# Newbie iso Help Choosing/Understanding NAS to store 6-9TB digital media forTivo Acces



## lynnalexandra (Apr 27, 2009)

I'm ready to think about getting an NAS. I have just about filled up about 5TB with Tivo'd video (one full expanded Tivo HD 2TB, one upgraded 2TB Premier and a 2TB external hard drive connected to my PC). Between all my videos - and well over 1TB of music (lossless format), I clearly need a better way to store it than multiple external hard drives. So I've looked over the other threads and I think what I need is a NAS storage device. I'd like it to hold our evergrowing amount of video, music, pictures and documents. I'd like to be able to stream the video and music (through the Tivos) and the music through the Tivo and into a home audio-video receiver.

I have set up the Tivo to publish the folders of video and music that are stored on my external hard drives. I have my living room Tivo outputing audio to the home a/v receiver. Right now the connection is with a Tivo Wireless N adapter, but I"m planning to run a cat6 cable so that the Tivo is directly wired to the router.

Now I think I need an NAS that can house 4-5 drives. A few people have recommended the synology NAS and I think this is the way to go, but I could use some guidance.

I am a newbie at this. I believe I need an NAS to be DNLA compatible (but I could not really tell you what that means beyond more digital formats can be accessed more easily- I may be confusing this with a need for a home media server to be DNLA compatible. Is the Tivo DNLA compliant? Is that sufficient? Should my a/v receiver be DNLA compliant too?).

Anyway, I want at least 4 bays - and the option to expand would be useful. I've seen folks here rave about this synology DS1511 scalable NAS:

http://www.amazon.com/Synology-Disk...?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1323232357&sr=1-13

A less expensive model is the Synology DS411J:

http://www.amazon.com/Synology-Disk...?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1323232357&sr=1-24

From what I can understand, the 1511 is a higher level model for two reasons. A fifth bay - and it can be expanded on by simply buying and connecting this expansion unit: 
http://www.amazon.com/Synology-Plug-n-Use-Expansion-Attached-DX510/dp/B003DTLXKG/ref=pd_sim_e_2

No need to set up another NAS - just add this onto it.
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Are there other features to this DS1511 5-bay system that makes it better than the 411? Is it pricier because it has features that are way beyond what I need? I think I saw mention of monitoring from cameras - and remote access - features that I don't think I need. I just want to store my digital media, a few other documents - have back-ups - and be able to access this information from any home-networked device (or maybe that would be handy - but not necessary).

Some features I would like:
1)reasonably easy user interface

2) being able to have any home-networked device access the files stored on the NAS
3) be able to use different sized drives. So I can use the 2TB drives I already have (one filled with Tivo video and the other new and blank so far). And then potentially add some 3TB drives. Can NAS's hold differently sized drives? Can I add them on as I go or do I have to set them all up at once?
4) if I start with 2TB drives - and in the future 3-4TB drives become reliable, inexpensive and available, can I swap drives and replace the 2TB drives with larger drives

No doubt there is software and other considerations that go into choosing a suitable NAS. Is there anything else I should consider? Or is it so complicated that it's better to just tell me to just take your word for it?

And then there's the question of what is RAID? what would I want? Raid0,1,5, unraid. I don't know anything about what these mean and I see here that people have set up their devices differently.

Thanks for any help. I'm sorry this isn't very coherent. I'm sure I'll learn as I go and be able to fine-tune my questions more.

Thanks.
Lynn.

PS - if it matters, I currently have a dell inspiron 530 with Windows XP. In the next year or so I'll probably get a new desktop with Windows 7. Does the operating system of my pc matter in terms of setting up the NAS? Any problems with switching the desktop operating system in a year or so?


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## xekester (Nov 11, 2005)

If you are interested in exploring using a NAS, check out http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/
If you are considering a Synology unit try http://forum.synology.com

I just recently got the 411J, but I am too much of a NAS newbie to be much if any help to try and directly answer your question. So take your time with your research; there are many different NAS vendors out there, and a lot of resources for DIY builders as well.

Xekester


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

I have the Synology 1511 and could not be more pleased with it. My reasons for choosing it over the 411J were:

Future expandability and glad I did, I would have outgrown the 411J in less than a year. I now have the 1511 and one 510 expansion with one drive in it (6 drives) in a Synology Hybrid RAID format.

Larger memory and faster processor in the 1511 means file server and media serving run ON the NAS. Pytivo, squeezebox and vidmgr. DLNA and Squeezebox are Synology supported apps. Pytivo is supported by its developers.

Online drive replacements and upgrades. Don't underestimate this. Even for home use. Add a 3TB drive to an existing array can take several days to complete. The 1511 allows insertion of the new drive and will add to the existing array while in use.

RAID in general gives you some redundancy in the event of a drive failure. Its not the same as a backup. I run a Synology Hybrid RAID format with single drive redundancy. This means if any one drive in the array fails, the NAS promts me to replace the failed drive and then rebuilds the arrray without loss of data. The hybrid raid is very similar to standard RAID 5 except that it handles varyious drive sizes and online updates of the array.

To your specific question, yes you could use several 2TB drives you currently have and add 3TB drives in the future to add space to the same array.


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## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

I have no personal experience with the Synology products but have been keeping my eye on them.

I'll throw out a slightly lower priced product that may not be expandable enough for the thread starter, but may be useful to others reading this:

Synology sells the DS712+ which starts out with 2 disks and allows use of the same 5-disk DX510 expansion that the DS1511+ supports. This combination may be of some interest to people who want to save some money and don't think they will need more than 7 drives total.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

The TiVo does _not_ speak DLNA, only its own protocols. If the NAS doesn't explicitly list TiVo support as a feature, you _may_ be able to add third-party software to it, like pyTivo, to handle that.

The OS of your PC should be irrelevant. The NAS has its own OS. It's possible the makers of the NAS will distribute some junkware with it, but it should have a web interface, telnet daemon, etc.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

There is a law of nature - hereafter known as lrhorer's law, which states that no RAID array is ever large enough for more than a short period of time.

Now, I'm not going to stand here and say a NAS is a bad idea. For some people and some applications they are fine. There is also a place for hardware RAID and even fakeRAID systems. The proper place for them, however, is a low end system that does not need to be expanded or upgraded beyond a certain point. For anything larger than 5 drives, I definitely recommend a Linux based server, not a canned NAS. I also recommend at a minimum RAID6, and a good, solid backup solution. I would also stay as far away from non-standard schemes that allow things like asymmetrical arrays. No matter what the type of array, stick with one drive size, or at least one member size, for the array.

Yes, these restrictions do imply spending more on the array, at least in the short run, but they will prevent a great many headaches over time, and may even wind up costing less in the long run.

The great thing about a Linux RAID array is it is based upon a massively supported set of tools, allows for maximum flexibility, and is easy to maintain and upgrade. If one runs into a problem, the mailing lists can usually come up with an answer in a matter of hours, and most of the lists are monitored by at least one of the principle developers of the application. Most Linux distros can be installed free of cost and take only about 45 minutes to set up. My preferred distro is Debian. Debian is as rock solid as it comes, and when setting up a server, rock solid is a very important thing. Both of the RAID servers in my house have been up nearly seven months, and the only reason both were shut down then was there was a prolonged power outage at my house which exhausted both UPS units. The last time I performed any maintenance on either array was last year when I replaced all the 1T drives on the primary array with 3T drives, dropping from 15 drives to 8.

I am not saying anyone else must follow my example, but I do suggest you think carefully before deploying something in great measure different. Ultimately, going a different direction may not be a poor decision, depending upon one's needs, but it should be a carefully considered one.

My two RAID servers consist of a pair of Antec 4RU rackmount enclosures to house the CPUs and the boot drives, and not much else. (I got them cheap - I would not spend a lot of money on the CPU housing.) The motherboards and CPUs are fairly modest AMD Athlon 64 x 2 systems on decent Asus motherboards. The HBAs are also nothing special - just a pair of $25 Port Multiplier compatible PCIe x4 cards. I am a big fan of keeping the boot drive system separate from the data system. In this case, I just took four old 500G drives (which are way, way overkill: 80G is more than plenty) I had lying around and partitioned them into 3 partitions each. Each has a tiny /boot partition of 50M, a very large swap partition of 20G, and the rest partitioned as the root. Each system has 2 of the boot drives installed with each partition paired with its twin in a RAID1 array.

I then bought first a 12 drive Port Multiplier RAID chassis and then later a 20 drive Port Multiplier RAID chassis from PC Pitstop as the systems grew. The main array consists of eight unpartitioned 3T drives combined into a RAID6 array. The backup server hosts twelve unpartitioned 1.5T drives also combined into a RAID6 array. Both arrays are formatted as XFS.

The primary server is running pyTivo, kmttg, SAMBA (and SWAT), HME for Python, vidmgr, Galleon, openvpn server, DHCP, Apache2 web server, SSMTP, and NCID, plus it acts as a backup controller for the system which controls my HVAC system. The backup server is running an rsync job that backs up the primary server every morning at 04:00, plus it is also the primary controller for my HVAC system. It also runs DDNS, Apache2, and SAMBA.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

wmcbrine said:


> The TiVo does _not_ speak DLNA, only its own protocols. If the NAS doesn't explicitly list TiVo support as a feature, you _may_ be able to add third-party software to it, like pyTivo, to handle that.


It is worth noting many people have done that very thing.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

> There is a law of nature - hereafter known as lrhorer's law, which states that no RAID array is ever large enough for more than a short period of time.


And unitron's ammendment/corollary to that is that *nothing* used for file storage is ever large enough for more than a short period of time.

(not even if it's only paper files in a cabinet)

As to the OP's original question/dilemma...

If possible, you might want to stall the decision, while continuing research, to see if drive prices come back down any next spring when makers are supposed to be recovered from the Thailand flood damage that choked off the supply chain and ran prices up so dramatically recently.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Personally, I use a homebuilt version of the first WHS. It meets all of your feature requirements, can be done with last generation hardware, and could be a cheap solution that backs up everything in the entire house. It is easy to expand capacity, add/subtract discs, supports pytivo, TTG, ect.


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## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

Has anyone taken a look at these new Mini ITX form factors?

http://www.ocmodshop.com/thermaltake-elementq-vl5000-mini-itx-case-review/

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811163170

Looks like you get the size of a NAS with the flexibility to load the OS of your choice. My main concern is that they're fanless and I've yet to find one that could hold a reasonable number of drives. However they do have USB so there's not reason you can't add external expanders as needed.


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## lynnalexandra (Apr 27, 2009)

Wow. It's hard to know where to start. First - thank you to everyone for your generousity in responding to my query. Unfortunately, most of these posts are way beyond my level of comprehension. 

JCThorne - your response was encouraging. If an NAS is what I need, it makes sense to get one with a faster processor, and expandability. Glad to hear you like your 1511. Also glad to hear I can mix drive sizes (although it sounds like lrhorer does not necessarily agree with that - but I don't understand the potential complications). Also good to know that the system stays up and running if a drive needs to be added/replaced. That's a consideration I hadn't considered - thank you.

Lrhorer - my grasp of what you're saying is so limited, I am not sure I should take more of your time asking for clarification. But if you are inclined, there are so many questions. I think for starters that I may not understand what system you are propposing - and how that is different than an NAS. I don't really know what an NAS is. I thought it was just something that housed multiple drives so that they could all be accessed on the network (I did know it had some type of software and processor). Beyond that, I don't know what I"m looking for - except large capacity, reliability and being able to stream video over the home network (for the most part that's in the living room and wired).

I love the law of nature and corollary - that no storage is enough for long. I remember first upgrading my Tivo back here June 2009 - and being wondering how I could possibly need more than 2TB of storage. Of course, now I'm way over that.

I don't know what linux is (although I have a vague sense that it's an operating system of sorts - and open sourced). 

I don't really know what RAID is (I know what it stands for - just not what it is). I certainly don't know what a hardware RAID and even fakeRAID is. Don't know what Raid 0, 1, 5 or hybrid means - so I have no idea what guides that choice. I do think your solution is going to remain well beyond my capability - but I think you're got a lot of wisdom - some of which I may be able to grasp.

On another note, I first considered this NAS before the Thai floods and increase in drive prices. I'm not in a rush to buy the drives if what I have is sufficient - the 2TB drive nearly full, a new 2TB drive and a new 1.5TB drive. So if it's okay to mix sizes, will that be enough to start? Does the choice of Raid eliminate a lot of space. I have a vague notion that the drives make copies of themselves - so depending on the type of Raid, only a certain portion is available for new files. Is that much right?

Any guidance on type of RAID - or where to go for a quick RAID, NAS for dummies (not a whole book, please - but happy to get more educated by being pointed somehwere.

Thanks everyone.
Lynn


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## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

While someone is answering lynnalexandra question can you also riddle me this...

Lets say I have 4 2TB drives in a RAID 6. How much data can I store? 2TB... 4TB... 8TB...
Why would I need a backup solution if the failure of one drive means I can simply insert a new drive into the array and it will heal itself?

I'm just wondering if it's worth the cost for movies that will eventually come on again or DVD's where you still have the original in mint condition???


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

lynnalexandra said:


> JCThorne - your response was encouraging. If an NAS is what I need, it makes sense to get one with a faster processor, and expandability.


Not so much a faster processor. A NAS doesn't do much in the way of number crunching. The exception might be if you intend to use the NAS' processor to do a lot of full video recoding of HD material. In that case I recommend at least 6 of the fastest cores you can find. Expandability is a must in my opinion.



lynnalexandra said:


> Glad to hear you like your 1511. Also glad to hear I can mix drive sizes (although it sounds like lrhorer does not necessarily agree with that - but I don't understand the potential complications).


It certainly can be done, but it is not supported in any of the standard RAID implementations, to my knowledge, and for good reason. LVM supports it, but performance will almost surely suffer, and redundancy is certain to be problematical. Of course there is nothing wrong, if you happen to get a good deal on a 3T drive or two, installing them in an array with 2T spindles and only using 2T for the time being.



lynnalexandra said:


> Also good to know that the system stays up and running if a drive needs to be added/replaced.


Don't count on that working very well if the drive sizes are all different. It also depends on the implementation. LVM doesn't directly support redundancy. RAID, OTOH supports various levels and types of redundancy.

RAID0 employs no redundancy, but only stitches together a number of devices to make one large volume. Performance increases are huge, however. The loss of a single device may take down the array and lose a large amount of data, possibly all of it.

RAID1 employs simple mirroring. A RAID1 array is composed of two or more essentially identical devices. All but one of these devices can fail without taking the array offline.

RAID5 offers the ability to set up an array of N + 1 devices, where any single device can fail without taking down the array, and the size of the array is equal to N * C, where C is the capacity of each device. Performance increases are also usually very large, but not as large as a RAID0 array.

RAID6 is similar to RAID5, except any two devices can be lost without taking the array offline. If the total number of devices is N + 2, the array capacity is N * C. I recommend RAID6 any time the number of data elements exceeds 6 (6 data elements + 2 parity ).

RAID levels can be combined. For example, RAID 1 + 0 can take a number of RAID1 arrays and stitch them into a single large array. Each RAID1 element can lose all but one of its members.

There are lots more options, including RAID10, RAID50, RAID60, etc., but they are generally beyond what the home user would ordinarily consider.



lynnalexandra said:


> I think for starters that I may not understand what system you are propposing - and how that is different than an NAS. I don't really know what an NAS is. I thought it was just something that housed multiple drives so that they could all be accessed on the network (I did know it had some type of software and processor).


Properly speaking, a NAS is an embedded device dedicated to the purpose of sharing files over a network. Most are based on some flavor of Linux, but like the TiVo, most have a very limited, canned UI - usually web based. Some utilize proprietary protocols and require specialized drivers for access. I would avoid these. Most NAS systems have their OS in a flash system, or possibly even in ROM. In general, to run more applications than those with which the NAS is packaged will require hacking the NAS. Some are easier to hack than others. Most NAS systems do not even have the ability to attach a keyboard, mouse, and monitor. There are exceptions.

By comparison, a Linux system is just that: a more or less ordinary PC running Linux. The only thing particularly specialized about it is the attachment of a RAID chassis, if needed. There are plenty of tower cases that can house 8 or 10 drives, but beyond that, one probably needs an external drive enclosure capable of holding many drives. There is nothing wrong, however, with starting simply with a small tower capable of holding 5 or 6 drives and upgrading later. The beauty of a Linux system is there is no hacking involved. One simply loads whatever software one wishes. That, and of course the software is all available free of charge. For a starter system, you can probably pick up a used tower for under $200 and add a handful of medium-large drives. For a better fit, get a nice multi-bay tower from Newegg or Tiger Direct (or whatever) and pick up a decent, middle of the road motherboard and CPU along with enough SATA ports to handle the number of drives you intend to put in the system. Again, for robustness, ease of management, ease of configuration, and ease of installation, I recommend getting a small, inexpensive hard drive for booting, and leave the big boys exclusively for data. An 80G drive is more than plenty. 40G is fine. 10G is a bit small, especially if you want a desktop GUI.



lynnalexandra said:


> Beyond that, I don't know what I"m looking for - except large capacity, reliability and being able to stream video over the home network (for the most part that's in the living room and wired).


That's a very broad brush. You need to focus your intent a bit more. First of all, what is your budget? What is the most you intend to spend up-front?

Secondly, you need to think about just what reliability means to you. RAID systems are fault tolerant, but they do not provide a replacement for a backup strategy. If you do not have a good backup strategy in place, then eventually you *WILL* lose data - maybe all of it. How much do you want to spend on your backup solution, and how comprehensive does it need to be? For example, are you willing to differentiate between videos you cannot abide losing versus some which won't give you great heartache to lose? If so, you can afford to limit the scope of the backup system and save some time and money. If not, then the backup solution is going to have to be able to store at least a bit more data than the primary solution. Beyond that, just how reliable does the system need to be? Is it of extreme importance the system never be down under any circumstances? In that case, a high availability dual chassis system employing mirrored networks and drives with extensive UPS units is required. With Linux, this is easy, but expensive. If you just want to be able to get the system online quickly and easily when it does go down, then a single online system fills the bill quite well. If you want a system that almost never goes down in the first place, but is not guaranteed never to go down, then a simple Linux server is your best bet. Depending on exactly what you need, the system can range from a couple of hundred dollars (plus the cost of the data drives) to many thousands of dollars.



lynnalexandra said:


> I love the law of nature and corollary - that no storage is enough for long. I remember first upgrading my Tivo back here June 2009 - and being wondering how I could possibly need more than 2TB of storage. Of course, now I'm way over that.


Exactly. My best advice is to not lock yourself into a system that can only be expanded a limited amount.



lynnalexandra said:


> I don't know what linux is (although I have a vague sense that it's an operating system of sorts - and open sourced).


Not "of sorts". It is an operating system. A real one. Most Linux applications are open source. Some are not. There are quite a few different distributions - most of them available free of charge. Typical Linux distros include 20,000+ applications. You probably won't need all of them. 

The one I prefer for most deployments is called Debian. It is available at www.debian.org. The latest stable version is called "Squeeze", and includes some 29,000 software packages. There are also a lot of Debian derivative distros. The most popular is probably Ubuntu. Ubuntu is aimed more at the user who wants to have all the latest bells and whistles. Consequently, it is not as stable as Debian, but it has all the latest features. The other main set of distributions are derivatives of Red Hat Linux. Red Hat and Debian developed two different methods of packaging their software elements, as well as two different ways of managing the software on the live system. I prefer Debian's approach, although both have their strong points.



lynnalexandra said:


> I don't really know what RAID is (I know what it stands for - just not what it is). I certainly don't know what a hardware RAID and even fakeRAID is.


Hardware RAID implements the RAID functions in hardware. Hardware RAID used to be faster than software RAID, but no longer since CPUs have gotten so blazingly fast. Software RAID also used to eat up a lot of CPU resources, but once again, now that CPUs are so fast, the overhead from RAID is insignificant. Hardware RAID cannot be upgraded except by replacing the RAID controller entirely. (The exception being the UI, which may reside in flash.) FakeRAID implements software RAID directly on a controller card. It tends to enjoy the worst of both worlds. Some controllers claim to be hardware RAID, when they are really fakeRAID. I recommend software RAID. It eliminates interoperability issues with the OS, and may be more stable. It is readily upgraded. These days it is faster than hardware RAID. Non-RAID controllers and fakeRAID controllers with their RAID software disabled are cheaper than hardware RAID.



lynnalexandra said:


> Don't know what Raid 0, 1, 5 or hybrid means - so I have no idea what guides that choice.


I suggest you read up on RAID and also on Logical Volume Management. In the mean time, I posted a short comparison above.



lynnalexandra said:


> I do think your solution is going to remain well beyond my capability


Not really. Once you have decided on a system to implement (don't worry too much if it's wrong at the outset - fixing it is not too difficult if you proceed with a small amount of caution and ask before you leap), it's not that difficult. If you have a decent broadband connection, downloading one of the Debian netinst .iso files and burning it to CD-ROM only takes a few minutes. After that, installing a basic Debian system is quite easy, and only takes about 45 minutes. Once the OS is up and running, if you choose a Desktop (GUI) environment, there is a fairly decent drive manager automatically provided that does a pretty good job of creating and managing a RAID array. Barring that, mdadm is easy to use, and as I mentioned, has tons of support via the mailing list. The principle developer, Neil Brown in Australia, is very active on the list, as are a few dozen other very experienced people.



lynnalexandra said:


> On another note, I first considered this NAS before the Thai floods and increase in drive prices. I'm not in a rush to buy the drives if what I have is sufficient


I hear you. I am thrilled I upgraded my arrays a few months ago with enough space to last more than a year and a half.



lynnalexandra said:


> - the 2TB drive nearly full, a new 2TB drive and a new 1.5TB drive. So if it's okay to mix sizes, will that be enough to start?


LVM allows one to mix sizes, but it takes a severe performance penalty to do so. Standard RAID implementations do not allow mixing device sizes, but one needn't use a whole drive as the device. On could, for example, partition the 1.5T drive into three partitions and the 2T drives into four partitions, and use the 500G partitions as array elements. One can take the elements and piece them together in such a was that no single drive failure will take down the array. Off the top of my head, however, I can't think of an arrangement that won't eave at least one 500G element unused, but still can survive the loss of any of the drives intact. What's more, a RAID5 implementation will take one unit over and above the total number of data elements as a parity element. In the simplest implementation, this means one drive. If you split up the drives into 500G partitions, this means at least 2T, unless you wish to take a chance on one of the 2T drives failing. It's your data, but I certainly don't recommend it. At the very least, I would look for another 2T drive on sale, or better yet two. What you could do, if you feel like gambling a little, is get a single 2T drive, and then create a RAID5 array with a missing drive. This will allow you to create a 6T unprotected array. As soon as you come across a bargain on another 2T drive, get it and add it to the array, healing it. From that point on, any single drive can fail without taking the array down.



lynnalexandra said:


> Does the choice of Raid eliminate a lot of space. I have a vague notion that the drives make copies of themselves - so depending on the type of Raid, only a certain portion is available for new files. Is that much right?


Files of any sort (new or old), yes. RAID1 employs mirroring. It can be a two, three, four, or more way mirror, but all of the data of the array is held in toto on every element of the array. Thus, a RAID1 array made of four 1T drives can only hold 1T of data, but any three of the four drives can fail completely and simultaneously without taking down the array. By comparison, a RAID5 array made of six whole 1T drives can store 5T of data, and any one drive can fail without taking the array down. A RAID6 array made of six whole 1T drives can lose any two drives without failing, but only holds 4T of data.

One more thing: although booting from a RAID5 or RAID6 array is possible, I don't recommend you try. At most I recommend RAID1 on the boot devices. You can create small boot partitions on the larger hard drives for booting, but it is so much easier and less troublesome to simply use a small drive or two exclusively for booting.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Soapm said:


> While someone is answering lynnalexandra question can you also riddle me this...
> 
> Lets say I have 4 2TB drives in a RAID 6. How much data can I store? 2TB... 4TB... 8TB...


4T, assuming the array is not degraded. RAID6 is probably not the best choice for a 4 element array, although there can be valid reasons to choose RAID6 for a 4 element array.



Soapm said:


> Why would I need a backup solution if the failure of one drive means I can simply insert a new drive into the array and it will heal itself?


What happens when that one drive catched fire, and destroys two other drives? I have had 4 drives fail simultaneously. Last year I had four Seagate Barracuda drives in a single array bite the dust together. I also had a power outage right in the middle of expanding an array from ten drives to twelve. The array was taken offline, but I was able to start a recovery of the upgrade, when the power failed again. All of the data structures more than 16K in size were massively corrupted. A few hundred text files survived, but the video files all looked horrible, with tons of pixellation. Without a backup I would have been in deep pookey. As it was, it took two weeks to recover all the data and another two weeks to verify it all.

The odds of losing two drives in a matter of an hour is not very high, but it can take several days for the data to be rebuilt. What happens if another drive fails, and then another?

Finally, while drive failures certainly occur, the most common cause of lost data is operator error. One of my favorite movies is the original Superman, with Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, and Gene Hackman. I was doing some work on the metadata file when I accidentally overwrote the video file with the metadata file. The video was unrecoverable. I did not have a backup of it. I kicked myself weekly for over three years until it aired again.

Do yourself a huge favor. If any data is even slightly important to you, back it up.



Soapm said:


> I'm just wondering if it's worth the cost for movies that will eventually come on again or DVD's where you still have the original in mint condition???


That's a judgement call, and entirely yours. If you wish to arrange the movies by importance and only back up the ones you really, really don't want to lose, you can save yourself some money. If you decide no movie is so important that you would be bothered to lose it, then you can save yourself a ton of money. Just don't be bothered when all the movies go POOF!!.


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## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

lrhorer said:


> 4T, assuming the array is not degraded. RAID6 is probably not the best choice for a 4 element array, although there can be valid reasons to choose RAID6 for a 4 element array.


I really don't get it. Six 1Tb drives will get you 4TB. Four 2TB drives will get you 4TB.

I try and try to understand RAID but I guess I'm limited to 2TB drive = 2TB. Want more space get another drive. Pray you don't have a drive failure and burn any movie you must keep to a disc...


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Sometimes a picture is worth 1000 words. Here is a screen-shot of a remote session on my video server (running Linux). I elected to run a desktop (not usually the best practice for a server) because there are several GUI based applications I want to run on that server, including kmttg. Notice it in the background. The foreground should also be familiar. In the upper right corner you can see I have 17T total storage from /dev/md0 mounted on /RAID, which is the local data array, and 14T total storage on the array mounted on /Backup, which is local to the other server. You might also take note of the storage from /dev/md2, mounted on /. That is the operating system. It is using 13G out of 302G total. I could very easily have used a 20G or 40G drive, but I had the old 500G drives laying around, unused. Also note the up time in the lower right corner: 4774 hours ( 199 days, or 6.5 months ).


----------



## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

Wow, 12T worth of data??? Is it possible to watch that many shows???

I see how much space you have and obviously there are no 17'T drives that I know of but how many individual drives do you have making up the 17T and the 14T?


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Soapm said:


> I really don't get it. Six 1Tb drives will get you 4TB. Four 2TB drives will get you 4TB.


Again, if N is the number of devices (not necessarily drives, it can be partitions, files, whatever), then N - 2 devices carry the data, and 2 devices carry parity. The data can be re-constructed from any N devices, whether those devices carry the actual data or the parity informaton. Eight 1T drives in a RAID6 array hold 6T of data. Twelve 1T drives hold 10T of data. (Actually, the architecture of RAID6 allows for more than 2 parity drives. I believe the code allowing for 3 or more parity drives in Linux is under development right now. For more than 12 data drives, 2 parity drives is a little thin.)



Soapm said:


> I try and try to understand RAID but I guess I'm limited to 2TB drive = 2TB. Want more space get another drive. Pray you don't have a drive failure and burn any movie you must keep to a disc...


I don't know what you mean, here. Any data that is important needs to be backed up. For the best security, the backup should be housed somewhere else, preferably at least 30 miles away. A fire can take out an entire house. A gas explosion can take out a whole city bock. An Earthquake can take out buildings across a whole sector of a city. Two or three drive failures can take out a RAID5 or RAID6 array. Its a great deal less likely than taking out a RAID0 array, though, which only requires a single drive failure. The odds of a single drive failing in the span of a year is pretty low, but certainly not zero. The odds of any one of ten drives in a 10T RAID0 array failing in a single year is pretty high.


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Soapm said:


> Wow, 12T worth of data??? Is it possible to watch that many shows???


In what time frame? I have seen all but a few of the shows on the array. A bit over 2000, mostly movies: http://fletchergeek.homelinux.net:8080

That doesn't include the DVDs.



Soapm said:


> I see how much space you have and obviously there are no 17'T drives that I know of but how many individual drives do you have making up the 17T and the 14T?




```
RAID-Server:/RAID/Server-Main/Movies# mdadm -D /dev/md0
/dev/md0:
        Version : 1.2
  Creation Time : Fri May 20 03:41:03 2011
     Raid Level : raid6
     Array Size : 17581590528 (16767.11 GiB 18003.55 GB)
  Used Dev Size : 2930265088 (2794.52 GiB 3000.59 GB)
   Raid Devices : 8
  Total Devices : 8
    Persistence : Superblock is persistent

  Intent Bitmap : Internal

    Update Time : Wed Dec 21 01:36:09 2011
          State : active
 Active Devices : 8
Working Devices : 8
 Failed Devices : 0
  Spare Devices : 0

         Layout : left-symmetric
     Chunk Size : 1024K

           Name : RAID-Server:0  (local to host RAID-Server)
           UUID : 73143f23:62cff764:b4a47b8f:4dbf4316
         Events : 494630

    Number   Major   Minor   RaidDevice State
       0       8        0        0      active sync   /dev/sda
       1       8       16        1      active sync   /dev/sdb
       2       8       32        2      active sync   /dev/sdc
       3       8       48        3      active sync   /dev/sdd                                                                                                                                                
       4       8       64        4      active sync   /dev/sde                                                                                                                                                
       5       8       80        5      active sync   /dev/sdf                                                                                                                                                
       6       8       96        6      active sync   /dev/sdg                                                                                                                                                
       7       8      112        7      active sync   /dev/sdh 

Backup:/usr/share/thermostat# mdadm -D /dev/md0
/dev/md0:
        Version : 1.2
  Creation Time : Mon May 31 16:23:10 2010
     Raid Level : raid6
     Array Size : 14651371520 (13972.64 GiB 15003.00 GB)
  Used Dev Size : 1465137152 (1397.26 GiB 1500.30 GB)
   Raid Devices : 12
  Total Devices : 12
    Persistence : Superblock is persistent

    Update Time : Wed Dec 21 01:24:06 2011
          State : clean
 Active Devices : 12
Working Devices : 12
 Failed Devices : 0
  Spare Devices : 0

         Layout : left-symmetric
     Chunk Size : 1024K

           Name : Backup:0  (local to host Backup)
           UUID : 431244d6:45d9635a:e88b3de5:92f30255
         Events : 436732

    Number   Major   Minor   RaidDevice State
       0       8        0        0      active sync   /dev/sda
       1       8       16        1      active sync   /dev/sdb
       2       8       32        2      active sync   /dev/sdc
       3       8       48        3      active sync   /dev/sdd
       4       8       64        4      active sync   /dev/sde
       5       8       80        5      active sync   /dev/sdf
       6       8       96        6      active sync   /dev/sdg
       7       8      112        7      active sync   /dev/sdh
       8       8      128        8      active sync   /dev/sdi
      10       8      144        9      active sync   /dev/sdj
      12      65        0       10      active sync   /dev/sdq
      11       9       10       11      active sync   /dev/md10
```


----------



## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

Just a quick note on the hybrid RAID arrangement used by Synology. For single redundancy in a mixed size arrray, the RAID volume = the total of all drives in the array less the largest drive. For double redundancy, its the same less the two largest drives.

Any one drive fails, replace with a drive same size or larger and the array is restored.

All hybrid RAID schemes are propritary and panented so are not in the public domain as are standard RAID arrangements. This limits the systems that can mix drive sizes to those that own the tech. Synology is one of those. 

For the same reasons I do not run a HTPC, the NAS made more sense for me than a DIY system. Its also very power efficient.


----------



## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

jcthorne said:


> For the same reasons I do not run a HTPC, the NAS made more sense for me than a DIY system. Its also very power efficient.


Can you load other applications on your Synology 1511 NAS? Like say pytivo?


----------



## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

Soapm said:


> Can you load other applications on your Synology 1511 NAS? Like say pytivo?


Yes. Currently runs pytivo, vidmgr and squeeze server. Average CPU load is less than 30% and memory usage is less than half of the available 1g. It can be upgraded if needed to run more apps.

I never could get Harmonium running on it as I failed at trying to get a jave runtime installed. I am not a programmer and used help from a lot of folks here but that was where I gave up and decided its an appliance, rather have stability. Later moved pytivo and vidmgr back to a windows low power laptop since I needed it for Harmonium anyway. Wish there was a tivo app to use a DLNA server or squeeze server for music and all would run on the NAS.

Would like to convince jbernardis to build a python ap similar to vidmgr that handles music...far beyond my ability. Another topic.....


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

jcthorne said:


> Would like to convince jbernardis to build a python ap similar to vidmgr that handles music...far beyond my ability.


He's working on one. I think he has hit a significant snag, though.


----------



## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

jcthorne said:


> Yes. Currently runs pytivo, vidmgr and squeeze server. Average CPU load is less than 30% and memory usage is less than half of the available 1g. It can be upgraded if needed to run more apps.


Just curious, what version of py did you load on the NAS? The widows or Linux version?


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

lynnalexandra said:


> Wow. It's hard to know where to start. First - thank you to everyone for your generousity in responding to my query. Unfortunately, most of these posts are way beyond my level of comprehension.


I'd like to take a moment to exapnd on this a bit. As someone pointed out, right now is not really the best time to be buying hard drives, but that actually may work to your advantage. Increasing one's level of comprehension is only a matter of time and ongoing experience. What I suggest is you get an ancient PC from somewhere, put in a handful of old drives, and play with it. Since it is just a training bed, you won't have to worry about how badly you might screw it up. For example, I just picked up an old Iomega 1RU rack-mountable NAS including four 160G drives for $40 plus shipping. It's a nice little system, actually, except that it is awfully loud. As it happens, unlike most NAS systems, this one does not have a canned UI, and it does have a video output. Indeed, this system came with no OS at all. The options were wide open. Its BIOS supports PXE, so I set up a network boot. This works fine, but it means if the network server goes down or loses network connectivity, then the NAS also goes down. One could "steal" a bit of space for the OS off the drives, but then replacing the drives - especially all four at once - becomes more involved. I finally decided to put the OS on a USB stick. I used PXE to install Debian on a 4G thumb drive. It took about 40 minutes start to finish. This is working quite well set up with four 160G drives in a RAID5 array giving 480G of useable space formatted as XFS. If I decide to keep and use the system, I'll repoace the 160G drives with 3T drives.


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## jbernardis (Oct 22, 2003)

lrhorer said:


> He's working on one. I think he has hit a significant snag, though.


Actually I was about to put it up, but have one remaining issue. I chose to use pytivo as the http server because it was a readily available server that supports tivo trick play (unlike the basic http server built into pyhme). My issue right now is this: If I use pyhme 0.18, everything works fine except for the qwerty keyboard input. If I switch to 0.19 to support the qwerty keyboard, then the music doesn't play. I think there might be an issue with the Stream class within the HME - I have a question in to wmcbrine for that. If that gets resolved, I will be posting my player. I'm quite happy with the way it turned out.


----------



## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

Soapm said:


> Just curious, what version of py did you load on the NAS? The widows or Linux version?


pyTivo is written in python, its not a window or linux program. I installed a python interpreter on the synology box much like you have to do for windows. If it matters, the synology NAS is linux based.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

jbernardis said:


> Actually I was about to put it up, but have one remaining issue. I chose to use pytivo as the http server because it was a readily available server that supports tivo trick play (unlike the basic http server built into pyhme). My issue right now is this: If I use pyhme 0.18, everything works fine except for the qwerty keyboard input. If I switch to 0.19 to support the qwerty keyboard, then the music doesn't play. I think there might be an issue with the Stream class within the HME - I have a question in to wmcbrine for that. If that gets resolved, I will be posting my player. I'm quite happy with the way it turned out.


This is SUPER news. You made my day and I have not even seen the app yet. WOW!


----------



## jbernardis (Oct 22, 2003)

jcthorne said:


> This is SUPER news. You made my day and I have not even seen the app yet. WOW!


If enough people are interested in it and willing to run PYHME 0.18, then I will put it up on github. I don't like to do this, but the problem is not necessarily a technical issue - it is a lack of knowledge issue. Wmcbrine stated that the lastest version of the HME protocol (0.49 I believe) has a new parameter for streams, but it's undocumented so nobody knows what values can/should be used. Everything I have tried basically results in the stream being ignored by the Tivo and as a result, playback never happens. Until I/We can figure out what legitimate values can be specified for this parameter, I'm stuck back on 0.18 (which means no QWERTY keyboard support)


----------



## lynnalexandra (Apr 27, 2009)

Again - a big thanks for responses.

Lrhorer - there's still a lot to chew on. As the holidays and our visitors ramp up, I probably won't make much of a dent in this for the next few days. (If I do make progress - or come up with questions, I'll post back sooner). Your questions about narrowing down the focus of what I want is very useful. And I can answer those questions - and will when I have more time. 

I still think your solution is over my head. And perhaps that's worth expanding on. I am such a newbie to technology. And while I'm probably smart enough to learn this if I devoted lots and lots of time to it, some of this software and set up information seems to hit my language block issues - so it may be particularly difficult for me. On the other hand, I'm good at math - so maybe that will help eventually (I think I'll be able to grasp the RAID options - and how many devices and how much redundancy, etc - given enough time to digest this). There is the issue of time. It might not take much time to download linux distro - and run some initial software set up of a RAID - but it seems to me it will takes many, many hours to comprehend this enough to make decisions about what to purchase and how to set it up. I've already spent a few hours writing posts on this thread and trying to understand the answers here - and I've just scratched the surface.

So I think part of my goal is to have a user-friendly system to store my data - that has some redundancy - can be accessed over the home network - and not require 15-50 hours just to grasp this. My time is always a scarce commodity - and probably needs to be weighed at least as heavily as some cost-savings. Saving a couple of hundred dollars by putting together my own system is not worth taking 10-20 more hours to understand. But perhaps it's not more time-consuming to learn what you're suggesting than getting the Synology 1511 up and running.

JCthorne - how long did it take you to set up your synology? I know you've got more tech knowledge than me - but do you have a guestimate at how long it would take a newbie to set up the Synology? (I don't mean passive time of waiting for drives to duplicate themselves and get the files onto the server. I mean just the active time of installing drives, running software, understanding which steps I need to take, getting the media files arranged in a way that I can view them from my Tivo screen?)

That's probably about all I have time for for now.
Thanks again.
Lynn.


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

lynnalexandra said:


> Lrhorer - there's still a lot to chew on.


Yes, and there are a great many options available. Don't let that daunt you. You have a very important resource available: the internet. If you don't know or aren't sure, ask. Particularly, ask before you buy.



lynnalexandra said:


> Your questions about narrowing down the focus of what I want is very useful. And I can answer those questions - and will when I have more time.


Whether you post them or not, you need to answer them for yourself. Only then can you really make a fairly confidant selection. That can translate into saving money or at least getting the best system for your money.



lynnalexandra said:


> I still think your solution is over my head.


Of course it is. Every solution will be over your head... until you try it and get it to work. As the saying goes, however, a journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step. As a corollary, it also ends with a single step, and consists of nothing more than a whole bunch of single steps in between. No matter how complicted, circuituous, or sophisticated the path when viewed as a whole, it is still nothing more than a long series of simple steps. Take each step one at a time, and suddenly you will look up to find yourself at the destination.



lynnalexandra said:


> And perhaps that's worth expanding on. I am such a newbie to technology.


So was I... once upon a time.



lynnalexandra said:


> And while I'm probably smart enough to learn this if I devoted lots and lots of time to it


Did you devote "lots and lots of time" into learning how to drive? The answer depends on how one defines "devote". The time required doing something other than driving to learn to drive was perhaps a few hours sittting in a classroom. Learning to be a good driver takes many years of practice - all done while driving. One does not spend years studying how to drive before attempting it. The same applies here. There's lots to learn, but only a few minutes of study are required before diving in to get things set up.



lynnalexandra said:


> There is the issue of time. It might not take much time to download linux distro - and run some initial software set up of a RAID


Not even that, really. If you have all the hardware in place, the installation utility will set up RAID and drive sharing for you. It's 40 minutes or so, start to finish. Even at that, most of that time nothing is required of the user. One can start the installation, answer a few questions, and walk away for a while. There are a few additional questions along the way, but once again one can answer them and walk away while the installer does its work.



lynnalexandra said:


> but it seems to me it will takes many, many hours to comprehend this enough to make decisions about what to purchase and how to set it up.


No. Once the system is set up, you are pretty much done until you run out of space and need to add more drives or until a drive fails. The purchasing decisions are another mattter. What hardware is needed is pretty well established by knowing what one wishes to accomplish. Procuring those elements can be as quick as whipping out your credit card and visiting Newegg or PC-Pitstop, or can take as long as browsing and bidding on ebay, seaarching the classsifieds, and visiting garage sales.



lynnalexandra said:


> I've already spent a few hours writing posts on this thread and trying to understand the answers here - and I've just scratched the surface.


Hours? Really? In any case, the main question is not how much time yuou may have to spend researching the issue, but rather the following:

1. How well and for how long will the system serve my puposes?
2. How much time and effort will be spent on maintenance?
3. How easily can the system be expanded when the time comes?
4. How far can it be expanded?



lynnalexandra said:


> So I think part of my goal is to have a user-friendly system to store my data - that has some redundancy - can be accessed over the home network


Define "user friendly". Is a system user friendly that fails to perform effectively, no matter how quickly it can be installed? Is a system user friendly that requires constant attention? Is a system user friendly that is constantly causing problems?

I have a little NAS that I bought quite some years ago. Installtion was simple, but it required special drivers to work. Every time one of my workstations got an upgrade, the drivers would quit working, and getting updated drivers, if it was possible at all, took a lot of time and effort. Finally, the device had some hardware issues, but since the hardware was proprietary, I could not simply swap the offending components out.



lynnalexandra said:


> and not require 15-50 hours just to grasp this.


It should not take 15 hours, let alone 50, to grasp any of this. Internalizing all the details may take years, but that is true no matter what system you implement. I am telling you from long experience (over 30 years), a Linux system will take less time to implement and present you with less frustration and greater flexibility than any other solution. When you do come acoss an issue, the odds are high a simple Google search will bring up tens or even hundreds of posts describing a simple solution to your issue. If not, there is probably a mail list dedicated to the system with which you are having the problem.

Note, however, deciding which RAID level to employ is almost entirely an economic decision. If money is no object, then there is no question a RAID10 solution with triple redundancy on two mirrored systems is the way to go. Such a setup costs more than $10,000 for 9T of storage, though. OTOH, if redundancy is not an issue at all, then a single $800 system (including three 3T drives) utilizing RAID0 or LVM will suffice to serve up 9T of data.



lynnalexandra said:


> My time is always a scarce commodity - and probably needs to be weighed at least as heavily as some cost-savings. Saving a couple of hundred dollars by putting together my own system is not worth taking 10-20 more hours to understand. But perhaps it's not more time-consuming to learn what you're suggesting than getting the Synology 1511 up and running.


Again, it depends upon your needs. First of all the Synology system *IS* a linux system. You will face almost all the same issues with it that you will with a full blown Linux system. If a limited system like the Synology wil meet your needs then there is no particular reason not to deploy it, except that installing 3rd party apps and standard Linux apps will be a bit more difficult on the Synology.



lynnalexandra said:


> JCthorne - how long did it take you to set up your synology? I know you've got more tech knowledge than me - but do you have a guestimate at how long it would take a newbie to set up the Synology?


There's probably no good answer to such a question. One can say it's taken me 35 years to set up my servers. Setting up a computer system is not like creating a piece of sculpture or building a doghouse. It is an ongoing process that may never end. New software and new features in existing software are being developed all the time. Without question it will no doubt take you a few evenings to get the system working the way you like - for the moment. It is all but inevitable you will not be satisfied with the way it works for very long and will seek to change or add features.



lynnalexandra said:


> (I don't mean passive time of waiting for drives to duplicate themselves


That's not how it works. First of all, except with RAID1, the drives are not duplicated, and one does not "wait" for anything. Adding or replacing a drive, or initiating a RAID level or geometry change takes only a few seconds, and even during those few seconds the array is still available. All the data must be read, and then, depending on the opertion, the necessary data must be written to one or all the drives. This can take several days. During this time, access to the array may (or may not) be slightly but noticeably slower.



lynnalexandra said:


> and get the files onto the server. I mean just the active time of installing drives, running software, understanding which steps I need to take, getting the media files arranged in a way that I can view them from my Tivo screen?)


Most of that is going to be more or less platform independant. It's not going to take much more or less time no matter what system you deploy. The main differnce is going to be tied up in the fact the canned NAS is usually going to be specifically designed not to be modified, so one must hack it. This can range from being trivial to being quite involved. Once hacked, the process for installing 3rd party utilities will be almost identical between the two. Installing regular distro apps on the Synology will be more involved than on an ordinary distro machine.


----------



## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

Setup time for the Synology itself and having it perform on my network was a matter of unboxing, installing the first 3 drives, pluggin in to power and the network.

Using a browser, one starts the synology config routine which automaticly downloads the latest version of the Synology OS, installs it and asks you a few questions on your RAID requirements. If you want the recomended Synology Hybrid Raid arrangement, all defaults are used and away it goes. About 10 minutes.

No drivers of any kind are required on any computer on the network capable of accessing a network resourse. IE windows 98 and newer, linux and MacOS. No configuration of the computers on the network other than mapping the network drive.

pyTivo running on a windows computer on the network can see the NAS as soon as the computer can. Installing python and pytivo on the NAS is about the same length of time as to install on a windows box. Its more a matter of knowing enough about the OS to actually install a program.

Adding user programs to a Synolgoy NAS does not require 'hacking' The option is given freely by Synology. Just a simple release of liability question and the system will allow a secure telnet connection for comand line config and installaion of linux packages. Its not locked at all. Synolgoy tells you exactly how to do so and how to get back if you screw up. There is always the fall back position to reinstall the factory OS and revert to a non-modified state. Synology also provides quite a number of pre configured packages that run from within the system. Logitech's squeeze box server is one such. A DLNA server, web server, email exchange server and a network video camera manager among others.

If you want just a server, with the supported Synology packages, you do not need to know ANY linux. Its all done in its GUI accessed via a web browswer. Yes, its JUST a linux computer and drives. A very optimized one for a specific purpose and well supported. Kind of like the difference between a Tivo and an HTPC.


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

jcthorne said:


> No drivers of any kind are required on any computer on the network capable of accessing a network resourse.


This has become the norm on most NAS systems. Most deploy SAMBA.



jcthorne said:


> Installing python and pytivo on the NAS is about the same length of time as to install on a windows box. Its more a matter of knowing enough about the OS to actually install a program.


And that's essentially going to be the same on just about any platform, at least just to run the program. Does the Synology employ System V, dependency based booting?



jcthorne said:


> Adding user programs to a Synolgoy NAS does not require 'hacking' The option is given freely by Synology.


That's unusual.



jcthorne said:


> Just a simple release of liability question


That's no surprise.



jcthorne said:


> and the system will allow a secure telnet connection for comand line config and installaion of linux packages.


That's nice. Is it .deb or RPM?



jcthorne said:


> If you want just a server, with the supported Synology packages, you do not need to know ANY linux. Its all done in its GUI accessed via a web browswer. Yes, its JUST a linux computer and drives. A very optimized one for a specific purpose and well supported. Kind of like the difference between a Tivo and an HTPC.


Yeah, sort of. As I said, there's nothing wrong with deploying a NAS if it meets one's needs when growth is considered. It sounds like the Synoloy can probably handle any reasonable software growth needs, so the big issue is what level of hardware growth is handled compared with what the user will require. Does it support OLRM from the GUI?


----------



## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

lrhorer said:


> This has become the norm on most NAS systems. Most deploy SAMBA.
> 
> And that's essentially going to be the same on just about any platform, at least just to run the program. Does the Synology employ System V, dependency based booting?
> 
> ...


Sorry, I think you have gone over my head here. Not sure what .deb or RPM are. Or OLRM for that matter.

Your point about determining ones needs both now and in the furture is a good one before going down ANY RAID server path. For me, the Synology made sense and has been a good choice for about a year now. Been very reliable and easy to use, upgrade, add functionality. Synology and the user community at the Synology forums have been very helpful along the way. Only once did I need direct help from Synology but they were there and prompt.


----------



## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

jcthorne said:


> Sorry, I think you have gone over my head here. Not sure what .deb or RPM are.


The two main Linux distro types are based upon Debian and Red Hat. Debian employs packages with a .deb extension. The foundation for managing Debian packages is dpkg, although most people use a front end like aptitude or apt-get to both retrieve and install packages. Using apt-get, for example, to obtain and install UPS software simply requires the command:


```
apt-get install nut
```
(nut being the name of the software that provides UPS management.) Debian and its derivatives like Ubuntu and Xandros all use .deb packaging.

Red Hat, OTOH, developed a somewhat similar in concept management system called RPM (for Red Hat Package Manager). Distros like Fedora and SUSE employ RPM for packaging.

All things considered, I prefer Debian's approach.

Does the system employ dependency based System V booting? (Is there an insserv command on the system?)



jcthorne said:


> Or OLRM for that matter.


OnLine Raid Management. It means the system has the ability to increase or decrease the size of an array, or convert it from one RAID level to another without taking the array offline. From the specs, it looks like the Synology does.



jcthorne said:


> Your point about determining ones needs both now and in the furture is a good one before going down ANY RAID server path.


Exactly. An entry-level RAID system is not horrendously expensive - one can put one together for under $200 with a very minimalist approach, but if one makes the wrong choices for hardware, one can wind up either with a money pit that winds up costing a great deal more to upgrade than a system which cost rather more at the outset, or else a rigidly limited system that will eventually have to be scrapped in favor of one that is more flexible. The Synology falls rather in the middle of this spectrum, which may be a sweet spot for a lot of users. With the availability of 3T drives, a 4 + 1 RAID5 system in the Synology chassis can deliver 12T of storage with decent redundancy. While the Synology unit does support RAID6, a five drive RAID6 array is probably a bit of overkill for most users, and more importantly only hosts 9T of storage. Nine Terabytes is a pretty good chunk of data, but if one is avidly accruing HD videos, it won't take all that long to blow through 9T of data. Of course, the Synology does offer an expansion chassis, or better yet one can obtain a RAID chassis from somewhere like PC-Pitstop and deploy it for expansion, but one is limited to a maximum of 15 drives. Again, if one is deploying 3T drives, that's quite a bit of data. OTOH, 3T drives are still selling at a premium compared with 1.5 or 2T drives. Once one exceeds 5 drives, it may be considerably more economical to go with 1.5T or 2T drives.



jcthorne said:


> For me, the Synology made sense and has been a good choice for about a year now.


As it no doubt does for many users. Certainly it would not meet my needs, but OTOH, I wish I could have gotten one instead of the first RAID chassis I bought. That was a real hunk of junk. It held 12 drives, and since it was multi-lane instead of port multiplier, it should have supported data rates well in excess of 700 MB/sec, and it did - when it worked at all. The thing caused massive intermittent drive errors, and could not keep more than 8 drives reliably online. Unfortunately, the problems only started to show up once I had more than 6 drives online, and so the unit was way out of warranty by the time I exceeded 6 drives. It caused me to lose a fair amount of data. It also took me several painful months to pin down the chassis as the source of the problem.


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