Small medical issue had me away for a while. Sorry;
But @2korda2, if you've been in the computer industry for that long directly and couldn't rattle off acceptable hardware in a few seconds, I wouldn't want you working for me. I'm also on the software side. But to write good software, you have to know the hardware that is involved. Unless you're just some .NET or Java programmer that just write in a software box. But that's not the computer industry. Or IT for that matter. I know plenty of IT professionals that couldn't tell you a CPU from a hard drive. They just work with windows and if it's not windows, and doesn't fall in their 'checklist', they are totally lost (and usually still so if it is). IT just is NOT what it used to be and it's disgusting they are allowed the same labels.
However, the bulk of the people that come to Tom's I suspect are more savvy. I'd bet any one of them could easily put together a basic system in a very short amount of time. Just chip/board/ram. Just make sure the chip fits the board and the ram fits the board. It's pretty basic simple stuff. And for a server like this, any single-core budget-rig would be more then enough. OK, they might have to take a bit to figure out which RAID controller to use or how they work since that is likely out of their comfort zone but. AS for the core, it's extremely basic. If you've built and planned your own boxes in the past, and tell me right now you couldn't list SOMETHING that would work. I'd have to call you out on that one. You might spend a whole weekend, but you'd be wasting your time when you know there are almost no system requirements for a setup like this accept for the drive system. If you were building an enterprise grade drive to host thousands of users, sure. But even one server for a few families even, any old PC is more then enough. Find the RAID card you want to use, then get a board that can handle that format (most are PCIe today) and finish it off.
[citation][nom]milktea[/nom]With regards to RAID, yes ideally any RAID 0,1,2..5,6 should work the same regardless of the manufacturer. And I agree that when one RAID box died, you should be able to remove the drives and move it to any RAID boxes. But the reality isn't always so ideal. I've heard horror stories, drives got re-initialized when first put into a new RAID storage just because it wasn't initialized in that box prior. You probably never seen this issue because you've always build your own server solution. But if you buy one of those boxed RAID solution, then it's at the mercy of the manufacturer.[/citation]
Just because 'I' don't use them, doesn't mean I've not been exposed to them.. and a LOT. All of the failures come to me to retrieve the data. And I've done just about every manufacturer out there. So far, no problems. People who have these nightmares most likely don't generally have an idea what they are doing or just get slap happy with them and don't do any research before installing them in the new units.
IF there was something that locked the drives to the unit specifically, that is NOT a RAID standard. That's whatever they made up themselves. This might be common with real no-name brands maybe but... (and you want to put your data into one of these things?!?)
But MORE IMPORTANTLY, on the flip-side, you assume that if you use RAID 1 and NTFS, that you'll simply be able to yank out the drive and stick it in a windows box and get your data... THIS may not be true either. It greatly depends on the disk header, partition, block-level optimization, etc. it used. And THOSE changes are what make various items able to read others not work. So you could easily get some box and do RAID 1 NTFS and still not be able to stick it into a PC. Odds are just the same as the 'nightmares' of people not being able to put RAID drives from one controller to another. And while I've used a ton of the brands out there, I'm sure there is some that don't work. Just as some will not in this situation. NTFS/EXT#, etc are just the file systems on the drives. You also have the containers and headers. You might be familiar with MBR (Master Boot Record). Windows is also starting to use GPT (GUID Partition Table) also now. But there are MANY, many others.
[citation][nom]milktea[/nom]So there could be format compatability problems between manufacturers. And I would not bet on the fact that a RAID setup I have now would work on another RAID setup from a 'different' manufacturer 10 years from now.[/citation]
RAID is an industry standard. They don't get changed it or it's not a standard. When time dictates a change is necessary (like now), new formats are created or old formats thought at the time senseless or pointless or 'overkill' like RAID 50 and 60 which are becoming more popular.
[citation][nom]milktea[/nom]And with regards to the file system performances... well that's just another whole new topic. I think Tom's might have a good thread on that. But what matters is that RAID 1 setup on the Dual Drives External Enclosure is completely sufficient for Home usage. So there's no point to even look beyond that.[/citation]
You couldn't be more incorrect; Depends ENTIRELY on the home. For yourself, sure, perhaps. But (I had a long example typed out but I'm just going to get to the point instead
RAID 1 is only sensible for 2 drive setups; or 1 drive worth of storage. If you need more then that, your far better served going to another format. I.E. Add one more drive (3 total) and go to RAID 5 and double your storage with still drive-failure security and improve speeds at the same time (although 5 is becoming less popular with large drives, and even less popular as sizes go up, but that's another topic).
To me, the whole POINT of having a NAS to begin with is for security (and speed) and the items in ONE shared location. Not spanned over multiple drives or arrays (which I have done in the past with pictures by years for example).
These past sentences were more targeted for my 'to do 12TB with RAID 1' stuff I had typed out before but... But that's all another argument. But the basic point is single-drive (same as 2-drive RAID 1) storage is NOT enough for plenty of people for 'Home use'. Otherwise > 2 drive systems wouldn't even exist for consumer use. And it has to be a considerable number for them to exist also, not just a rare few. A lot of people think 2 or more TB is a lot. It really is not depending on what you're doing. With a HD Video Camera for example, you burn through space SOOO fast.
[citation][nom]milktea[/nom]By the way, RAID 0 with two SSD is so fast, just completely saturates the SATA bandwidth. So just curious (and off topic), does any of your RAID setup comes close to the 2xSSD speed?[/citation]
No it doesn't. To do that, you would have to have each unit saturate it's SATA port independently. Each drive is on it's own SATA port (or SAS port supporting 4 SATA 6G ports). I'd love to see the drive that could do that but am not aware of any sustained rate drives of that caliber yet. Still, the problem would be instead of capping the network instead. Especially if you're doing this over WiFi. There is no speed in WiFi. My house is wired Cat6E to do my home video streams in HD. WiFi can't handle that. There are a few specialized products now but they do something different other then your regular 'n' protocol and/or also change the video from it's original state.
[citation][nom]milktea[/nom]Also, I've tried running Ubuntu in a VirtualBox before. I don't find it any more appealing than Windows O/S. And I just don't have the bandwidth to learn another o/s like Linux. For a typical 'Home' user, one O/S is sufficient. And I've chosen MS Windows.Trying to convince me to use Linux is like I'm trying to convince you to use Windows. Really, no point in doing that. By the way, I do respect other O/S users, Unix, Linux, MAC. We all have our own preferences.
[/citation]
Ohh comeon... Again, you TOTALLY misunderstood me and took it way out to left field. You were acting like EXT was the anti-Christ or something and your data would explode if you couldn't get it to NTFS. Honestly I have only one Linux box at home out of my cluster of servers and various different computers for different reasons. And that one only because I didn't want to dump another $100 on an OEM Windows license when it absolutely was NOT necessary in any way for the task.
But to boot up a system that can easily read EXT formats is a joke. Ridiculously easy to the point of being laughable. The nightmare to me would be having to deal with a failed box to begin with. (Hence building your own. MUCH less likely to fail using standard drivers, OSs, etc. then some companies 'firmware' cover-all option. Especially if they're doing non-standard stuff to an otherwise standard RAID array.) I NEVER told you to 'convert' to Linux. EVER! And frankly a bit ticked you even suggest that I did. I simply told you how simple it was to use it if you need it and the fact that a lot of avid computer users get a kick out of the LiveDVDs cause they've never heard of such a thing (with windows), I thought you might get a kick out of it.
Apparently, with a stupid comment like that though, you're just trying to troll me.
[citation][nom]milktea[/nom]But you are probably running multple flavors of the above O/Ses, so it probably doesn't matter to you.When the NAS system breaks down, the 'first' thing I want is to recover my valuable data, and the 'last' thing I want is to dig through my junks to look for a 'LiveDVD' to boot to an o/s that I've never used.
[/citation]
Don't have to dig, just make a new one... $1 for media. That's the whole point. Emergency situation arises; takes just a few minutes to download and burn a new disk to do everything you need.
[citation][nom]milktea[/nom]The point is that, for an average home users, the simpler the better. 1 Desktop (Windows), 1 Monitor, 1 (NTFS) NAS, 1 internet connection, 1 keyboard, 1 mouse. Anything more than that means headache.
[/citation]
Well, I'm sorry, but with THAT hardware, I would never even suggest a NAS at all. You only have one accessing device so just put the drives inside your computer and build a RAID 1 array and call it a day. Most any rig made in the last decade can do on-board software standard RAID 1 without any more hardware then compatible drives... To spend money at all on a stand-alone NAS box for that type of configuration would just be a total waste as well as possible added headache regardless of it's flavor. Computer won't hold two more drives? There's tons of USB/eSATA extended dual-drive boxes out there that can do the exact same thing. And better so cause a lot of them let you configure one drive up as the external drive and their software 'mirrors' the other one. Fixes the possible RAID headers, etc. problems. And EVEN if you had multiple devices accessing it. That's what 'shared drives' are for... And again, Wake on Lan, almost no power used while idle... It's pretty hard to argue FOR a NAS in that situation to be honest. At that point it's just the people that want the new 3-letter acronym in their house but have no real practical purpose at all for it.
[citation][nom]milktea[/nom]I'm sure you are capable of much much more than that. But I hope you see my point.Oh, BTW, I just remember something that is a variant of the NAS+SAN combo. Take a look at the ' Patriot Gauntlet Node'. It is 2.5" protable WiFi + USB3.0 external enclosure. You can access the drive through WiFi, which means similar to a strip down NAS. Or you can plug that directly into a computer using USB3.0 cable, which simply means an (fast) external enclousure. And you can format it NTFS! So it isn't so far fetch after all to think of a NAS+SAN under the same roof.I mean Intel/AMD has already fused a CPU with GPU into the same die, and completely removed the North Bridge. So why can't you have a NAS+SAN combo? I'm glad that at least Patriot has thought about it. I'm just hoping that they will put a GBethernet connector to it and put a RAID controller on that thing (for at least 2 drives).[/citation]
Didn't say it couldn't be done, said it wouldn't likely be as profitable and hence wouldn't likely be done. The one you mentioned was a pretty enormous flop. You can get one now for less then half of their original price. I have one if you want it. (they never worked right, by the way and only accepts 2.5" drives (laptops use these drives)... WiFi on it was HORRIBLE, even sitting 5' from the router; not to mention pointlessly slow. People don't realize how slow WiFi is. The advantage is it's easy to implement though and obvious convenience.) And SAN is another topic entirely...
As for what we WANT; I want a HD camera that can format removable memory to something other then FAT (2G file limits = short time limits or file spliting)... But that hasn't happened yet either. At least not on a consumer level. Or just make them use Laptop HDDs and make them REMOVABLE! Good grief... So simple. But... And the bummer is, I can NOT build one of these myself... :-/ They could format the drives to whatever they want and have a 'dock' to make them readable by the computers. But no... FAT is cheaper then new development for the few thousand consumers that enjoy true HD video recording experiences.
Look, we get it. You want one. Great. You'll probably be waiting a while. I wish we both could have our wishes but... That's not how real life tends to work. And what 'we' see as sensible and useful, companies wanting to sell millions to billions of units do not unless they're trying to make headlines of some sort (it happens, they make something cause no one has yet regardless of the possible cost issues). But to be honest, it's more about the file systems (EXT/NTFS) journal capabilities, error correction, fragmentation (not NTFS's strong suit), error reporting, etc. and how to capture those all from a tiny chip. AND, how much it will cost the company in volumes of millions and more. That's all they care about.
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