OS in Computer Administration using the data storage snap in (I only know the German terms, someone here?), and then initialise it as either a dynamic volume or a regular drive, format under NTFS, and assign a drive letter.

It is pretty straightforward once you found that interface, just make sure you are not formatting any existent drives with a drive letter. Look at what you are doing!

[JohnnyJazz]

^

12,5 K Baht is steep for the WD X2 without disks, should be less than 9k (by my German price quotes). Filled with 2x4 TB WD Red it should be in the 22k range...

The price includes 2 X 2TB disks but no details about the maker and model.

Thanks for the other advises.

[Saradoc1972]

^

12,5 K Baht is steep for the WD X2 without disks, should be less than 9k (by my German price quotes). Filled with 2x4 TB WD Red it should be in the 22k range...

The price includes 2 X 2TB disks but no details about the maker and model.

Thanks for the other advises.

OK then. WD make their own harddrives, so they are not in the business of putting s.th. from another brand in there.

I just looked it up, those 2 HDDs would be WD Caviar Red, their own brand of consumer grade 24/7 adaptable rpm raid optimized drives. Seems the logical thing to do.

It's again 10% cheaper that over here, it's not a bad price.

Hmmm... depends whether you'd make use of all the additional features of that NAS, like mobile access and a peer-to-peer-demon... up to you ;-))

[Digitalbanana]

Drobo 5N with 5 x 4TB disks (although I only have 4 in it at the moment).

Do they sell these in Thailand or need to import? I cannot find any on local mall sites.

[WorriedNoodle]

The latest online Thai stores have WD Cloud Mirror NAS devices, presumably these are RAID 1. Wouldn't a simple 6TB version (they also do 8TB and 4TB) be enough for most needs - no one mentioned them yet? Less than 15000THB and get a back up copy by mirror as well.

[muratremix]

Most NAS run under some implementaion of Linux to safe on licenses to Microsoft, those filesystem can handle harddisk sizes of which I'm not sure we'll see in our lifetime (EB=Exabyte). The 2.2 TB limit is for 32bit OS, such as MS Windows XP and NAS32 formatting (as the name implies).

If you're about to shell out that amount of money have a look a the manufacturer's website as to compatibility of HDs first anyway.

You're right, the price is an issue

Yesterday I found the Synology DS413J for THB 16,500 without disks.

Seagate, 2 bays including 4TB : THB 12,500

WD EX2 including 4TB : THB 12,900

Now compared to a WD Caviar Green 2 TB at THB 2,800

I wonder if the best option is then to add the disks to the computer that is going to run XBMC

Your opinion ?

BTW, as I'm running Win7 64, do I have still to worry about the 2.2 TB limit ?

DS413J is last years model, DS414j has better and newer cpu. However, if you raise budget a little, you can get DS414 or a little more and you get DS412+ with intel atom cpu.

Or, you can spend 12,900 baht for HP Microserver Gen8 and make your own server/nas with freenas/nas4free/ubuntu server etc.

At 12,900 baht, HP Microserver (beside some technical limitations in bios) is best bang for the buck. It has celeron 1610T cpu that can transcode 1080p video to your devices and 2x1gbit ethernet links can provide 200Mb/s read/write speeds in your LAN

[JohnnyJazz]

Hmmm... depends whether you'd make use of all the additional features of that NAS, like mobile access and a peer-to-peer-demon... up to you ;-))

Or, you can spend 12,900 baht for HP Microserver Gen8 and make your own server/nas with freenas/nas4free/ubuntu server etc.

At 12,900 baht, HP Microserver (beside some technical limitations in bios) is best bang for the buck. It has celeron 1610T cpu that can transcode 1080p video to your devices and 2x1gbit ethernet links can provide 200Mb/s read/write speeds in your LAN

I believe so far that's the three options we have : a NAS, a server like the HP Gen 8 or a DIY server.

Edited June 21, 2014 by JohnnyJazz

[IMHO]

Most NAS run under some implementaion of Linux to safe on licenses to Microsoft, those filesystem can handle harddisk sizes of which I'm not sure we'll see in our lifetime (EB=Exabyte). The 2.2 TB limit is for 32bit OS, such as MS Windows XP and NAS32 formatting (as the name implies).

If you're about to shell out that amount of money have a look a the manufacturer's website as to compatibility of HDs first anyway.

You're right, the price is an issue

Yesterday I found the Synology DS413J for THB 16,500 without disks.

Seagate, 2 bays including 4TB : THB 12,500

WD EX2 including 4TB : THB 12,900

Now compared to a WD Caviar Green 2 TB at THB 2,800

I wonder if the best option is then to add the disks to the computer that is going to run XBMC

Your opinion ?

BTW, as I'm running Win7 64, do I have still to worry about the 2.2 TB limit ?

I'm not sure about the EX2/EX4, but the MyCloud series use WD Red drives, which are more like 3800 THB for 2TB.

If you do the math on the MyCould Mirror 4TB (~12K Baht), you're paying a little over 4K Baht for the NAS bit, after you've deleted the value of the HDD's - you won't find an empty chassis for anything close to that.

Your OS file system limits don't come into play with NAS.

Edited June 22, 2014 by IMHO

[thaimite]

If you decide to go for the DIY server route, look again at SnapRAID. Use your exiting drives of any size without having to format them. Just add a sigle extra drive to get full RAID 5 support that will protect you form a single drive failure/ Many threads on the HTPC forums about this. perfect for storing large meda files that infrequently change as the drives can shut down when not being used unlike a regular RAID solution.

[attrayant]

If you decide to go for the DIY server route, look again at SnapRAID.

If you decide to go for the DIY server route, don't forget to factor in the time you'll spend playing server admin. If you've got the time and like that kind of responsibility, that's great. But if you just want a solution that stands up quickly and takes care of itself, Drobo is ideal. Yes it's probably one of the pricier solutions, but again if you consider your time as money and you don't want to spend it on being an administrator, it might be worth it. All my iOS devices can stream from it, too.

Do they sell these in Thailand or need to import? I cannot find any on local mall sites.

I got my Drobo FS from this local distributor: www.90degreesolution.com delivered to my door by a private courier in about five days. If I remember correctly, it was just over $600. They're going for $450 on Amazon at the moment. I'm not sure how much you'd pay on international shipping and duties, but it's probably pretty close.

Here's the Drobo Dashboard:

[JohnnyJazz]

You're right, the price is an issue

I'm not sure about the EX2/EX4, but the MyCloud series use WD Red drives, which are more like 3800 THB for 2TB.

If you do the math on the MyCould Mirror 4TB (~12K Baht), you're paying a little over 4K Baht for the NAS bit, after you've deleted the value of the HDD's - you won't find an empty chassis for anything close to that.

You have a point here. The only problem is the day you want to upgrade that's going to be be more expensive.

That's my dilemma. I don't have an unlimited budget. The cheapest way is of course to buy a system that is taylored for our today's needs. But every time I read a new product review I discovered new functions that would be great to have. Unfortunately most of the time it implies an hardware upgrade from the original configuration. So I guess the best way to make provision for future upgrades is a DIY server.

That of course means a steep learning curve if like me you have a very basic computer knowledge. But as I see it it is part of the initial investment.

Edited June 22, 2014 by JohnnyJazz

[IMHO]

You're right, the price is an issue

I'm not sure about the EX2/EX4, but the MyCloud series use WD Red drives, which are more like 3800 THB for 2TB.

If you do the math on the MyCould Mirror 4TB (~12K Baht), you're paying a little over 4K Baht for the NAS bit, after you've deleted the value of the HDD's - you won't find an empty chassis for anything close to that.

You have a point here. The only problem is the day you want to upgrade that's going to be be more expensive.

That's my dilemma. I don't have an unlimited budget. The cheapest way is of course to buy a system that is taylored for our today's needs. But every time I read a new product review I discovered new functions that would be great to have. Unfortunately most of the time it implies an hardware upgrade from the original configuration. So I guess the best way to make provision for future upgrades is a DIY server.

That of course means a steep learning curve if like me you have a very basic computer knowledge. But as I see it it is part of the initial investment.

I understand what you mean, but the MyCloud isn't a dead end.. you can expand in 2 ways: 1) Add external drives to the USB port (this could be just any USB drive, or could also be USB HDD boxes with RAID of their own), or 2) Just add more MyCloud's to your network (they play nicely together)

You'd need 3,4, or more MyClouds before you could have possibly gained cost efficiency against an empty NAS chassis, but by then you've also got up to 16TB usable storage (not including any USB attached drives yo might have added), and you've also got 4x DLNA/NAS servers each with 1gbps LAN, which could presumably handle more concurrent streams than a single low-end chassis could.

That said, they're not the be-all and end-all of NAS, but they do the job well enough. The only thing I wouldn't use them for (at home) is CCTV recording - that requires major horsepower once you get above a few 1MP cams.

If considering your own server, make sure you don't skimp on the RAID adaptor (aim for closer to the 20K baht end of the market, than the 3K Baht low end), and make sure you test it's ability to swap drives and successfully rebuild arrays.. In my experience, there's a lot of broken promises and really terrible performance in the low end.

Side note: our company SAN cost us over $250K USD - and it's not even that big - the sky is the limit when you start getting into it

Edited June 22, 2014 by IMHO

[Saradoc1972]

I understand what you mean, but the MyCloud isn't a dead end.. you can expand in 2 ways: 1) Add external drives to the USB port (this could be just any USB drive, or could also be USB HDD boxes with RAID of their own), or 2) Just add more MyCloud's to your network (they play nicely together)

You'd need 3,4, or more MyClouds before you could have possibly gained cost efficiency against an empty NAS chassis, but by then you've also got up to 16TB usable storage (not including any USB attached drives yo might have added), and you've also got 4x DLNA/NAS servers each with 1gbps LAN, which could presumably handle more concurrent streams than a single low-end chassis could.

That said, they're not the be-all and end-all of NAS, but they do the job well enough. The only thing I wouldn't use them for (at home) is CCTV recording - that requires major horsepower once you get above a few 1MP cams.

If considering your own server, make sure you don't skimp on the RAID adaptor (aim for closer to the 20K baht end of the market, than the 3K Baht low end), and make sure you test it's ability to swap drives and successfully rebuild arrays.. In my experience, there's a lot of broken promises and really terrible performance in the low end.

Side note: our company SAN cost us over $250K USD - and it's not even that big - the sky is the limit when you start getting into it

All investment in hardware only serves a limited time. I wouldn't think too much about that.

Even if you buy a new computer to play the latest game you fancy, it will be outdated in 3 years max, because Intel brought some new CPU that will use less energy and do more with the Ghz its got, or the latest 6-core CPUs become cheap enough for everybody, and you'll need a new mobo for it, and the same goes for graphic adapters. It's hard to know what's coming anyway.

Buy what you'll NEED for the next 3-5 years, don't go top range, it's too expensive. It's quite a step from a backup drive to a DIY server, if you're not all that savvy.

I initially always find myself thinking the same way, and then decide on what will do the job, review a few tests and usually settle for the present "sweet spot" with regard to needs, performance and price. I'm not shelling out 400+ Euro for a graphic adapter, I buy them round the 150 Euro mark. In 3, maybe 5 y I then go for the next one in that what by then is in that price range. It'll be nicer than the 400 € from before and possibly do things the old couldn't have done. My present PC was bought in 2011, got a new SSD and HDs for capacity early this year, does everything no probs at all. Spare parts can still be used.

With your NAS, some fine day the HDs will need exchanging anyway, even if it's in 7 or 8 years. 4 TB too small, Raid or not? For what? The world's largest collection of movies? How often you gonna watch those, all of them? In God's name buy the next NAS in 4-5y, it will have all the jingles and bells then. Maybe normal HDs will be dying out by then and it'll be all SSDs for less energy and less noise. RInse, repeat. That much hassle if you got your collection on two NAS?

NAS manufacturers even do firmware and software upgrades, might or might includes the newest gadgets for the next 2y. Use your main PC if anything is missing. Use an old PC or get some Atom backbone to configure your DIY server, it's not gonna need that much horsepower.

You see I had this pet project for over 3 years building my own DIY server with a raid and everything. Had the spare parts from my practice but was too sick to get to it. Those 4 2TB 24/7 drives cost over 600 EUro, by now they're, well, no the newest ones. 3ware dedicated hardware raid for over 200 €, Tyan mainboard with a Xeon, 4 GB RAM. I now got round to assembling it, got a 6 TB stripe on raid 5. I'll not gonna use it, I'm moving to Thailand, Small appartment, all in one place, media will be streamed to the pool by that poor little above PC, 1 big drive for backup. (It's all in the cloud, anyway, Amazon, Itunes. That wasn't doable 4 years ago)

My Win7 DIY server in it's nice shiny HTPC case will rest on some shelf in Germany, after I have backed up all my files. It's probably too costly energy-wise to let it run 24/7 anyway and I am finding I'm no longer interested in all that dabbling around software, I'm not really using my Tablet with all it could do. I'd even sell that server, but I obviously can't get it to Thailand. Waste of money.

So, let's all cut to a chase in this thread: What is your present setup, what do you do on your PC now, what do you want to do in the near future?

[Spoonman]

Most NAS run under some implementaion of Linux to safe on licenses to Microsoft, those filesystem can handle harddisk sizes of which I'm not sure we'll see in our lifetime (EB=Exabyte). The 2.2 TB limit is for 32bit OS, such as MS Windows XP and NAS32 formatting (as the name implies).

If you're about to shell out that amount of money have a look a the manufacturer's website as to compatibility of HDs first anyway.

You're right, the price is an issue

Yesterday I found the Synology DS413J for THB 16,500 without disks.

Seagate, 2 bays including 4TB : THB 12,500

WD EX2 including 4TB : THB 12,900

Now compared to a WD Caviar Green 2 TB at THB 2,800

I wonder if the best option is then to add the disks to the computer that is going to run XBMC

Your opinion ?

BTW, as I'm running Win7 64, do I have still to worry about the 2.2 TB limit ?

I have the Synology DS413j and it performs well. I have used 2tb green HDD's I had laying around here. I had one die and it was a painless operation to replace and rebuild the array.

The remote access is great for when Iam travelling as I can stream my content.

[JesseFrank]

Most NAS run under some implementaion of Linux to safe on licenses to Microsoft, those filesystem can handle harddisk sizes of which I'm not sure we'll see in our lifetime (EB=Exabyte). The 2.2 TB limit is for 32bit OS, such as MS Windows XP and NAS32 formatting (as the name implies).

If you're about to shell out that amount of money have a look a the manufacturer's website as to compatibility of HDs first anyway.

You're right, the price is an issue

Yesterday I found the Synology DS413J for THB 16,500 without disks.

Seagate, 2 bays including 4TB : THB 12,500

WD EX2 including 4TB : THB 12,900

Now compared to a WD Caviar Green 2 TB at THB 2,800

I wonder if the best option is then to add the disks to the computer that is going to run XBMC

Your opinion ?

BTW, as I'm running Win7 64, do I have still to worry about the 2.2 TB limit ?

I have the Synology DS413j and it performs well. I have used 2tb green HDD's I had laying around here. I had one die and it was a painless operation to replace and rebuild the array.

The remote access is great for when Iam travelling as I can stream my content.

The WD green are horrible quality. I've 6 of them in a windows home server and all of them has failed at least once already under warranty. I've another 3 seagates in the same server and from those only 1 has failed under warranty yet.

Now as soon as they fail out of warranty I replace them with WD red.

[Spoonman]

I have 10 of them sitting here doing nothing. might as well use them up before buying new ones.