Linux Format forums

Arthur_Dent · Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2012 10:24 am Post subject: NAS?

Hello all,

Following a disk failure and the lamentable failure of my backup strategy I am thinking of investing in a NAS box on which to store regular backups of my Fedora17 home server and Fedora16 desktop PC.

I'm not big into music streaming and such like, but I might have a think about that out of curiousity.

The main requirements are that it is quiet (24/7 working), reliable (24/7 working) and able to be used effortlesly with Linux but also with a couple of Windows machines used by less enlightened members of the household.

This is a home setup and, with a fearsome wife who does not understand the attraction of shiny toys-for-boys and so the number one requirement is COST!

I am thinking about this one with a 2Tb drive. What do others think?

I would be very grateful for any helpful advice / suggestions...

Thanks

Mark

Dutch_Master · LXF regular Joined: Tue Mar 27, 2007 2:49 am Posts: 2359

A single 2 TB drive isn't gonna solve your backup problems... Get 2 drives, of different manufacturers. Can't tell you anything about the device itself, as I'm using a RAID 5 setup on a home-brew file server instead Smile

roseway · LXF regular Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2007 2:27 pm Posts: 410

In general, NAS boxes are small Linux machines configured to interface with Windows machines by using CIFS. For Windows machines they're more or less plug & play. To access them from a Linux machine you need to manually configure a suitable fstab line using CIFS - not too difficult, but not entirely straightforward.
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Eric

Paradigm Shifter · Joined: Sat May 19, 2012 1:16 pm Posts: 84

If you've got an old system lying around, turn that into a NAS box. Smile

FreeNAS is awesome, although if using ZFS is a bit RAM hungry... 1GB of RAM for every 1TB of HDD is recommended. I'd always recommend going RAID5 or RAID6 for a NAS box; which if using an 'off the shelf' NAS means one that can deal with 3 or 4 HDDs (obviously you can get ones that handle more, but price goes up exponentially). I'm using a Synology DS411j at the minute, which isn't bad but was fairly pricy.

If price the ultimate decider, that dual bay one you linked plus a pair of 2TB drives in RAID1 is probably the best option... unless you've got a collection of spares around and can build your own, of course.

Arthur_Dent · Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2012 2:30 pm Post subject:

@ Dutch_Master - Thanks for that - useful advice...

Paradigm Shifter · Joined: Sat May 19, 2012 1:16 pm Posts: 84

einonm · Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2012 5:47 pm Post subject:

I would wholeheartedly recommend a Synology NAS - they aren't the cheapest NAS out there, but the support and software you get is second to none IMHO. It does Linux/mac/windows/DLNA sharing and even allows you to set up a local iTunes server, if you're into that sort of thing.
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"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." --Brian Kernighan