Speed_Gibson

More specifically, I am hoping to increase my available storage. My 8 year old PIII 650 has been playing server for five or six years now and still works flawlessly in the 24/7 state asked of it.
My main problem is the 110 GB total space (30 GB for OS and whatever else, 80 GB for straight storage) on that system. I am finally ready to get back into audio work & archiving records/tapes/cds, but have been very low on space for quite some time. The idea of anything 'lossy' for a master copy for a new addition to my audio collection is out of the question unless it is that new 'junk' pop music or anything in that vein.
This deal on a NAS http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822154170 caught my eye as it is inexpensive and would multiply my space by a huge margin.
I do not want to spend more than $300-400 or so dollars and do realise what kind of limitations that places on the options
some of my concerns are -
reliability: how long do these last typically, and are they as trustworthy as these workhorse PIII systems? Some of the reviews on newegg are less than encouraging
security: the lack of NTFS support and associated access control concerns me after using a computer running win2k server/win2k workstation for my server all of these years. FAT32 was purged from my vocabulary a looong time ago. Can I just use a linux file system format and do SMB?

Thank you for any and all feedback

edit: it is just me, or is my mister keen avatar not working anymore?

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Started talking to yourself I see.
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Black Adder

Cynthetiq

I just bought 2 1Tb drives today

Fantom G-Force MegaDisk MDC1000 1TB 7200 RPM External Hard Drive - Retail @ $299.99 - $20 rebate

Fantom G-Force MegaDisk MDU1000 1TB 7200 RPM External Hard Drive - Retail @ $219.99 - $20 rebate

the more expensive one has 32MB Cache USB 2.0 / IEEE 1394a / 1394b, where the cheaper is only 16MB Cache USB 2.0. The faster one will be connected to a Mac for Final Cut Pro editing as a scratch drive. The larger will be connected to my router USB port as NAS.

FANTOM DRIVES MDN1000 1TB Network Attached Disk Storage - Retail @ $300.99 - $20 rebate

Had I seen this earlier I probably would have bought this one, if I can somehow cancel my order, I just may pick this one up since the cheaper one is supposed to be storage for completed shots from the Mac. I'm not sure just how well I'll be able to get network shares from a Mac to a PC, but seems like I'll easily be able to get this to work with a Mac.

hmmm... maybe I should cancel my order and reorder with this one instead.

My smaller drives have survived many years (knock wood) I have a 20Gb, and 2 30Gb all in plastic. I like these because they are in metal and the newer drives run hotter than the older ones. My 300Gb in a aluminum case is always warm to the touch.

cancelled my order and reordered with this NAS instead. I should get them in a few days. I also am stocking up with music; although I'm not as concerned with lossless, I've got a ton of digital movies, songs, and photos.

EDIT: Changed it back, I was too excited by the dual proc iTunes server capabilities, that when I looked that the actual performance of the NAS for a Mac/PC environment, it's problematic. I dunno why people just don't make things standard for COMPUTERS. It's not like we don't have needs for these kinds of products. I resorted back to my previous plan.

Quick lookups show that there are NAS compatibility problems across the board with just simple problems, but still they are annoying even if they aren't deal breakers.

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Speed_Gibson

after doing some local pricing today, I am inclined to go with:
PCI card for SATA connection, supports up to two SATA drives - $40
Thermal cooling case for SATA HD - $50
500 GB SATA HD - $149
I lose the separate network connection for both systems,but gain huge local storage on the main system that does most of the file creation, and get to shut down one system.

__________________
Started talking to yourself I see.
Yes, it's the only way I can be certain of an intelligent conversation.

Black Adder

Willravel

Cynth, lemme know how the first one works out. Considering it uses Firewire 800, it'd work well with my Mac.

Cynthetiq

So you toss the PIII? and forgot to say, yes your avatar isn't visible. it's reXed.

sure, the Mac arrives on Monday. I'm not sure when the drives will arrive, but should be sometime next week. The firewire one is supposed to be used for the Final Cut Pro scratch drive. Skogafoss is taking Final Cut Pro classes right now so she's going to be using the drive and bringing it to class.

It just is weird to think that among all the drives I have in the house, I probably have close to or just over a single terabyte (Tivos, laptops, computers, bare drives, etc.) and here in one single delivery I'll have 2 Tb.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Lasereth

Storage cracks me up as well. Here I am using a 74 GB Raptor and am nowhere near filling it up. Now you can't even buy a Dell with a smaller than 250 GB drive. People at work ask me how big of a hard drive they need and that a relative said 500 GB at least. The average person could use an 80 GB HDD and never fill it up, ever. Now if you're into special projects like media creation and file storage then I can see those huge drives coming into play but otherwise HDD storage is rapidly exceeding the actual need for it (not that it's a bad thing). Very similar situation in the power supply market...people in the intardnet saying you need a 650w PSU for a new PC even though a 350-400w PSU will be fine for any PC (as long as the PSU is high quality).

Speed_Gibson

My plan with the PIII is to turn that into a *nix/win98 box for the kids - it has ample speed (650 mhz) and storage once it loses the server status. I picked up a 100 Mhz pentium from freecycle for that intent, and realised the slow speed after playing around with it. That one will go away, along with another dinosaur from a similar source (both are in storage taking up space).

My 100 GB or so of current space has been enough with my break from regular audio work; it has roughly 12 GB free now (that figure has been quite a bit lower), but that can be filled be very quickly if I make even a minimal effort with LPs/CD/etc.
The only factor preventing this major change this long has been the 120 GB hard drive on my 1.3 ghz win2k crash box that has received all of the excess data the server is unable to handle.

__________________
Started talking to yourself I see.
Yes, it's the only way I can be certain of an intelligent conversation.

Black Adder

Willravel

I have a 250GB right now, but I'm not able to fit all my backups (West Wing; Star Trek: TNG, DS9, Ent; Farscape; BSG; Alias; Lost; Sleeper Cell; Entourage; The OC (sue me); The Boondocks; Firefly, and a plethora of movies). I've got a few backed up on DVD, but not nearly all of my collections. A few TB might be the solution I'm looking for.

Cynthetiq

one of the last MTV deals was they are converting their entire tape library to digital. They had Pb (petabytes) of storage, and because they built redundancy, really they had Eb (exabytes.)

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Willravel

One quintillion bytes? That's a god damn party. It's a shame it was probably wasted on TRL....

Speed_Gibson

MTV backs up all of their 'quality programming', yet the BBC tossed loads of the Goon Show and other programs to make room to for TV shows

fixed my avatar. Not sure where my Mr. Keen one is now, so went with the Shadow and his agents montage

edit: grammatical fix

__________________
Started talking to yourself I see.
Yes, it's the only way I can be certain of an intelligent conversation.

Black Adder

Speed_Gibson

One last update before this thread gets buried:
I purchased a 500 GB 'my book' with a USB connection, rather than play with a PCI card and replacing internal drives.
it defaults to FAT32 w/ 465 GB free. After some deliberation, I have decided to accept the wasted clusters and keep it as FAT32 for maximum compatibility with the linux system(s) that will be back on my network again at some point in the future (or for any unlikely 98 systems that may show up)
Still not used to such huge amounts of storage for $180, and the 1 TB size was available for only $300!! My 120 GB cost me at least $200-250 if memory serves. Hopefully this WD drive will be as reliable as all of my WD units over the past 12+ years. My worst drive ever was a 45 GB IBM deathstar.
The included utility reminded me that my current drives totaling 200 GB (80 & 120) only have 13-15 GB total free, and have been in that state for some time. (Hence the 120 GB on the crashbox that is a lousy backup site at best)

__________________
Started talking to yourself I see.
Yes, it's the only way I can be certain of an intelligent conversation.

Black Adder

Lebell

I'm planning a D-Link NAS w/2 500 GB or 1TB SATA disks.

Reliability is said to be good along w/D-Link's customer service. I'll mirror them to provide data protection.

A true NAS will be able to be browseable through the network, which is part of the point.

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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Speed_Gibson

If I had the time and money (kids & life in general do seem to need both of those more than my computers) my current ideal choice be something like:
upgrading to gigabyte network speed and
0) building a *nix system in a utra-quiet case with two 1 TB drives in a full RAID configuration
or
1) A proper NAS with similar storage and RAID

Either way would give easy network access with proper security, along with less waiting for those large transfers.
I have no complaints with this latest upgrade, especially for the price and storage it provides. Just wondering how long 400 GB will last once I get going with media transfers....
*end rambling*
edit: USB 2.0 drives are damn faaaast, just transfered nearly 4 GB of data in nothing flat Causes me to wonder what that never used firewire connection on my machine is capable of doing with the right equipment.

__________________
Started talking to yourself I see.
Yes, it's the only way I can be certain of an intelligent conversation.

Black Adder

Cynthetiq

I can tell you I'm much happier with the gigabit backbone than 100. Moving a 2Gb file in a minute or so is just a wonderful thing.

In a mixed environment there's some issues with a NAS. Which is why I switched back to something that is just USB to a CPU. I generally have a central machine anyways so it can just hang off of that.

mymac.com

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.

Cynthetiq

I'd like to also state that Gigabit network is AWESOME! I'm transferring things from my HD to the USB drive connected to my WRT350 router and it's 4.1Mb/s it doesn't support Jumbo frames yet still performs very well.

__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.