+- Kodi Community Forum (https://forum.kodi.tv)
+-- Forum: Discussions (https://forum.kodi.tv/forumdisplay.php?fid=222)
+--- Forum: Hardware (https://forum.kodi.tv/forumdisplay.php?fid=112)
+--- Thread: WHS versus NAS? (/showthread.php?tid=73287)
WHS versus NAS? - akelley - 2010-05-05
I'm trying to determine if I should go WHS or NAS route. My requirements mainly are:
1. 4-bay or more
2. medium data security (RAID 5 or similar) versus performance
3. low power requirements (on 24/7)
4. Easy to use (minimum setup and maintenance)
5. accessible from both Mac and PCs
6. Cost (~$400 - $500 not including drives)
nice to have but not required:
1. Automated backup of computers on network
2. DLNA server
3. Remote access capability
I started my research around the WHS platform and liked what I saw in the HP line and even from Acer. I liked the low power benefit of using an Atom processor in some of them. But I wasn't sure if I needed all the benefits of the WHS OS and started to wonder if it was a lot of overhead (the OS) then going with a NAS box. I also thought that a NAS box would be cheaper in general to a full WHS solution, but was quite surprised when that wasn't the case (I'm referring to retail solutions like ReadyNas and the like - not DIY solutions).
So this got me thinking, what are the real benefits of WHS over a traditional NAS? If my primary use is to serve media to my XBMC clients, wouldn't a NAS be fine? Then again, cost wise, a NAS isn't always much cheaper (and sometimes more) than a WHS solution. From a technical standpoint my understanding is the WHS doesn't use a true hardware RAID solution but is software. For what I'm looking to do, is this a big deal? Would a ReadyNas NV+ be better, performance and data security wise? And why are the ReadyNas boxes almost as expensive, if not more, than a WHS solution from say HP (I'm thinking that the WHS license itself adds almost $100 to the hardware cost)?
So any insight into this would be helpful!
- outleradam - 2010-05-05
That WHS is a NAS with additional features. NAS is Network Attached Storage. It's not a "versus" question. It's a question of do you want to pay extra for all the features? My 1tb HD plugged into my router works great. It cost $300 total including the router. You do not need RAID on a NAS. A single hard disk has been able to max out a network connection since networks were invented.
- akelley - 2010-05-05
outleradam Wrote:That WHS is a NAS with additional features. NAS is Network Attached Storage. It's not a "versus" question. It's a question of do you want to pay extra for all the features? My 1tb HD plugged into my router works great. It cost $300 total including the router. You do not need RAID on a NAS. A single hard disk has been able to max out a network connection since networks were invented.
I realize that the WHS provides NAS functionality, but as you point out, and what my OP was asking, is it worth the WHS features over a NAS box from a technical and financial perspective (so yes, it is a "versus" question)? My requirement also includes 4 or more hard drives so I don't think your solution would work for me (I suppose you could attach 4 hard drives to a router if you really wanted).
Also, many NAS boxes provide more than just network attached storage - some have DLNA servers, media en/trans-coding capabilities, etc. My question is specifically to NAS boxes (not plugging a harddrive into your router) versus WHS. Yes, the two can provide similar functionality, but what are the merits of one solution over the other?
- outleradam - 2010-05-05
well, my $100 WRT160NL supports uPnP DLNA, Windows File Sharing, and has security. From there you can add a hard disk or stack hard disks on with a 4 port USB extender. Transfers can be slow compared to plugging in the USB HD to my computer.
Noone can tell you what hardware is good and what is bad. You generally get what you pay for. It's all a question of *What* you're paying for. For me, I would not need a WHS. It would cost too much and come with features which I would not need on my network.
My WRT160NL does everything I need including: Mounts as a network drive, provides temporary storage for transferring files between computers, provides long term storage for backing up critical items, provides a repository for recorded video files from two separate computers, provides a repository for shared iTunes libraries, provides a uPnP DLNA server with all music/pictures/video, provides shares based upon username/password, and shares can be accessed from work by accessing my home IP address.
If you need more then that, you should buy the WHS.
- idioteque - 2010-05-05
a windows server is a windows server and with my experience with windows servers is that they need permanent maintenance.
So if you can spare the time, go for WHS.
If you want less features but no maintenance go for a *nix NAS
- ph77 - 2010-05-05
Why spend all this money for licenses (WHS) or fixed solutions (NAS)?
Just buy a good case with accessible drive bays, an atom board, some ram & the disks, put a Debian/Ubuntu server, set it up *once* with some softraid, samba and backup solution and you are done. It covers all your basic and extra needs, it's flexible, economic, expandable, easy, secure and robust.
- akelley - 2010-05-05
ph77, good suggestion, but how difficult is that? I haven't used Unix in almost 20 years so my skills are quite rusty, hence my requirement for "ease of setup and maintenance". From the previous poster's response, it seems that WHS is the "easy" version of Windows Server - is there an "easy" version (or package) for Linux that is easy to setup and maintain for my purposes?
- ph77 - 2010-05-05
akelley Wrote:ph77, good suggestion, but how difficult is that? I haven't used Unix in almost 20 years so my skills are quite rusty, hence my requirement for "ease of setup and maintenance". From the previous poster's response, it seems that WHS is the "easy" version of Windows Server - is there an "easy" version (or package) for Linux that is easy to setup and maintain for my purposes?IMO, modern Linux distributions are relatively easy, if you don't run into hardware issues, which in the case of a simple server I doubt that you'll have.
Go and download the new Ubuntu Desktop to see what I am talking about. Burn it to a cd and boot from it without installing it. If you like what you'll see, try an installation. There are hundred tutorials about setting up a softraid, samba and some nice backup system. Once everything is set nicely, you'll be able to access everything via web interface from your local lan or outside. At the end you can uninstall the desktop packages and have a nice headless server running 24/7 with no interferences. I haven't touch my Debian server in over six months now. It just works.
- kizer - 2010-05-05
Personally I use a couple of DNS-323 toaster sytle NAS's, which only spin up and run when I connect to them. I have drives in them and backups sitting on a shelf. Sure its not a fancy raid system, but one of your requirements was low power. Your not going to get a lower power system requirement spining 5 drives no matter what anybody tells you.
- akelley - 2010-05-05
kizer Wrote:Personally I use a couple of DNS-323 toaster sytle NAS's, which only spin up and run when I connect to them. I have drives in them and backups sitting on a shelf. Sure its not a fancy raid system, but one of your requirements was low power. Your not going to get a lower power system requirement spining 5 drives no matter what anybody tells you.
Doesn't the OS or the firmware in the drives spin them down when they're not being used? Or is your point that in a RAID installation all drives are spinning all the time?
- ph77 - 2010-05-05
kizer Wrote:Personally I use a couple of DNS-323 toaster sytle NAS's, which only spin up and run when I connect to them. I have drives in them and backups sitting on a shelf. Sure its not a fancy raid system, but one of your requirements was low power. Your not going to get a lower power system requirement spining 5 drives no matter what anybody tells you.Spinning up and down a drive aggressively can wear a drive out quite quickly; I have seen quite a few dead external disks because of that.
Best thing is to buy disks that support advanced power management and set them up correctly.http://www.lesswatts.org/tips/disks.php
- akelley - 2010-05-10
So I went ahead and got a ReadNas NV+, put in two Seagate 2TB, and used the default X-RAID, resulting in 1.8T of available space (fully redundant). I have to admit I'm not terribly impressed with this setup. Transfer speeds to and from my XBMC box averages 15MB/sec over a gigabit switch (it was doing half that when I had Jumbo Frames enabled). Is this normal? I would think I should be seeing in the 20-30MB/sec speeds.
Some cons:
Fan seems to be running non-stop at 2200 rpm - is this normal even when there is no activity for a long period of time? The fan also seems loud to me, but that's pretty subjective.
UI to manage the box is pretty sluggish in responsiveness - maybe because the weak processor and only 256MB RAM?
Had to do some pretty extensive configuring to get Win7 64 enterprise to access the shares. And once I did, it was difficult to get the username and groups to work properly.
And this probably doesn't have anything to do with the ReadyNAS, but each time the drives spin up or shut down, they click. Not sure if this is normal - they don't seem to click during read/writes, and I don't have the option on the ReadyNAS to spin down the drives (after 5 minutes of inactivity), so I'm wondering if the drives are doing this on their own to save power (these are the Low Power Seagate drives).
Pros:
The box looks nice, good build quality.
So, if I were to spend another $300 more and pick up a WHS box from say HP, would I experience similar problems? I'm really looking for a near "plug and play" solution. I realize some configuring is required, but the ReadyNAS certainly wasn't that - and I feel that I haven't configured it 100% right to be getting the full performance out of it. Then again, since this is my first NAS, I don't have anything to compare it to.
Any suggestions? Is this performance what I should be expecting from a NAS, and if not, correctly configured would it still provide better performance than a comparable WHS solution? I'm willing to work to get it right if the ReadyNAS is/can be as good or better than a similar WHS box.
- CASHMON3Y - 2010-05-10
I would also check out freenas, its entirely web based after the install and there are tons of tutorials on how to do things. It also has a fairly large list of features, check it out and you'll see what I mean.
- hermy65 - 2010-05-10
I currently am using a home built WHS server with FlexRaid running on top of that. I have had no issues with it so far and get about 30-50MB/sec over gigabit
- akelley - 2010-05-10
hermy65, does WHS use software RAID?