wallythacker
New Around Here
Hello to all.
This is a wonderful site and I'm glad Google found it for me. I have learned a tremendous amount of information in the short time I've been a member. I'm watching the wheels spin right now as my IX2-DL updates its software.
I don't think I'm looking for accolades regarding my choice of gear and implementation of it, but if there's a serious flaw or something bad I overlooked which is obvious to all but me then I'm all ears and anxious to hear your thoughts.
3-4 years ago I started with external hard disks, 3 in fact, and USB 2.0 enclosures. The enclosures were very crappy and parts fell off while installing the drives.
I had (2)WD Green 1.5TB drives mirrored and the Samsung just recorded TV from my HomeRun tuner. I bought the Samsung Story as it looked durable and , well, it was the first to die.
I should mention my SO was covering the drives and laptop with a flannel blanket every night to block out all the LED. I completely forgot about heat and the damage it can do. One day I pulled back the blankey, touched the Samsung case and it was HOT. It measured 150F using my laser thermometer.
Ok, the Samsung died and one of the WD green died, it was in a housing with no vents at all. The other WD green was in a mesh housing and passed all the tests. The Samsung passed diagnostics 2-3 days later out of the housing. The WD green that appeared dead failed the diagnostics.
Fast forward three years. My daughter was my priority during those years and computers were ignored until 2 months ago. I bought, for me, a zippy laptop and realized I had nowhere central for files and printers. I had been backing up, once in a blue moon, to WD 1tb 2.5" drives. I decided I needed to go back in time and create my network from scratch. I was going to build an Atom server as I remember tons of Atom boards were at all the big vendors in 2010. Well, I was surprised to see the choices quite limited and some of the prices were to the moon. So I bought a 3TB WD Elements as my backup and shared it out from my Atom 10/100 NIC netbook. I wasn't happy with the performance at all. Then I discovered NAS units........
I must admit I bought on price for some items and used reviews for others. My first NAS was a Zyxel 320 and with my WD 1.5TB green drives it was pretty darn good on my Gigabit network. The Zyxel was bought based on reviews and my past ownership of a Prestige 314 router. (turns out my dead WD drive was fine after all. Go figure.) I should mention I bought a TP Link 4300 to replace my awesome but aging Tomato powered Linky WRT54gl. I had stepped into the Gigabit pool and I liked it.
I really wanted a 4 bay NAS but I didn't like the prices. The best deal I found was the diskless Lenovo IX4. It was $300 to my door. Not bad but in the reviews many guys got it on sale in March for $160. That's a smoking deal and I was hoping another sale would come around. Well, it didn't go on sale.
I swore I ordered one from the bengal growlers but I checked my history and, no such purchase. So, being less than thrilled at having to pay $300 I went to the growlers site only to find the diskless models were GONE. The best they had was a one disk model for $450. NO Thanks. But Google returned an IX4 selling for $211! Yea baby! I was a 4 bay dude. I definitely bought the IX4 based on price.
There's a fair bit of learning on these things if you want to take full advantage of them. It was fun getting to back up to each other, messing about with the cloud aspect. (Nothing more IMO than a dyndns kind of deal with flashy showmanship.) Not to brag but in the 80's I was getting my files from anywhere on the planet that had a telephone line.
Did I mention I bought a Buffalo 2TB single bay NAS? I was browsing the bengal site and there it was for $100. I could not resist. I haven't done anything with it other than determine it wasn't DOA.
So I'm in good shape I think. My plan was to RAID 0 the ix4 with 3TB drives and have a nice 12TB media server. I have 2-3TB of my media and my boys each have a 3TB external full of movies and series. If it crashed and burned, oh well.
My ix2 is in RAID 1 mode and the 1.5TB is more than adequate for my crucial files. In fact, when you really get down to it my crucial stuff is about 400GB. Remember the Samsung 1.5TB that turned out to be fine, it was the housing that was fried? That Samsung is in a Seagate housing and attached to the ix2 as the backup drive.
I made the mistake of still browsing the NAS gear when killing time online. That browsing to kill time landed a Thecus N5550 into my shopping cart. I'm supposed to get it sometime in late May, like the 28th or so. My saga will continue then. I've left out other purchases directly related to my NAS adventure. Next time.
I'm sorry this became a novel but I'm having so much fun with computers again, and that's something that's been missing for a long long time.
tl;dr
I bought NAS after NAS after realizing servers with shared drives are not going to cut it.
PS.
I bought my Lenovo IX2-DL as it was only $87, and here in Canada that's quite the deal.
This is a wonderful site and I'm glad Google found it for me. I have learned a tremendous amount of information in the short time I've been a member. I'm watching the wheels spin right now as my IX2-DL updates its software.
I don't think I'm looking for accolades regarding my choice of gear and implementation of it, but if there's a serious flaw or something bad I overlooked which is obvious to all but me then I'm all ears and anxious to hear your thoughts.
3-4 years ago I started with external hard disks, 3 in fact, and USB 2.0 enclosures. The enclosures were very crappy and parts fell off while installing the drives.
I had (2)WD Green 1.5TB drives mirrored and the Samsung just recorded TV from my HomeRun tuner. I bought the Samsung Story as it looked durable and , well, it was the first to die.
I should mention my SO was covering the drives and laptop with a flannel blanket every night to block out all the LED. I completely forgot about heat and the damage it can do. One day I pulled back the blankey, touched the Samsung case and it was HOT. It measured 150F using my laser thermometer.
Ok, the Samsung died and one of the WD green died, it was in a housing with no vents at all. The other WD green was in a mesh housing and passed all the tests. The Samsung passed diagnostics 2-3 days later out of the housing. The WD green that appeared dead failed the diagnostics.
Fast forward three years. My daughter was my priority during those years and computers were ignored until 2 months ago. I bought, for me, a zippy laptop and realized I had nowhere central for files and printers. I had been backing up, once in a blue moon, to WD 1tb 2.5" drives. I decided I needed to go back in time and create my network from scratch. I was going to build an Atom server as I remember tons of Atom boards were at all the big vendors in 2010. Well, I was surprised to see the choices quite limited and some of the prices were to the moon. So I bought a 3TB WD Elements as my backup and shared it out from my Atom 10/100 NIC netbook. I wasn't happy with the performance at all. Then I discovered NAS units........
I must admit I bought on price for some items and used reviews for others. My first NAS was a Zyxel 320 and with my WD 1.5TB green drives it was pretty darn good on my Gigabit network. The Zyxel was bought based on reviews and my past ownership of a Prestige 314 router. (turns out my dead WD drive was fine after all. Go figure.) I should mention I bought a TP Link 4300 to replace my awesome but aging Tomato powered Linky WRT54gl. I had stepped into the Gigabit pool and I liked it.
I really wanted a 4 bay NAS but I didn't like the prices. The best deal I found was the diskless Lenovo IX4. It was $300 to my door. Not bad but in the reviews many guys got it on sale in March for $160. That's a smoking deal and I was hoping another sale would come around. Well, it didn't go on sale.
I swore I ordered one from the bengal growlers but I checked my history and, no such purchase. So, being less than thrilled at having to pay $300 I went to the growlers site only to find the diskless models were GONE. The best they had was a one disk model for $450. NO Thanks. But Google returned an IX4 selling for $211! Yea baby! I was a 4 bay dude. I definitely bought the IX4 based on price.
There's a fair bit of learning on these things if you want to take full advantage of them. It was fun getting to back up to each other, messing about with the cloud aspect. (Nothing more IMO than a dyndns kind of deal with flashy showmanship.) Not to brag but in the 80's I was getting my files from anywhere on the planet that had a telephone line.
Did I mention I bought a Buffalo 2TB single bay NAS? I was browsing the bengal site and there it was for $100. I could not resist. I haven't done anything with it other than determine it wasn't DOA.
So I'm in good shape I think. My plan was to RAID 0 the ix4 with 3TB drives and have a nice 12TB media server. I have 2-3TB of my media and my boys each have a 3TB external full of movies and series. If it crashed and burned, oh well.
My ix2 is in RAID 1 mode and the 1.5TB is more than adequate for my crucial files. In fact, when you really get down to it my crucial stuff is about 400GB. Remember the Samsung 1.5TB that turned out to be fine, it was the housing that was fried? That Samsung is in a Seagate housing and attached to the ix2 as the backup drive.
I made the mistake of still browsing the NAS gear when killing time online. That browsing to kill time landed a Thecus N5550 into my shopping cart. I'm supposed to get it sometime in late May, like the 28th or so. My saga will continue then. I've left out other purchases directly related to my NAS adventure. Next time.
I'm sorry this became a novel but I'm having so much fun with computers again, and that's something that's been missing for a long long time.
tl;dr
I bought NAS after NAS after realizing servers with shared drives are not going to cut it.
PS.
I bought my Lenovo IX2-DL as it was only $87, and here in Canada that's quite the deal.
