WHS versus NAS?
#16
It uses something that is similar to a RAID1, it lets you use folder duplication on whichever shares you want. I also use FlexRAID on top of WHS so i am able to do a software RAID4 for my movie collection
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#17
I thought it used a RAID5 configuration, but I guess I was wrong. Netgear touts their X-RAID as a more flexible version of RAID5 with easier volume expansion.

Were you getting the same performance (30-50MB/sec) before you used FlexRaid? I would have thought I should at least get this with the ReadyNas hardware RAID over gigabit, so that's why I'm wondering if WHS would be a better performance option. I will say that I haven't had any issues reading from the NAS, so in all, it's not a deal breaker for me yet. It just takes longer to copy my TBs of data over.
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#18
I'll chime in on the question. I've used a couple of home-brew NAS solutions, and buying a WHS was the smartest thing I have ever done. You may be able to pick up a HP or Acer WHS based on the 32-bit Windows Server 2003 (the current one) at a pretty low price; they just announced "Vail" the 64 bit version.

The HP WHS features a media collector that will scan the configured folders on each of your systems to automatically add the content to your library. So if you add a movie to your laptop, it is automatically copied to your video library. It backs up each of your computers automatically, can use redundant storage, and is easy as pie to set up. My daughter got a weird, stubborn virus on her XP machine, and I fussed with removing it for about 45 minutes ... then I popped in the WHS disk and restored her system to before the virus in two or three mouse clicks.

I'm not a big MS fan ... my upcoming XBMC mini-ITX system will run on linux ... but they got the WHS thing right. Still, I would avoid the new 64 bit version "Vail" until its proven to be OK.

I have mine as a media streamer, printer share, and back up device. A lot of guys go crazy and start adding applications to it, including QuickBooks, uTorrent clients, etc., and I think some of the concerns about them come from that angle.
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#19
fshagan Wrote:I'll chime in on the question. I've used a couple of home-brew NAS solutions, and buying a WHS was the smartest thing I have ever done. You may be able to pick up a HP or Acer WHS based on the 32-bit Windows Server 2003 (the current one) at a pretty low price; they just announced "Vail" the 64 bit version.

The HP WHS features a media collector that will scan the configured folders on each of your systems to automatically add the content to your library. So if you add a movie to your laptop, it is automatically copied to your video library. It backs up each of your computers automatically, can use redundant storage, and is easy as pie to set up. My daughter got a weird, stubborn virus on her XP machine, and I fussed with removing it for about 45 minutes ... then I popped in the WHS disk and restored her system to before the virus in two or three mouse clicks.

I'm not a big MS fan ... my upcoming XBMC mini-ITX system will run on linux ... but they got the WHS thing right. Still, I would avoid the new 64 bit version "Vail" until its proven to be OK.

I have mine as a media streamer, printer share, and back up device. A lot of guys go crazy and start adding applications to it, including QuickBooks, uTorrent clients, etc., and I think some of the concerns about them come from that angle.

Thanks for that feedback - in my current environment (mostly MS and one or two Macs) I was thinking that the WHS was the way to go. I was hoping that by going with a dedicated NAS solution, I would get better performance, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Plus, I was hoping for an easier and minimum maintenance solution.

What kind of performance are you seeing with your WHS box? Are you running gigabit and what types of drives are you using in it? I'm assuming that you have full redundancy in your data as well? Oh, and do you know how much power it uses (in full access and non-active) states?
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#20
FlexRAID has no affect on overall transfer speed, i use it solely for parity protection of my movie collection. So to answer your question, yes
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#21
akelley Wrote:Thanks for that feedback - in my current environment (mostly MS and one or two Macs) I was thinking that the WHS was the way to go. I was hoping that by going with a dedicated NAS solution, I would get better performance, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Plus, I was hoping for an easier and minimum maintenance solution.

What kind of performance are you seeing with your WHS box? Are you running gigabit and what types of drives are you using in it? I'm assuming that you have full redundancy in your data as well? Oh, and do you know how much power it uses (in full access and non-active) states?

I'm running a WHS box as well (the HP EX490 Media Smart Server). I echo the comments above about how wonderful the WHS setup is.

I am using gigabit network at home, and when I transfer files, I generally see transfer rates in the mid 70MB/s rate. As of this second, only my desktop PC is tapped into it, but it would be very easy to add other PCs to the network. For windows, just go to http://YOURSERVERNAME:55000 and from there you can download the WHS console.

I don't have redundancy on my videos, but that's because I keep the 1080p tracks for the blu rays I rip. Since I own my blu rays, if something goes horribly wrong, I can get them back with out too much difficulty. I should add, that to add redundancy to my videos, would require me to type in a password and have 2 mouse clicks.

Right now, I have 2x 1TB drives installed, this case allows for 2 other HDs to be installed, but there is a eSATA external plug, and I've heard that I could attach 5 other hard drives through there...

To add a HD, you don't even have to power off the system, you just take out an empty tray, place the hard drive inside (tool less mechanism), and insert the tray. WHS takes care of the rest.

I can't tell you how much power the device uses, but I don't imagine it's that much, there isn't even a video out port on this box.

WHS is a really brilliant product. I highly recommend it for NAS options, plus a little extra functionality.

This product has worked flawlessly out of the box. I seriously unboxed it, plugged it into my network, and ran the CD in my desktop. I was walked through the setup, which was not all that intensive (but somewhat time consuming). It updated itself, and gave me a warning about my WHS console application on my desktop being an incompatible version (although it was usable). That was fixed with a visit in my web browser to http://MYSERVERNAME:55000 and downloading the console app from there.
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#22
Ogi010 Wrote:I'm running a WHS box as well (the HP EX490 Media Smart Server). I echo the comments above about how wonderful the WHS setup is.

<SNIP>
Right now, I have 2x 1TB drives installed, this case allows for 2 other HDs to be installed, but there is a eSATA external plug, and I've heard that I could attach 5 other hard drives through there...
<SNIP>

I have the EX485, and like the 49- series, it has four drive bays, a few USB ports and an eSata port. One important difference, IIRC, is that the 49- series recognizes port multiplication on the eSata port; my EX485 does not, so I can only add one drive through that port if I'm intending it to be part of the "pool" of storage. That limits me to 5 fast drives, and slower USB drives on the EX485. You have the option of adding a eSata drive tower; there's a popular one out there that adds 4 drives and is very complementary in appearance to the HP WHS box.

I played with my WHS quite a bit at first, but now it just runs, backing up the computers every night, deleting the old backups according to the schedule, serving music, pictures and movies to the PCs and my TV. I think XBMC will be the perfect front end (the UI in the Samsung TV I have is horrible, and even the WDTV Live leaves a lot to be desired).

It also simplifies remote access to my files; just log into the website, add my username and password and I'm there.
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#23
which eSATA tower did you have in mind? I did a quick search on newegg and didn't find anything that looked similar to the HP Media Smart enclosures..
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#24
I just built a nas out of an old moboard with sata an old case, psu a usb pen drive and two 1t he (new) installed unraid took five mins to set up and have got everything backed up cheep and simple. ..
and it's a doddle to expand.
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#25
FWIW, read this thread.

NS
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#26
fwiw, I too looked at all the nas enclosures. Mostly larger ones (6 and 8 bay).. As said above, putting together a nas out of an old (or even new) computer is generally cheaper and for the most part better/faster. I am running openfiler and I love it.

-Erik
Don't be scared to ask questions. Odds are someone else is wondering the same thing.
Closet - Norco 4020 - Supermicro X8SAX - Intel i7-920 - Corsair HX1000 - Corsair XMS3 12GB - 10x1.5tb Raid 5 - 10x2tb Raid 5 - Openfiler VM inside Workstation Win7 x64
Living room - Silverstone ML02B-MXR - Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H - E8400 - OCZ Platinum Edition 4GB - Denon 3310CI
Bedroom - Antec Mini Skeleton - Zotac IONITX-B-E @ 1.92ghz - AVS Gear HA-IR01SV - A-DATA G series 4GB - Denon 2808CI
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#27
Ogi010 Wrote:which eSATA tower did you have in mind? I did a quick search on newegg and didn't find anything that looked similar to the HP Media Smart enclosures..

Well, "similar" is in the eye of the beholders, I guess. They are about the same size, and in black they complement the MSS or Acer ES servers. The "SansDigital Towers" are the ones I see mentioned most often ... if you search the comments for "WHS" you'll see a lot of people are using them to expand the drive pool.

The Addonics unit actually looks closer to the mesh front on the MSS. Some of the guys on the Media Smart Home Forums are using them.
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#28
I've found WHS to be rock solid.... my home build machine does everything from general storage to transcoding as well as fully backing up all my home computers to a point where I can restore them from a boot disk.
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#29
Question: How much impact does the CPU have on raw throughput of either a NAS or a WHS box? When I originally started thinking about going WHS I looked at some of the Atom based boxes for the lower cost and lower power requirements. I started to think that the lower CPU power would limit my ability to add additional functionality in the future or the performance would be really slow.

NotShorty, I've read that post a couple of times now. I guess I'm asking specifically if all things similar (CPU, memory, network, etc.) should a pure NAS perform better than a WHS? I ask because what I have now (NAS) is not impressive to me but I can't compare that to anything else, so I wanted to get some feedback as to if my ReadyNas just isn't configured or tuned correctly, or if a completely different solution would be better.

Thanks for all the great responses - very helpful!
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#30
akelley Wrote:I ask because what I have now (NAS) is not impressive to me but I can't compare that to anything else...

Why speculate? Try out the WHS Vail Beta and do a side by side comparison.
http://connect.microsoft.com/windowshomeserver

Any old hardware you have lying around should be able to run it. My old 1GHz Athlon rig served up files just fine. Couldn't transcode on the fly, but with low power consumption I could run it 24/7 without racking up a huge electric bill.

NS
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