[saisunil]

Need help

1. Trying to get NAS in one place - away from any system
2. Wirelessly connect to two difference servers - Mac-mini or some audio server
3. Connect to two dacs - one server to one dac

A. What NAS would work here for about 4 TB total storage including RAID.
B. open to recommendations for server as well

Thanks
Sunil

[chip]

are you looking for prebuilt or DIY?

DIY -
Freenas, Vortexobox, WHS2011, unRAID. I am currently running unRAID on a HP Microserver n40l.

I don't keep up with the prebuilt systems but Drobo off the top of my head.

[persisting1]

If going prebuilt, Synology makes a good product.

Synology 
http://www.amazon.com/Synology-DiskStation-Diskless-Network-Attached/dp/B005YW7OLM/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1353196316&sr=1-1&keywords=synology

http://www.amazon.com/Synology-DiskStation-Diskless-Attached-DS411slim/dp/B004L87XAC/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1353196552&sr=8-3&keywords=synology+4+disc

Make sure you get server/NAS grade hard drives like the WD Red.

[saisunil]

Drobo mini looks interesting ... Small and fast

[chip]

What is the price on that? Does it come with hard drives?

I am sure we could build you something cheaper using either vortexbox, unraid, freenas.

[JEaton]

I hope you don't plan on relying on RAID for protecting your audio files. There's very little need for RAID in an audio server.

You can now buy 4TB drives. A single 4TB drive in an inexpensive file server and another one in an external case for doing backups will be a) cheaper, b) more reliable and c) safer and (probably) d) faster than a typical multiple-drive consumer NAS.

You don't necessarily need to use 4TB drives. I'm just trying point out that disk capacities now are so large that it's very easy to achieve very large storage capacities in a server. And that backing up a very large collection can be done to a single external drive.

[WC]

I hope you don't plan on relying on RAID for protecting your audio files. There's very little need for RAID in an audio server.

You can now buy 4TB drives. A single 4TB drive in an inexpensive file server and another one in an external case for doing backups will be a) cheaper, b) more reliable and c) safer and (probably) d) faster than a typical multiple-drive consumer NAS.

You don't necessarily need to use 4TB drives. I'm just trying point out that disk capacities now are so large that it's very easy to achieve very large storage capacities in a server. And that backing up a very large collection can be done to a single external drive.

+1

You can also get a 2 drive NAS and use 2TB drives. You will pay a premium for 4TB drives.

I have all the music files on a NAS. I can acess them from any of my computers. I have one computer running iTunes at my main system. I could place an airport express or appleTV in another room and airplay from the iTunes computer to a less important audio system like the deck or kitchen. I can control iTunes using the iPhone or iPad. It is convenient and saves me from having severs in every room of the house.

[toocool4]

I would say get something with RAID 5 for the redundancy, if any disk fails no down time just put in new one and it rebuilds it self. No need to remember to run backups. Check out Thecus NAS servers www.thecus.com

[WC]

I would say get something with RAID 5 for the redundancy, if any disk fails no down time just put in new one and it rebuilds it self. No need to remember to run backups. Check out Thecus NAS servers www.thecus.com

Won't help if you have a fire. 

Best to have a backup in a different location. Even the data on a RAID should be backed up.

[toocool4]

Won't help if you have a fire. 

Best to have a backup in a different location. Even the data on a RAID should be backed up.

Better not have a fire then or get burgled etc lol 

[JEaton]

I would say get something with RAID 5 for the redundancy, if any disk fails no down time just put in new one and it rebuilds it self. No need to remember to run backups. Check out Thecus NAS servers www.thecus.com

Poor advice. All RAID protects against is a drive failure. A backup does the same and far more. You can argue that a lack of down time is worth the additional complexity and expense, but I'd say not. Not for a music library that can be restored to a new drive(s) in a matter of hours. Additionally, a backup protects you against accidentally deleted files, corrupted files, files where you screw up while editing tags, fire, theft, lightning strikes...

I see many, many posts in computer forums from those who think RAID is magical, then when it comes time to recover from a drive failure (or worse, a controller or motherboard failure) they don't have a clue what to do. A significant percentage end up trashing the array in their fumbling attempts and they lose everything. And without a backup, they're completely SOL.

[saisunil]

So I did get a drobo mini NAS -
why NAS? I thought this would be a good way to access one library from two Media servers.
I agree - better than RAID would be a backup.

It also has an option for a fifth SSD drive - it acts as cache and increases the performance ...

We shall see ...

[jqp]

I agree that I would not go for RAID 5. RAID 5 is 'over rated' these days and probably obsolete - other raids are better these days if you are going to implement a complex high availability disk system (google if interested). And most Raid 5 solutions out there are merely software RAID 5 (slower) - on motherboards, NAS, etc. Check it out. You don't really want a software raid when you are having software and/or hardware problems...

As has been stated, a large, fast, relatively inexpensive hard disk, with a USB3 external drive for backup of that disk makes the most sense at home (yes 2 of each may be cheaper and more complex - I think ideal would be to rotate 2 identical external drives, keep one at a friends or your safety deposit box, or in your garage even.). And for the most important stuff i would also archive on DVDs or Blu-ray - burners and media are pretty affordable, but this is for the more ambitious. Truly good NASs are expensive, and more of a computer engineering exercise in the end for 98% of  the folks out there.

Convenience and simplicity, combined with a certain level of quality is key at home. I can guarantee that even the most skilled and knowledgeable IT folks do not want needless complexity at home.

I have multiple drives in multiple systems - this gives redundancy, but management of what is where gets away from you after a while. I also have en external eSATA drive cabinet with 4 1 or 2TB drives (purchased when they were $50-60/TB. My most important stuff is backed up to some of those drives.

I am looking for a quality inexpensive USB3 external drive in the 1-2TB range for more redundancy of data important to me, and also the same thing for a 64GB USB flash drive that can stay in my car.

Now, for 2  systems, if you have a solid wired network they are both on, you could have a backup drive for each machine in the other machine! Then another external drive to keep offsite.

I do not rely on wireless for anything if I can avoid it. Yes it is convenient, but not as stable nor as fast.  I guess it is the holy grail for digital audio at home, I am still in the stone age with my Nohr CD-1. But I am getting ready to look at putting all my music on the PC.

[toddbagwell]

Better not have a fire then or get burgled etc lol 

not to pile on, and no ill-temper here:

but if you or someone else deletes the files, they will be much easier to replace from a backup.
I had an Ipod 60gb and 80gb go on the fritz and delete many thousands of songs from my destop's HDD. while frustrating, a quick sync with my backup drive restored things to normal. these files would have been gone from the RAID 5 array if that was the only copy I had.

yes RAID protects you from individual drive failures, but not from theft, destruction, deletion or accidental "glitches" & human error.

Later,
Todd

[chip]

Even external drives can fail guys....nothing is safe. I was using an external drive at work a few years back and I had to replace the piece of crap 3 times. Finally gave up and just bought a drive and stuck it in a spare PC.

But yes if you want to be truly safe you do need to have some offsite backup if you value the data on the drive that much in case of theft/fire/etc. You can do this with external usb drives/thumb drives. The problem maybe where do you store the offsite info. There is the cloud as well but I myself don't trust that.