Topic: Recommendations for Media Server / NAS

[tapeworm48]

Looking for recommendations for being able to backup my media at home.  My current setup and my requirements for the NAS or Media Server, etc.

Current:
- 2004 Dell Desktop (used to run Squeezebox and iTunes; dumping DAT transfers on here too)
- 2009 HP Desktop (day-to-day stuff)
- Dell Laptop (work)
- WD 500gb MyBook (hooked up to the Dell desktop - currently used for backup)

Requirements:
- mainly to backup all of my Masters and FLAC files
- single location for FLACs, iTunes files, pictures, documents
- remote access - mainly to play FLACs, sharing pictures, and organization
- simple to use/setup
- auto backup scheduling
- run squeezebox server, iTunes server, and mild torrenting (these are all nice-to-haves; can always continue to run off the dell)
- Plan to run all other programs locally

I'm guessing I need something with two drives, in case one of them fails.  Is this right?  Any better ideas?  As for budget, I'll see that I would like to keep it under $400 but I'm not married to that number. 

Here are some of the options that have been thrown at me:

Synology:  http://www.amazon.com/Synology-Station-Diskless-Attached-DS209/dp/B00275G0LO/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&qid=1289921391&sr=8-13

Iomega:  http://www.amazon.com/Iomega-Network-Attached-Storage-34337/dp/B001OC5JM2/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1289923579&sr=8-3

HP MediaServer:  http://www.amazon.com/HP-Network-Attached-Storage-mv2120/dp/B0015313O8/ref=sr_1_10?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1289923614&sr=1-10

Open to other suggestions.  Thanks in advance.

[OFOTD]

Without doubt I would recommend one of HP's Windows Home Server products.

Here is the HP MediaSmart EX490 that you can get for < $450 shipped.   It comes with a 1TB drive and has two more expansion slots for future drives.  Because its running WHS it also allows to to introduce external USB and eSATA drives to add to your storage pool.   

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16859105562&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Server+-+Systems-_-Hewlett-Packard-_-59105562

The box is headless (no monitor, keyboard or mouse needed).  As long as you have either a wired or wireless network you are good to go.  Stick the thing in a closet if you need to.   The box will back up any and all of your computers.  It allows you to access any of your content from the web.  It has hundreds of free plugins available to do a variety of functions like BitTorrent, media streaming, home automation, etc.

This post is obviously the very short plug for the product but I run WHS at home and absolutely love it.  www.wegotserved.com is a pretty good user created site with lots of info as well as lots and lots of plugins.

 

[OFOTD]

Newegg has an Acer Aspire Easystore WHS box on sale for $399 today.  Includes a 2TB drive and three additional drive bays.   Petty damn good deal.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16859321014&cm_mmc=BlkNovLP_List-_-386-_-N82E16859321014&nm_mc=BlkNovLP_List

[tapeworm48]

Thanks man for the recommendations and links. 

Do you find WHS pretty stable and easy to use?  I'm no PC wiz so I'm hoping there aren't too many headaches.

Also, have you been able to setup and use the remote access feature?  I'd like to be able to playback FLACs and iTunes files on my work laptop in the office.

Thanks.

[OFOTD]

I have really had extremely positive experiences with WHS.   Extremely stable and really set it up once and forget about it.  Initial setup takes about 20 minutes from start to finish.

The remote access feature is something that I use almost daily.    One of the features that WHS provides is a direct web address for your WHS.  Something like insertnamehere.homeserver.com   Full access to your Server folders.  Additionally there are many add-ins to allow all sorts of streaming be it audio or video.

Here is a screen cap of the WHS interface of my server with the Shared Folders tab selected.  You can manually select which of these folders are accessible, by whom and how (local intranet or on the internet).


 
The folders with the greenish icons allow DLNA complaint devices access the content of those folders.   Many Blu-Ray players, gaming systems and the like allow DLNA streaming.   Cool shit!

[rePat]

If you don't want to pay the M$ tax with WHS, here is a great alternative.  Full disclosure: I am part of the core team of this Open Source Project, so of course I'm biased  .  I have used Amahi for 2+ years.  And did I mention, It's Free!

http://amahi.org   The Amahi Home Server is based on Fedora 12 , but don't let that scare you off if you are not a linux user.  Amahi comes with most things preconfigured (like shares for Music, Movies, etc), so you don't have to mess with all those config files (unless you want to).  Hardware requirements are reasonable, I run mine on an Atom 330 with 2GB RAM and 1TB HDD.  Amahi has one of the largest App stores of its kind, with all types of Open Source software packaged for One click Install.  I'll list just a few that are in your requirements:

CrashPlan for backing up all PC's on your network.
Coming soon: Redo Backup and Clonezilla for bare metal backups.

Amahitunes: an iTunes server based on the Firefly Media Server
Jinzora another media server
Squeezbox Server
OpenVPN: preconfigured out of the box, also an easy to use Windows client.
Transmission One click install for torrenting, web based interface
Torrentflux B4rt Another web based Torrent software
Edit:  forgot to mention DLNA

DLNA Server based on miniDLNA so you can stream media to XBox and other devices

I'm not much of an iTunes fan, so I just point Foobar 2000 on my Windows machine to the Share where my Flac's are and stream away right over the network.

I do the same with Movies, via XBMC on my HTPC.

For more info check out the site.  There is also an IRC channel on Freenode #amahi, or http://talk.amahi.org

Also feel free to PM me with any questions.

Good luck,

Pat

[OFOTD]

Where you see a/the Microsoft tax on a sub $400 server?

[Simp-Dawg]

i'm also looking for something similar...wondering what the microsoft "tax" might be in reference to as well...are you just saying that because by default, if you buy one of the WHS boxes, you're paying something for the m$ os?  or is there some sort of maintenance fee that would be required with that?  or just that m$ comes with a reputation and may not be the best choice for this purpose?

i'm inclined to side with open source as well, especially since i work in the industry, though for the low costs those WHS boxes are going for, it's somewhat tempting to go with a commercial solution.  granted, i'd expect there will be tweaking required for any setup, just that with m$ at least it's a little more familiar (to me) than a linux based system.

that said, i have heard of amahi before and think it's very cool that you're on the team!  big kudos for being part of the effort!

by the way, here's what i want to do, and i've been debating whether to buy, build, or cobble together something with a combination of something like a pogoplug and several hard drives...

backup of windows and mac machines
storage of lots of music
streaming capability (subsonic is what i would likely use with my android phone)
connectivity with xbox
vpn (maybe?)
central itunes library (this is pretty important, i'm sick of manually syncing up my libraries over the wonky itunes home sharing feature - it only works sometimes for me)

[OFOTD]

Here's yet another Acer WHS box on sale for CHEAP on newegg at $339.  Four bays and an included 2TB drive.     

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16859321014

Seriously a steal of a deal for just the hardware alone.


Simp - All of the features you listed that you wanted are all easy to setup and maintain on WHS.  As far as the need to tweak there are no config files on the WHS box as everything is configurable via a simple GUI.   WHS is based on Server 2003 btw. 

[rePat]

i'm also looking for something similar...wondering what the microsoft "tax" might be in reference to as well...are you just saying that because by default, if you buy one of the WHS boxes, you're paying something for the m$ os?  or is there some sort of maintenance fee that would be required with that?  or just that m$ comes with a reputation and may not be the best choice for this purpose?

i'm inclined to side with open source as well, especially since i work in the industry, though for the low costs those WHS boxes are going for, it's somewhat tempting to go with a commercial solution.  granted, i'd expect there will be tweaking required for any setup, just that with m$ at least it's a little more familiar (to me) than a linux based system.

that said, i have heard of amahi before and think it's very cool that you're on the team!  big kudos for being part of the effort!

by the way, here's what i want to do, and i've been debating whether to buy, build, or cobble together something with a combination of something like a pogoplug and several hard drives...

backup of windows and mac machines
storage of lots of music
streaming capability (subsonic is what i would likely use with my android phone)
connectivity with xbox
vpn (maybe?)
central itunes library (this is pretty important, i'm sick of manually syncing up my libraries over the wonky itunes home sharing feature - it only works sometimes for me)

Thanks Simp Dawg, it is a pretty cool project and the people are great.  There is a Plug computer edition as well http://wiki.amahi.org/index.php/Amahi_Plug_Edition

I have it running on a Seagate Dockstar, but it is slow due to limited memory (128MB).  As far as the M$ tax, I was referring to the fact that M$ is not known for giving stuff away, so you are paying for it, even in a sub $400 server.  I guess at that price point it would be easy enough to try them both.   I used one of these cheap 1U Atom servers  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816101262&cm_re=supermicro_atom-_-16-101-262-_-Product

Pat

[phanophish]

If you don't want to pay the M$ tax with WHS, here is a great alternative.  Full disclosure: I am part of the core team of this Open Source Project, so of course I'm biased  .  I have used Amahi for 2+ years.  And did I mention, It's Free!

http://amahi.org   The Amahi Home Server is based on Fedora 12 , but don't let that scare you off if you are not a linux user.  Amahi comes with most things preconfigured (like shares for Music, Movies, etc), so you don't have to mess with all those config files (unless you want to).  Hardware requirements are reasonable, I run mine on an Atom 330 with 2GB RAM and 1TB HDD.  Amahi has one of the largest App stores of its kind, with all types of Open Source software packaged for One click Install.  I'll list just a few that are in your requirements:

CrashPlan for backing up all PC's on your network.
Coming soon: Redo Backup and Clonezilla for bare metal backups.

Amahitunes: an iTunes server based on the Firefly Media Server
Jinzora another media server
Squeezbox Server
OpenVPN: preconfigured out of the box, also an easy to use Windows client.
Transmission One click install for torrenting, web based interface
Torrentflux B4rt Another web based Torrent software
Edit:  forgot to mention DLNA

DLNA Server based on miniDLNA so you can stream media to XBox and other devices

I'm not much of an iTunes fan, so I just point Foobar 2000 on my Windows machine to the Share where my Flac's are and stream away right over the network.

I do the same with Movies, via XBMC on my HTPC.

For more info check out the site.  There is also an IRC channel on Freenode #amahi, or http://talk.amahi.org

Also feel free to PM me with any questions.

Good luck,

Pat

Pat,  Checked out the site and it looks like a very cool project.

I had a few questions that I can't find answers to on the site...

How are storage volumes managed?  Is there RAID of some sort for the underlying data beyond manual management using Linux?  I'm really looking for a NAS type device that I can easily and dynamically add storage to while maintaining some form of redundancy to insulate me from a single drive failure.   I currently use a Drobo and am bumping up against the 2TB volume size limit.  Is this a good fit for Amahi?

 

[rePat]

Pat,  Checked out the site and it looks like a very cool project.

I had a few questions that I can't find answers to on the site...

How are storage volumes managed?  Is there RAID of some sort for the underlying data beyond manual management using Linux?  I'm really looking for a NAS type device that I can easily and dynamically add storage to while maintaining some form of redundancy to insulate me from a single drive failure.   I currently use a Drobo and am bumping up against the 2TB volume size limit.  Is this a good fit for Amahi?

Thanks for the interest phanophish.  Amahi does have a Storage Pooling feature called Greyhole, that allows you to replicate files.  It uses Samba in a JBOD type setup.  Here are two links with more detail.

http://wiki.amahi.org/index.php?title=Greyhole

http://code.google.com/p/greyhole/

Hope this helps, let me know if you have more questions.

Pat

[rjp]

Another NAS solution worth looking into: FreeNAS is a FreeBSD-based system that runs from a USB stick and has a web-based admin interface. Among other things, it supports the ZFS file system, which provides RAID functionality, better data integrity than traditional file systems, and snapshotting capability.

[phanophish]

Another NAS solution worth looking into: FreeNAS is a FreeBSD-based system that runs from a USB stick and has a web-based admin interface. Among other things, it supports the ZFS file system, which provides RAID functionality, better data integrity than traditional file systems, and snapshotting capability.

I love the idea of FreeNAS, but I guess I'm a little concerned with the questions surrounding the future of FreeBSD.  Seems like a lot is up in the air regarding the future.  Maybe I'm looking too far down the road.   

[Simp-Dawg]

anyone ever use something like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856101095&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&AID=10446076&PID=3705318&SID=skim1043X499650 for their server?  thinking about getting one and putting amahi on it...