UKBouldering.com
technical => computers, technology and the internet => Topic started by: slackline on June 13, 2010, 07:23:37 am
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Get a NAS (Network Add-on Storage). If you're really bothered you can get one with multiple HD's and set them up in a RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID). Alternatively you could just set up RAID within a desktop.
If you go with a NAS, then if you're using Macs you can setup a cron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cron) and schedule an rsync (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rsync) job to backup your files (very efficient way of doing incremental backups as after the first sync it only copies the bits of files that have changed).
Lots of options out there, it has the added bonus that NAS's tend to be packed with features as they are running embedded GNU/Linux distributions (as is your Western Digital MyBook btw, and you can hack it to have this functionality too (http://mybookworld.wikidot.com/)). This means you can have uPnP servers (which make your music & video available to things like PS3 and Xbox), run web-servers (and optionally wiki/forum software), general file server so you can mount them as network drives from your Macs/other computers and save data there directly and loads of other things (e.g. set up your own mp3 streaming radio on your homenetwork).
I use a rather dated Linksys NSLU2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSLU2) with a couple of USB drives attached, but I'd recommend QNAP (http://www.qnap.com/) NAS's as they seem to be the most feature rich in terms of the software they imlement.
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Echoing Slacklines advice, definitely go the NAS route - I've got a little Icybox 4220 (http://www.raidsonic.de/en/products/nas-systems.php?we_objectID=5678) running 2 x 1 TB drives in it. It uses hardly any power, runs Linux so no defragging issues, and can act as a bittorrent client negating the need to leave a computer on.
I didn't go the mirrored RAID route, but I will just ensure I replace the drives every 3 years instead (it's an enclosure, not an external drive). This is a riskier policy but if a drive doesn't fail shortly after it's new then it's not that likely to fail within a few years.
If you want to splash some cash, then some of the high-end offerings from Raidsonic and other manufacturers are amazing - you could easily setup a huge amount of RAID mirrored storage.
I would also go for an enclosure rather than a NAS with a fixed built in drive. That way you can upgrade/replace drives easily as higher capacities become more economical - 2TB drives are now almost the same price as the 1TB drives I bought when I got my NAS.
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Yes you could have 2 drives mirrored as one, but I was greedy for the storage space :)
Yes, it needs to be cabled to the router, and it works no problem with my old 100mb cards, and my wireless 54g - I guess the router handles all that stuff.
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Yes, it needs to be cabled to the router, and it works no problem with my old 100mb cards, and my wireless 54g - I guess the router handles all that stuff.
:agree: As long as its connected to your router, it doesn't really matter what speed connection, it should work (although obviously the max speed will be limited by the slowest connection, so if you've a 100Mbps connection between your router and NAS, but you're using a laptop which only has 802.11g support then it will be limited by the wireless connection which has a theoretical max of 54Mbps).
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NAS's are great, really lower power solution to having your media available to any computer on your network all the time.
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:thumbsup:
Let me know if you've questions about rsync/cron.
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Bummer. Sounds like there might be some kind of conflict?
Interested in this NAS think myself... as its via a router, is it possible to set it up for access through the net?
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Bummer. Sounds like there might be some kind of conflict?
Yeah, its called "Macintosh" :P
Interested in this NAS think myself... as its via a router, is it possible to set it up for access through the net?
Yes, you just set your router to port-forward to the NAS. For example I have my NAS running a wiki that I use primarily to keep notes of computing shit I do. As I do a lot of stuff at work too I want to be able to edit the wiki from work. The standard port for http is port 80, so I set the router to forward requests on this port to the NAS, and hey presto (http://kimura.no-ip.org/dokuwiki/doku.php). If you install something like Transmission on the NAS for torrents then it sits there headless (i.e. without a graphical interface), but you manage everything via a WebUI, so you just point your browser at the relevant web-page and port (the built in daemon runs on port 9091) and you can manage stuff from any computer on your homenetwork. If you want to manage them from anywhere on t'net then set your router to port-forward requests on 9091 to your NAS. Similarly I've set up my own mp3 streaming at home, but have port-forwarded requests on the relevant port (can't remember which for this one) and can listen to my music streamed from my NAS whilst sat at work.
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You had me at 'Yes'. The rest went over my head, but accessing your music from work sounds perfect. Haven't got a pot to piss in at the mo, but when I have I'll be getting this set up. Ta.
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So got a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo today with a couple of 2TB disks, plugged them in, booted it up, set it up as RAID1, got it talking to the network no problem ... then immediately broke it by misguidedly letting the Mac Time Machine utility try to use it. It's now grumpily rebuilding its volumes over 10 hours ... will man up and try to get rsync working instead once it's up again..
Ive had one of these for a while now - whilst its pretty good it aint perfect. File transfer times can be very slow, expecially via the inbuilt USB port. If you have the DLNA set to auto index then youll find transfers fail after a period of time. Theres a few other teething issues I had too (cant remember now) but all in all its pretty good, The remote client is good too which gives you access over the internet without any poking around with the router.
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Ive had one of these for a while now - whilst its pretty good it aint perfect. File transfer times can be very slow, expecially via the inbuilt USB port.
But its a NAS, why are you using USB port? (Guess you could be backing up an external USB drive to the NAS maybe?).
If you have the DLNA set to auto index then youll find transfers fail after a period of time.
Only an issue if you're using uPnP/DLNA, and I'd be that failures are a symptom of trying to transfer whilst an update to the index is occurring. 99% certain you'll be able to configure the frequency of auto-indexing (you can in Mediatomb anyway, would also depend if the software supports inotify functionality).
Its great that Linux is being used so widely these days :)
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Then the machine locks up, has to be forcibly rebooted and takes 10 hours to resync its two disks >:(
Thats about right I'm afraid for syncing two RAID1 disks. I had a problem with one of my 1TB drives (x2 in a RAID1 setup) the other day and it took about 4-5 hours to sync across. If this is an issue, you could potentially remove one of the discs, transfer/back everything up, then drop the disk in and let it sit there for 10hours syncing.
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What baffles me is that it has nothing (yet) to sync ...
But the software that runs RAID1 doesn't know that, the discs are identical and all its doing is sitting there and going through every sector and checking that they're the same on the two drives.
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As I understand it, rysync is tolerant of dropped transfers so perhaps will have to be using that until I have a better router. Slackers: do you initiate your rsync jobs from the client (which looks simpler) or from the NAS itself (the ReadyNAS in theory has some utility to do that but I am confident it won't work ...)?
Its not so much that rsync is tolerant to dropped transfers, its just that its different that saying "copy all of this directory" because files that do make it across won't be copied again (unless they've been modified) when you re-issue the command.
I initiate rsync from both my client (desktop/laptop) and my NAS, but thats because I ssh into the NAS and mess around from there (its no different to doing anything from a terminal on any of my other computers).
No idea what or how ReadyNAS works, but if you can enable ssh on the NAS and setup a user account (its a bad idea to do everything as root) then once thats all done something like the following will back up your $HOME directory on your mac to the users account on the NAS (obviously it can be adjusted to reflect any partitioning scheme and so forth that you have chosen for the NAS)...
rsync -av ~/* [nas host name|ip address]:~/.
If you're transferring lots of files some benefit can be gained from including the '-z' flag which enables compression, but its pretty pointless for JPEG/OGG/MP3/AVI since these are compressed formats anyway.
If you don't want to mess around with the CLI you might consider installing grsync (http://www.opbyte.it/grsync/) which is a GTK+ GUI for rsync and should be easy to install on a Mac. How you go about doing this is a matter of choice, and I don't know masses about installing additional software on OSX, but I do know that Gentoo's (http://www.gentoo.org/) portage package management system can be used to install packages (and their dependencies) from source under OSX without causing any conflicts to the main system. See here (http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/gentoo-alt/prefix/) to get started.
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Has anyone used / seen of of these babies G Safe by Hitachi (http://www.g-technology.com/products/g-safe.cfm) ?
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Just bought a Readynas duo from ebuyer - 200 quid which included a preinstalled 1TB Seagate barracuda drive - plus until september ish, a downloadable form off the netgear site plus an invoice and the barcode off the box gets a free 'nother 1TB drive.
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Its probably this one (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/143121). Most NAS's are cabled to connect to networks, although clients (i.e. laptops) can connect to wireless home networks and still mount the network file systems. It should be agnostic to the OS on the clients.
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:oops: I linked to indicate that its wired (I'm yet to come across wireless NAS's, although I'm sure there are some already out there on the market).
What problems are you still having?
If its syncing a laptop connected wirelessly to your network can you sync ok with a wired connection (this would suggest that your wireless network connection from your laptop to your wireless router is dodgy and drops connections).
Hundreds of layers and points at where things can go wrong, process of elimination to go through them all.
Any logs from the NAS itself (you'll likely have to ssh into it and look in /var/log/ for something relevant)?
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It is that one slackers linked to. Wired to an Ethernet socket on my router. A win7 machine connects to this also by wire, and a netbook running xp by wireless sees it fine too, the shares all just appeared by magic.
Transfers are slow- apparently a gig of RAM can help
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It is that one slackers linked to. Wired to an Ethernet socket on my router. A win7 machine connects to this also by wire, and a netbook running xp by wireless sees it fine too, the shares all just appeared by magic.
Transfers are slow- apparently a gig of RAM can help
Why would more RAM increase the speed of transfers? The speed at which RAM communicates with other components on the motherboard/within the NAS is way, way, way quicker than your wired or wireless network will ever reach. Start with looking at improving the network connections first. The spec of the NAS indicates that it has gigabit ethernet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabit_Ethernet) which is pretty fast, but does your router support this (what model is it, check out the spec)? On the wireless front do you have an 802.11b, 802.11g or 802.11n on the router? What spec is the wireless card on the laptop and is it actually using the top spec (e.g. could be capable of all three but for some reason n might not be working so its fallen back to g which is half the speed)?
One area where RAM might make a slight difference is if you're syncing a lot of very small files as comparing long lists between server and host would take a lot of time.
More RAM will come in handy if you want to do things like using it for multiple functions such as headless torrent client (check out Transmission (http://www.transmissionbt.com/)), use it as a uPnP server (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPnP) for PS3/Xbox/etc. possibly with transcoding on the fly (although I'd have reservations if the CPU is powerful enough for this).
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RAM definately has an impact on the speed of transferring huge files around.
THe IP stack chops the file into packets which are held in memory until the ack comes back, plus in a GigE situation it'll pad the frames if it doesnt fill them. There is memory overhead in managing large transfers down the NIC, having seen this in practice at work I can vouch for it.
You are also right that any filesystem comparison stuff going on above that level will have additional mammary needs. (i have mammary needs)
Consider also that for GigE to work you need either Cat5e or Cat6 cabling.
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One of the reasons I advocate rsync is its smart way of syncing only bits of files that have changed after the initial mirroring/syncing.
Good point about Cat5e had to buy some new cables to get some Belkin Gigabit Powerline adapters to play properly (now if only I could get my fucking PS3 to get a wired connection :furious:)
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What problems are you still having?
I am more or less sorted now. The key problem was trying to use it with my wifi network ... lots of dropped transfers. Also trying to use it with Mac utilities like Time Machine. rsync backups over ethernet work OK.
Have a play around with the packet sizes in the ReadyNas config and make sure jumbo frames are disabled unless your router supports them. You can also try playing with the read/write caching. Ive got mine running to my router via a pair of power line ethernet adapters and from there to my PS3 over wireless. Even with all this I can easily stream divx dvds compressed to about 900mb
Make sure also that auto indexing is turned off on your media shares as this will cause drop outs when transferring files
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What problems are you still having?
I am more or less sorted now. The key problem was trying to use it with my wifi network ... lots of dropped transfers. Also trying to use it with Mac utilities like Time Machine. rsync backups over ethernet work OK.
All good then, and sounds like the problems don't stem from the NAS, but more network & Mac issues (although I've no idea/experience of the vagaries of Time Machine to comment in detail).
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It is that one slackers linked to. Wired to an Ethernet socket on my router. A win7 machine connects to this also by wire, and a netbook running xp by wireless sees it fine too, the shares all just appeared by magic.
Transfers are slow- apparently a gig of RAM can help
Why would more RAM increase the speed of transfers? The speed at which RAM communicates with other components on the motherboard/within the NAS is way, way, way quicker than your wired or wireless network will ever reach. Start with looking at improving the network connections first. The spec of the NAS indicates that it has gigabit ethernet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigabit_Ethernet) which is pretty fast, but does your router support this (what model is it, check out the spec)? On the wireless front do you have an 802.11b, 802.11g or 802.11n on the router? What spec is the wireless card on the laptop and is it actually using the top spec (e.g. could be capable of all three but for some reason n might not be working so its fallen back to g which is half the speed)?
One area where RAM might make a slight difference is if you're syncing a lot of very small files as comparing long lists between server and host would take a lot of time.
More RAM will come in handy if you want to do things like using it for multiple functions such as headless torrent client (check out Transmission (http://www.transmissionbt.com/)), use it as a uPnP server (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPnP) for PS3/Xbox/etc. possibly with transcoding on the fly (although I'd have reservations if the CPU is powerful enough for this).
Well, it said so on the internet - that's the honest answer! I have a spare 1Gb module out of my netbook but apparently it will only work with DDR1, and I think my stick is DDR2. Anyway, something to do with 'swapping' - presumably bigger RAM = more caching, but I'm really flying by the seat of my pants with this thing. As far as it being just a hard drive, fine, but e.g. I just downloaded Transmission, it came as a .bin file, and I have no idea how to install it - don't know even how to access this linux underlying os in the thing....
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What Dobbin says re: why more RAM would speed things up.
With transmission, where did you download from? THe home page is http://www.transmissionbt.com/ (http://www.transmissionbt.com/) but you may find the site readynas.com (http://www.readynas.com/) useful (if you've not come across it yet).
From there there appears to be pre-compiled binaries to install see here (http://www.transmissionbt.com/) (you mention a .bin file so you've probably already been to this site, I'm just guessing though as you don't say).
You may however want to have a good read around that site, it appears to go on about RAIDar which sounds like its a suite of additional software to install and run including a torrent client.
Looks like a useful site though, lots of documentation (try that for 2100 as the 2110 model you've got isn't listed, often the numbering can be a bit off like that, its the case with my printer), forums that appear to be active and software continuing to be updated and maintained with new versions.
I've not read the documentation at all, but to gain full "power" to the Linux OS its running you'll have to enable SSH connections then ssh from a terminal (or if you're on M$-Windoze then use something like PuTTY (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/) to connect). That said if you get the RAIDar thing installed you may not have to as it may (I've not read enough about it*) then have a WebUI to do everything from.
* I've not time or inclination to read much, at least until I buy one myself.
EDIT : This sub-forum (http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=60) is for the built-in torrent client, you may as well try that out before worrying about trying Transmission.
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Cheers Neil, right on all counts. It was a definite case of asking before Googling! :google: :google:
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Is there anymore beta on this?
I'm looking for something with RAID1 preferably. Easy to setup, not too big, not too expensive etc. I was tempted by the cheapy netgear on Ebuyer but the reviews aren't glowing.
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Is there anymore beta on this?
I'm looking for something with RAID1 preferably. Easy to setup, not too big, not too expensive etc. I was tempted by the cheapy netgear on Ebuyer but the reviews aren't glowing.
I found mine pretty easy to set up, got it RAIDed (it does it automatically, all i did was slot in the drive I got free with the voucher). Easy to use remotely over wireless via the browser accessed UI, really quiet and doesn't get hot. Transmission is a decent BT clint and also works remotely. It email me when stuff happens to it. Like slackers says, the forums are a useful source of info and support, always a bonus. If you do know about linux there's probably a lot more potential in it but I don't know what I'm doing, and don't have time to spend finding out at the mo.
I would like a Jungledisk plugin for a bit of additional peace of mind...
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Any reason why I shouldn't be buying one of these?????
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/225067 (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/225067)
will it work with the PS3?
that is very cheap IMO.
If so will be ordering one and sticking a couple of 2TB drives in it.
Also SSD's have come down a lot in price and are pretty affordable.
Should speed up the computer no end
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Thats the one I mentioned Jim. Seems to get some mixed reviews in other places and seems a bit more picky with which manufacturers drives it works with plus I think you can only use it for mirrored backup.
The price is tempting though. Speaking to a few people 'Buffalo' keeps getting recommended.
Edit: unlike the other boxes you seem to configure it via an internet connection and some of the services are premium ($$$). I'd prefer my functions all to work without paying more.
I've also read things about it not having auto reset after power failure and a clunky front end. I guess that isn't a big problem for most people.
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I had a Netgear sc101 a while ago - that had a proprietary OS on it and it was shocking. Got rid before I lost data.
My Readynas Duo was 200 quid including a 1TB Seagate drive, and I got a second 1TB drive for ree by redeeming a voucher.
Now the deal is with 2x2TB instead http://www.ebuyer.com/product/186685 (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/186685). Not bad for a decent bit of kit IMO
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The Icbybox NAS 4220 I've got seems better value than some of the ones posted here and it's been perfectly reliable for over a year.
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Like I said before - my netgear to a while to get going to its full potential, but now its up and running I works a treat (just upgraded to 2x 1.5Tb WD HDDs too). Primarily used for backups from my PCs/laptops and for storing our ever growing movie collection which it streams quite happily to the PS3 via Ethernet over Powerline adapters. Ive just upgraded the firmware to the latest beta which has a number of enhancements, the main one I was looking for tho is GUI support for DLNA indexing across multiple volumes (I have 2 x USB HDD plugged in the back). This is possible prior to this but you had to connect using something like winscp and then manually edit the config file
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Ive just upgraded the firmware to the latest beta which has a number of enhancements, the main one I was looking for tho is GUI support for DLNA indexing across multiple volumes (I have 2 x USB HDD plugged in the back). This is possible prior to this but you had to connect using something like winscp and then manually edit the config file
Not clear if the upgrade has provided what you were looking for, but if not see if you can get Mediatomb (http://mediatomb.cc/) installed on it. Its a uPnP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Plug_and_Play) server that makes all of the music/video/pictures available to DLNA enabled devices like the PS3 and has a simple WebUI for management (although initial configuration may require ssh'ing into the box (winscp is a Windows Secure CoPy client for getting files too and from servers)).
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rsync shouldn't over-write things, thats the whole point of it, it should only copy over whats changed between two directories (e.g. a new file or if you've edited an image file only the bits of the image file that were altered). It doesn't sound right that its backing up everything afresh each time its run though.
Before investigating permissions check whether the timestamps match between the two systems, because if you do the initial rsync (which will have copied everything over) and somehow the system clock on the NAS has been modified, it may have altered the timestamps on all the files, so when rsync is run again it thinks everything is old and needs updating.
Some info in the FAQ (http://www.samba.org/rsync/FAQ.html), try using the -t and -i flags mentioned (or see -man rsync- for more details on what they are).
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Ok, its just that its hard to determine whether its poor wording or mis-understanding of how things work (although I do remember I wrote the same when originally extolling the virtues of rsync, and expect you would have remembered, but I bothered to provide context for others who may not have been familiar, although increasingly I'm thinking I shouldn't bother being so explicit).
Another option to check is the --modify-window=1 option (seems applicable on Windows systems, although I have a vague recollection your using OSX so that may not be an issue, although there are further caveats to the underlying HFS file-system that is likely being used under OSX).
The -i function will show why files are being updated and should point to some potential problems/solutions.
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slackline and thesiger: what do I use for backups?
Good question - I assume that the two disks in the machine are the same as each other and basically both get upated at the same time - so if one fails, the other stays running and hen a replacement for the failure is slotted in, it re-syncs with the good volume and that's that.
It took no effort on my part to achieve this, it was all handled by the NAS.
I don't back up my C: drive though as I'm about to flatten it and reinstall the OS. All my files are kept on the NAS and in the case of photos and videos of the kids etc. I back them up onto Amazon S3 using Jungledisk.
The last bit is very slow, which is why it'd be nice to have a Jungledisk plugin on the NAS so it could run 24/7 without needing the PC on making noise at night.
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any opinions on which drive manufacturer to use? I seem to remember Samsung being recommended before?
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A suggestion (wasn't thinking earlier otherwise I'd have mentioned it :oops:)...
Rather than a NAS, any harm in setting up RAID within the desktop so that data is mirrored on the drives there?
Downside is that a power surge could potentially fry both drives (and it voids your useless warranty by opening the box to install the second HD).
Pesronally I have 2 x 1Tb drives for data in the desktop, a 500Gb for the OS (which actually is on a 20Gb partition and uses ~5Gb) and other shit.
I do still have a NAS (NSLU2 with a 500Gb + 250Gb on it).
You'd need to look at off-site storage to protect against your house/flat burning down though, so beyond a power surge frying things there's not really any disadvantage and its certainly cheaper than buying a new NAS (especially if you have to buy a new desktop too).
If other hardware beyond the mirrored RAID drives fails, extract them and stick them in the new desktop.
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The NAS can be hidden somewhere which (hopefully) would reduce the chance of it getting stolen during a break-in. TBH when they did break in they took obvious electrical items and the array of mine (and Bubba's ;D ) camera gear on the kitchen table might attract their eye first...Before they took laptop, video camera, watches etc. and left the desktop. (When we went away we stuck the previous desktop in the freezer with a few empty boxes of fish fingers for camo)
I was thinking of a dropbox account for keeping those files I really wouldn't like to lose ever. Flickr provides a backup for most photos under that genre. I know its not ideal uploading full-res JPGS to it but the benefit of them being there outweighs the other issues (in my case).
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Fair-do's.
You could always stick the box somewhere else and access it as a via thin-client (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_client), but thats hassle to set up and would require a second desktop (albeit cheap/not very powerful)/laptop and I've no idea what M$-Windows software you'd need (or even if its possible with M$).
Dropbox is a good idea, and a brilliant solution/software/service, it really does "Just workTM", and there are also clients for Android/iOS.
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any opinions on which drive manufacturer to use? I seem to remember Samsung being recommended before?
yes, samsung spinpoint are highly thought of, quiet, cool and reliable. however they don't seem to be doing a SATA3 yet....
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:oops:
slackline and :jaw:: what do I use for backups?
What I meant was what software utility do use to copy the files from your PC to the NAS. ie rsync or the utility built into the ReadyNAS or something else?
I get ya; well, the nas is assigned a drive letter so I just use windows explorer or directory opus and treat it like any other volume/directory structure.
Judging by the question though, am I missing something or are we talking about different things?
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What you've done is mount the network drives as NFS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_File_System_%28protocol%29) so that they are seen as well network drives. You then copy things over as required.
rsync works differently and is ideal for incremental backups (see my posts earlier in the thread for links and info on rsync).
It uses an SSH connection to synchonise local files (on the HD of your windows machine, as you've assigned letters) to a remote directory no the NAS. As to which is the fastest, I'm not sure, would have to do bench marking and I've not the time to search for someone who has.
Either way, you can still use rsync to manage synchronising to the mounted NFS as it works just as well with two "local" directories (even if one of those is a network drive that is mounted locally). It doesn't care whether the local and 'remote' directory are on the same server/different computers, or different drives on the same computer, or different directories on the same drive.
Of course if you're not doing incremental back-ups don't bother with rsync.
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yes, samsung spinpoint are highly thought of, quiet, cool and reliable. however they don't seem to be doing a SATA3 yet....
You had me at Yes. Care to enlighten me as to why SATA3 is (or isn't?) of importance to me in this setting?
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:yawn:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA)
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quicker, got it.
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I bought one of these (http://www.reghardware.com/2010/06/02/review_storage_synology_diskstation_ds210j_nas/) babies a few months back (and stuck 2 x 1Tb drives in it - RAID 1 mirror).
It's feckin' ace. Got so many great features (http://www.synology.com/enu/products/features/index.php). All kinds of streaming (audio/video/photo) to Android/iPhone/DLNA etc. Bung your photos on and it builds them into web photo albums automatically, has bit torrent manager, web cam manager, multi-tasking UI which is fully customisable etc etc. Highly recommended...
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I plumped for the ReadyNas duo in the end. Ebuyer were doing a stupendous 2TB deal for a few hours but had limited stock so I've ended up with 2 x 1TB (or 1TB with one to claim).
I'm quite impressed by the relatively small footprint of the NAS. I'm not that impressed that the torrent client lacks encryption (an issue as my ISP throttles like mad). I can't actually do that much with it yet as I'm still without a PC.
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The last bit is very slow, which is why it'd be nice to have a Jungledisk plugin on the NAS so it could run 24/7 without needing the PC on making noise at night.
This (http://blog.jungledisk.com/2009/08/24/jungle-disk-whs-beta-withdrawn/) could be of interest to you. Alternatively there's ReadyNAS vault but that costs a bit more than JD. The other option I've seen mentioned is somebody using rsync through SSH to do off-site backups of a NAS drive (to another NAS, done each way so each person is backed up off-site) but obviously that depends on a LOT of things.
Today after sorting out my new PC (I still can't get over how stupidly big and glowing red it is) I turned my attention to the ReadyNAS duo. Its a breeze to setup and the ReadyNAS communtiy with their multitude of add-ons has made installing things like Transmission BT client pretty simple. It doesn't yet seem like there is a proper scheduler built in (I was talking to Bubbs about this), but people have successfully used two scripts to throttle the bandwith of the NAS outside of unlimited bandwidth hours.
If anyone is thinking of buying one the DUO is almost identical in size to a 7+8's guide (slightly smaller in height). Its pretty noisy when its busy.
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the ready nas looks like a good bet for me but I need something that can stream to ps3 without any problems.
anyone any experience?
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the ready nas looks like a good bet for me but I need something that can stream to ps3 without any problems.
anyone any experience?
Providing your films don't need transcoding on the fly to a format the PS3 is happy with then a ReadyNAS fits the bill. Grabbed one myself before the 31st December as thats when the free extra HD offer ended.
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After phoning Netgear last week to enquire where my free 1Tb HD was (offer buying ReadNAS before 31st December 2010 included a second free HD) I've just been to the post office to pick up a failed delivery yesterday and walked away with not one, but two 1Tb HD's. :thumbsup:
Means I can have another 1Tb RAID in my desktop if I grab another identical drive (so essentially half-price). :)
Either someone cocked up or they've not had as many people buying/claiming the free HD as they anticipated and they're getting rid of the stock, I'm not complaining though. :)
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ebuyer have still got a similar offer (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/143121) until 3rd April
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ebuyer have still got a similar offer (http://www.ebuyer.com/product/143121) until 3rd April
Thats the same offer (following the link the free additional HD is claimed from Netgear)....except the closing date has been extended (got mine from ebuyer too).
Jim - Do your videos need transcoding on the fly (i.e. are they in a format that the PS3 doesn't support)? If they don't then the ReadyNAS will stream to your PS3 without any problems (providing you've a wired connection to your PS3 if you want to watch anything thats in a decent/high resolution).
These are great little boxes, you can do tons of stuff with them as they come out of the box, but since its just a GNU/Linux install under the hood you can do lots more, I've installed PHP and set up my wiki on mine and have been writing up how to mess around with them (http://kimura.no-ip.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=readynas:readynas) (if anyone actually reads those pages and finds any errors or something thats not clear please do let me know, but note that I accept no responsibility for bricking your ReadyNAS if you choose to follow anything I've written!).
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if anyone's got drives knocking around dabs are doing D-link DNS-323 NAS for £50 (http://www.dabs.com/products/d-link-2-bay-nas-network-storage-enclosure-49GV.html)
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the ready nas looks like a good bet for me but I need something that can stream to ps3 without any problems.
anyone any experience?
Providing your films don't need transcoding on the fly to a format the PS3 is happy with then a ReadyNAS fits the bill. Grabbed one myself before the 31st December as thats when the free extra HD offer ended.
On the transcoding question: I've just installed the Twonky Server on my Readynas Duo and it has a whole raft of transcoding options - for Video you can select to transcode on the fly to MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV or Flash. No idea which if any of those the PS3 will play mind.
I'm already thinking this server add on is well worth the 12 quid it'd cost to upgrade from the trial version to a full license.
I'm on the latest RC version 6.0.31RC6 (http://www.readynas.com/contributed/super-poussin/Twonky_6.0.31RC6.bin)
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does the transcoding work though?
I'd read that the ReadyNas duo hasn't the beef to deal with it properly :shrug:
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does the transcoding work though?
I'd read that the ReadyNas duo hasn't the beef to deal with it properly :shrug:
Fuck knows TBH Paul, good point to be pointed out, if it is the case.
I couldn't tell you which of my files are in need of it, or whether they work.
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I looked into it and asked about and the general consensus was that it lacked the processing power to do it well enough. I think you need an NV or something of similar power.
Try a .flac file as lots of things won't touch those.
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I looked into it and asked about and the general consensus was that it lacked the processing power to do it well enough. I think you need an NV or something of similar power.
Try a .flac file as lots of things won't touch those.
.flac files appear in the browser view of the Sony device as .mp3 files, but indeed, they report 'file is corrupted or incorrect format' when I try to play them...
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any new or recent quality methods to backup?
now I've got my SSD to run OS off and have 2x 1TB drives, 1 for all my files and shit and 1 for back up.
Should I RAID them? if so how?
or should I use a back up program and which one?
Running Windows 9 but you already knew that....
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I wouldn't run a straight RAID 1 as any problems just get duplicated.
I just run one as the drive and one as a backup, with backup software (Syncback) set up so I can easily backup the drive when required. Usually do it every couple of weeks or before/ after any major changes. That might seem a bit lax, but anything shorter term I'm usually saving to Dropbox anyhow, so I've got instant back-up to cloud and access to previous versions if neccessary.
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I use the software that came with the NAS (NTI Shadow) to backup, this then contains a raid array. Dropbox is used as an off site backup for my most precious files (read thesis). Win 7 had a pretty useful backup system built in.
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If you do opt for RAID don't bother using the BIOS to set it up as BIOS RAID is generally considered to be pretty pants. Instead use software RAID for your OS.
Logical Volume Management (LVM) over RAID is brilliant. I had 2 x1TB in a RAID and have added another 2 x 1TB as an additional RAID. LVM means the two appear as one and I can expand partitions and the filesystem within each on the fly as space is needed for my music/video/picture partitions.
GNU/Linux I'm afraid, I'm expect its possible under M$ though.
I wouldn't run a straight RAID 1 as any problems just get duplicated.
Never heard of this could you elaborate or point to sources (quick search hasn't revealed anything).
I can envisage how errors in the filesystem that the RAID is formatted with may well be duplicated because after all you configure the two disks to be formatted as one filesystem but not how errors in individual sectors of a drive might be as thats a physical attribute and its not possible to "force" a sector thats damaged on one disk to be damaged on the second (thats what RAID1 aims to protect against, physical failure of a drive, at least thats my understanding).
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Isn't adam meaning "errors" as in his errors.
I.e. if you only have two drives, and they're in a RAID array then an accidental delete is duplicated and all you're protecting against is HD failure?
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Thats the nub of it. RAID will protect you from a hardware failure, but doesn't does fuck all for human error or any kind of software fuckup/virus that might screw your files up.
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That depends, if you setup your backup software as "contribute" then you can remove one of those, the problem then raises its ugly head when your RAID array fills ups.
Still, virus etc. is a major concern. I've also got a system image on another HDD but I'm not ridiculously good at keeping it up to date.
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Perhaps my misunderstanding then.
RAID1 does exactly what its designed to do, protect against hardware failure.
Human error is usually the cause of most datal loss fuck-ups anyway, and theres no way of ensuring against those other than common sense and knowing/understanding what you're doing (usually helped by taking your time to think about what your doing before hitting 'Return', particularly when its something major).
One option that I don't think has been mentioned in this thread is that you could just go with Apple and pay them to make things "just workTM" in their iCloud (http://www.apple.com/icloud/), but for many that will involve switching OS's and for most that will also mean buying a new computer(s)/phone/tablet/"next big thing"*
* Although its perfectly possible to install OSX on a PC since Apple switched to Intel processors via the OSx86 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSx86) project, but then thats probably more work than most could be arsed doing when opting for a "just worksTM" solution.
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Still, virus etc. is a major concern. I've also got a system image on another HDD but I'm not ridiculously good at keeping it up to date.
Don't you have windows backup configured to automatically do this each week ?
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well I'm still no closer to having a proper back up apart from copying files over manually.
Can't decide between RAID and johnny's method, both have pro's and con's
might have to flip a coin although I'm tending towards RAID as when its set up I don't have to do anything.
Quick question, with RAID is the backup drive hidden?
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I'm not sure what you mean by hidden? Do you mean how many icons appear?
I thought a properly configured RAID1 set-up runs the two drives as a single entity, giving the possibility of faster read times as different sectors can be read on the two discs at the same time. So presumably just one icon?
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Raid 1 is all done at hardware level (sort of) so you see one logical volume i.e. One drive icon, one drive letter etc. it acts as one drive as far as you as a user are concerned unless one drive fails in which case it warns you, you replace bad drive, everything gets copied across and everything works again
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Yes, I meant how many icons appear. I only want it to show 1.
Is RAID1 what I am after then for windows 7 and does it have to be configured in the bios or is there a good software alternative (for win7 Slackers!) or would it be best to buy a dedicated RAID card?
This is going to be longterm so I don't mind spending a few dollars
Cheers Y'all
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RAID Bios is generally shit and lags way behind software RAID (how often do you upgrade your BIOS anyway?), use software as implemented in/under whatever OS you use. No idea what software options there are under Win7 I'm afraid, perhaps this is useful (http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/36504/how-to-create-a-software-raid-array-in-windows-7/) :shrug:
For the different types of RAID levels and what they mean see here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID#Standard_levels) (would type out a simpler explanation but feeling particularly lazy).
It won't be that expensive, but make sure if you're going to mirror an existing drive you get exactly the same HD or if you're buying two new ones get two identical ones (if one's larger then its additional space isn't used and is therefore a waste).
For future expansion consider Logical Volume Management (LVM). I've one 500Gb for OS and two 1Tb under RAID1, partitioned into four for music/video/pics/work, but I started to fill these up, so I grabbed two more 1Tb and set them up as a second RAID1, then used LVM to grow the existing partitions to use the additional space on my second RAID1 array. All seamless and plenty of space (for another year or so!).
RAID doesn't protect against power surges or fires.
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The only thing I really understood there was that I need 2 identical drives which I have(2xsamsung spinpoint 1TB).
I've already read the wiki about RAID and I'm non the wiser.
I'm not really interested in learning about it TBH but I would like to have it to back up incase of HD failure/crash
Are you saying that the software route would be best?
could you recomend any programs for win 7?
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I have RAID 1, 2x2TB drives set up mainly cos I wanted to play with it, but without going back over all the pros and cons of it I will probably get rid of it soon and revert to two drives. In a nutshell it's not really a backup as if the card controller (or MB in my case) goes pop you lose the lot, a better back up would be put two 2TB drives in your machine and schedule something like Sync toy to do a nightly backup to the second drive. Then for belt and braces use Mozy/Carbonite etc to do an online BU. For info I've got a free trial with Zovo which is only £20 a year for 'unlimited', so far nearly 100gig of photos and music have backed up online! http://zovo.co/index.php (http://zovo.co/index.php)
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Are you saying that the software route would be best?
Yes.
could you recomend any programs for win 7?
Not with out Googling and I'd have no idea which is "best" as I've no Win7 install with (or without) RAID to try them.
RAID protects against the last sentence here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk_drive#Failures_and_metrics)
Eventually all mechanical hard disk drives fail, so to mitigate loss of data, some form of redundancy is needed, such as RAID or a regular backup system.
So you could alternatively do as Obi suggests, but I'm not sure that it would protect you against card controller (/motherboard) failing (or suffering from a power surge) as both drives are still connected to the same device, regardless of whether you're using RAID to mirror the drive automagically or a scheduled synchornisation of two separate drives.
If you want to protect data on a separate device connected to a separate power supply then a NAS is the best option (and if you want to have it backed up off-site you could always ask a mate to have it at their pad and set up the router to permit synchronisation over t'net, although I'd do the initial copy on a local network).
I've use Linksys NSLU2's and a Netgear ReadyNAS, I've tinkered with both as they are fundamentally Linux systems with excellent Web GUI interfaces for configuration, and the later is an absolute piece of piss to use to back up any computers on your network, regardless of their OS. The one thing I'd do though is to go with an Intel/ARM processor as the SPARC based one I have doesn't have sufficient processing power for transcoding on the fly (the NAS's invariably have uPnP functionality which means you can serve up your pictures, music and films from it, they're lower powered than having a desktop on too).
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Thank you for a concise answer as always, but to fully earn a wad point you will have to go off googling for me and recomend me some RAID software for Win7 ;)
Longer term I will definately be getting a NAS as I am currently looking at getting rid of my PS3 due to issues like Cinavia and overly controlling Sony firmware shit.
Maybe looking to get a WD-TV live or something or might just build another HTPC, I will be on AVforums about that, If you have any advice on that then I'd be keen to hear it. Also I am thinking about installing surge protection on the computer and would also like any thoughts on that.
Cheers
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Surge protection is something I too should utilise but haven't yet (especially as both computer and NAS are on the same circuit).
Never built an HTPC, but only hear good things about XBMC (http://xbmc.org) (under which ever OS takes your fancy). AVFroums would be my first port of call too.
If you're going to get a NAS anyway then if you didn't already got two 1Tb drives then I'd say you'd probably be better off saving cash on getting the NAS instead, although often things like the ReadyNAS Duo and others are sold without drives so you could just save the HDs until you're ready to get a NAS and bung them in that (providing you don't need the space and hope you don't have a catastrophic failure in the mean time!).
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What slackline said, Win 7 does soft RAID by itself but it's really hidden, link (http://www.softwaresecretweapons.com/jspwiki/windows-7-software-raid-disk-partition-and-volume-context-menus)
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So you could alternatively do as Obi suggests, but I'm not sure that it would protect you against card controller (/motherboard) failing (or suffering from a power surge) as both drives are still connected to the same device, regardless of whether you're using RAID to mirror the drive automagically or a scheduled synchornisation of two separate drives.
My reasoning is with standard drives if the MB dies you can plug a stand alone drive into any PC and recover the data easily, does anyone know if RAID1 writes the drives in standard disk format? So if you took one drive off and plugged it into a PC it would be recognised outside a RAID setup? I presumed not, but may be wrong. I know for other RAID setups (striped etc) one drive alone has meaningless data on it and if a RAID controller dies it makes it very difficult to recover, sounds like this is an advantage of software RAID, although everything I read up on it said software raid was a poor relation of hardware raid and could slow your machine down significantly, but it sounds like it has improved quite a bit under Win7
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With RAID1 you can take one of the discs and just use it as a normal drive, but you can't for any of the other RAID types.
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With RAID1 you can take one of the discs and just use it as a normal drive, but you can't for any of the other RAID types.
That's nice to hear, maybe I'll stick with it for the time being. Out of interest I'm using Intel Rapid Storage Technology that is built into my Dell motherboard chipset. Dead easy to setup in BIOS, has a small simple Intel app that monitors the RAID.
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So just when i thought I had settled on software RAID, Obi throws the cat amongst the pigeons.....
It seems that there maybe a fight on for the title of 'The all seeing eye!!!'
I'll have a look at the RAID options on my Asus P5Q-E (http://support.asus.com/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=P5Q-E&p=1&s=22) motherboard,
seems to have something called Intel® Matrix Storage Technology (http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/matrixstorage_sb.htm) which sounds interesting?
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seems to have something called Intel® Matrix Storage Technology (http://www.intel.com/design/chipsets/matrixstorage_sb.htm) which sounds interesting?
Think that's another name for what mines got.
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With RAID1 you can take one of the discs and just use it as a normal drive, but you can't for any of the other RAID types.
Yep, thats the whole point of RAID1, if one of the discs fails you whip it out. All the data resides on the one that remains and it could be used as a normal drive, but when you drop a replacement in the RAID software mirrors it over.
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tried to RAID1 my 2 drives last night but it tells me all data will be lost off both drives and as I don't have a spare 1TB drive I need to find a work around
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For anyone with an intel readynas (doh!), there's now a dropbox installer add-on (http://readynasxtras.com/readynas-x86-add-ons/dropbox-x86)
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With raid 1, if a drive dies you can plug another one straight in and it'll rebuild the volume.
I don't think you can chuck a raid 1 into any old computer, so if the controller dies you'll still need to recover the drive. (as far as I'm aware, might check up on that later) I like my setup of pc, with separate NAS with 2 x 1tb Raid 1. It's also my music/film station for ny tv.
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If anyone was thinking about buying more storage for RAID etc, now is a BAD time. Just been reading up on the harddrive shortage due to the floods in Thailand and associated hike in retail prices and it's shocking... :o On Amazon you'd normally recon on spending £40-60 on an internal SATA drive for 1TB-2TB but currently it's more like £100-200! The Samsung 2TB drive I bought before the summer for £55 is now shipping for £130! Most other retailers the same, sounds like it will be the same for several months yet and may lead to shortages of PCs and laptops for Xmas.
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I've been a bit of a moron with my PC/NAS and was wondering if anyone can think of a simple solution.
Basically I didn't bother partitioning my HD in the PC so I'm currently keeping a backup of all my media (windows libraries) and also a system image on the NAS, the files are about 0.5 Tb, meaning the image is pretty much the same size and the NAS is full when its actually just half full with two copies on each drive.
I'm a bit wary of leaving my backups (either bootable system image) or files vulnerable right now as its getting to the end of 4 years of work and a decent amount of writing and either going wrong (system or a few chapters etc.) isn't such a nice thought. I don't want to screw it up, nor do I wish to lose any of my photos (however shit some of them might be).
I could delete the files and just save a system image each day but given its backing up over wifi it'd be working pretty hard (and worsening as time goes on). :oops:
Is it possible to create a bootable system image without including my libraries etc.?
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Thought I'd tag this onto here. Anyone got any up to date advice/views on nas drives? Thinking of getting a 4tb one for home use, £160 sheets from Amazon: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00FOKN7D8?cache=03cae22bef17b2adb4b8f3a9377f3c45&qid=1400886136&sr=8-2#ref=mp_s_a_1_2
Any advice/comments from peeps would be gratefully received.
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I thought that specific model didn't have RAID? Thus, it'd be useless for my applications. For something low power to simply stream video from I'm sure it'd be fine (but if your router has a USB port you might be able to do this with any drive).
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I'm after extra storage, remote access to my files and backup for phone stuff. Do you use RAID for PC backup? Thought RAID was for duplication or to speed up hard drive read write speeds?
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I use it for redundancy, yes.
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I just bought a new TV so I need to get rid of all the old shit and sort out a neater, better way of doing stuff.
I want something small and tidy which will play media stuff through the tv without me having to fuck about with it or with plugging cables in etc. I guess some sort of NAS is the way to go but I've no idea what sort of thing I need. Would this mean I could e.g. download something on the PC / laptop, it would save it to the NAS and then I could just play it through the tv wirelessly? I don't really get all this shit yet......
Be good to rip all our old dvds (don't have loads) and store them on it etc but I don't think I'll need huge amounts of storage. Currently, all my music, photos, work etc are backed up to zovo taking up about 100GB in total.
Any ideas clever people? :)
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EDIT: 100GB is FA.
The easiest way would be to simply download it to a laptop and then use Chromecast to get it on the TV. I wouldn't be certain (as I don't have Chromecast) but I'd imagine if you can view something on/from your network (so stored on a dedicated NAS or even just a HDD plugged into a router [which could be a cheap NAS option]) you could use this solution too.
^This seems like the best option post edit.
What I have is a ReadyNAS with my media on it and a Raspberry Pi running RaspBMC (XBMC), this basically keeps a media library which I can scroll through (using my phone as a remote / media library). You can no doubt buy commercial solutions to this problem, Roku perhaps? This was a ballache initially but now it seems like many flaws have been ironed out.
You could skip the NAS entirely and use a small low power PC (Asrock Ions seem a popular choice) and a big HDD to create a HTPC (Home Theatre PC) using XBMC (either using Win or XBMCubuntu) but I doubt this solution is for most, and it isn't for you.
You'll need a decent router for most of this.
Does your TV not have any USB or DLNA compatibility? If so you could skip all of the above and have an easy life.
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It's this....
http://www.trustedreviews.com/panasonic-tx-l42et60_TV_review
So I think the answer's yes?
And yeah I know 100GB is fuck all, was thinking more about future storage than what i already have.
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Sorry I'm probably not making much sense! Long day....
I suppose what I'd like is to be able to switch the tv on and pick a film to watch (that I've already downloaded or saved from a DVD) without having to power up the laptop etc.
Easiest, simplest way without too many cables.
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Easiest, simplest way without too many cables.
Netflix / Amazon subscription instead?
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do you have the telly hard wired to your router?
does your router have a usb port and the ability to share files over it?
perhaps the simplist and cheapest way would be to buy a 500gb or 1tb USB external hard drive (preferably bus-powered) and plug it into the router and enable the share feature (depends on which router you have.
or the very cheapest way of doing it would be to install something like plex media server or PS3 media server or whatever it is that panasonic call their own brand of media server: http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/tv/network/netfs/index.html (http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/tv/network/netfs/index.html)
This does mean you have to have your computer on to do this tho
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I've not got it plugged into anything yet as I've just ordered it and am wanting to get all this shit sorted before it gets delivered/put on the wall etc.
I need to get a new router anyway as mine is shit so this sounds like a good plan.
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Jim you're a genius. Just read the link and it seems all I need to do is set it up like that, stick everything I want to watch in the shared folder and leave the PC upstairs on. Then I can control it from the tv anyway (and I've got an app on the phone that'll control the tv so that'll be easier than the remote).
Brilliant, I'll buy a new router. Any advice..... (I'm joking, I'll check your thread).
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So I think the answer's yes?
I can't believe you had the above in mind and didn't check what you were buying? ;)
The good thing about using a PC as Jim said is that you can "encode on the fly" so if your network is sh*t or under-performing you'll still actually get something streamed rather than juddering playback.
I'd still go for the router and bus-powered HDD option. It'll be less of a pain than having a PC permanently on.
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I'd agree although it's not quite as simple as that with adsl on sky
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I'd agree although it's not quite as simple as that with adsl on sky
No, there's odd things with Sky routers - I was upgraded from an O2 box to the latest Sky router after O2 sold out to Sky and since plugging it in anything on the network running Windows media player can't see more than the first 4 or 5 items in the music library on my NAS. Everything else (android phones/tablets/iphones/pure radio) sees it fine, baffled...
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FFS
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So I think the answer's yes?
I can't believe you had the above in mind and didn't check what you were buying? ;)
No I just went to Richer Sounds and bought the best Panasonic tv they had within a sensible budget. Then started trying to work this shit out!
I had thought about it beforehand and read stuff on here but I didn't really understand it. The guys in RS know their shit about tvs and hi fi stuff but pretty much nothing about this.
Which is why I'm asking you lot....
Seems even Sky's supposedly best router gets pretty average reviews but I'm sure it'd be ok for my purposes. Only problem being it's pointless upgrading it if it's still not going to do what I want it to!
This is already doing my head in.
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I think you'll be ok as it is fine for me for everything except Windows Media player (just discovered it appears to work ok with MusicBee on the same PC so it is a WMP specific thing).
I do music and video from the NAS through the Sky router to my TV/stereo via network to Boxee Box (an outmoded, slow and unsupported evolutionary dead-end that was a great idea but didn't catch on or get developed enough) and then HDMI to TV and then stereo. This has been both via network over powerline (homeplug?) and wifi through a Sky TV wifi adapter (plugged into 4 port switch behind the TVto give internet to the Sky TV box, Boxee box and Blu-ray player).
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I take it openWRT and/or Tomato aren't supported on Sky's routers? Worth a look if so.
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Ok so is the long and short of it that I try setting the tv/pc up as per Jim's link and see if it works. Then if so, I can look at the HDD option and if not start cursing Sky and go back to the drawing board?
I need a better router anyway as I said but if Sky are twats about third party kit then I might be best just getting their better (although still not great) one.
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I'd still see if you can directly play from a USB drive in preference to having a media server PC on all of the time.
If you've got a thumb drive, stick a video on it, plug it in and see if you can play it. If so, buy a small USB bus powered HDD. It says in the spec that it can do this. This removes networking headaches and basically the biggest issue you'll have is putting new content onto the HDD (i.e. unplug it and copy it across from your laptop).
It may be slightly selective about what format stuff is in but that's easily fixed.
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Sound. This I understand.
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What Paul B suggests.
A unified backup/streaming/downloading solution would be to get a half-decent NAS with 2xHD in a RAID array mirroring each other to store video/music/pictures on and download things. Pick the right one and it will have a built in torrent client (if thats how you download movies) and a built in uPnP mediaserver for making all the media available to TVs/smartboxes/XBMC/Chromecast/your new TV. Main advantage beyond backing up what is on your desktop is that its a lower power consumption. Not all NAS are powerful enough to convert videos on the fly from one format to another which is sometimes required, so depending on your TV the format of your ripped DVDs/downloaded films might have to be changed, you can do this using Handbrake (http://handbrake.fr/) (which is also the best option for ripping them in the first instance, when doing that choose the correct format, usually mp4 but check your TVs specification).
I also second Jim & others suggestions of having the TV and whatever you end up streaming from on a wired ethernet connection (you could get some powerlines if needs be, although obviously another expense).
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Well, I unpacked the ReadyNAS (Duo V1) after moving house (nearly 2 years ago) and started backing up my laptop (~25Gb of photos that weren't elsewhere). About half way into the backup, the network connection failed and I'm now unable to log onto the NAS as admin without a "Contact Customer Support" dialogue box; basically I think it's knackered. The two external USB shares are synced and fine. I can't currently see what's on the 3.5" drives within the NAS but I'm assuming they're fine (although they're now quite old).
I currently have:
Phones / Tablets (these back up via various Google products)
One Laptop (ageing Lenovo Thinkpad X220); Win 7.
and a desktop PC that's huge and not plugged in; Win 7.
Between all of that lot I've got >1Tb of stuff needing to be backed up. Most of it will be RAW files I haven't deleted and probably should (although it's both dull and time consuming).
What's the best option for backup these days? Is there a cloud solution that suits the above or should I still be looking at a NAS (or perhaps a 1-bay option and cloud storage combined)?
I haven't seen any NAS products so far that have built in Wifi (likely due to connection speed I guess) but it'll need to be remote from the router (I can do this via an access point of needs must).
I would prefer a "JustWorks" solution these days as I don't seem to have masses of spare time.
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nobody?
:tumble: