Help with HD Streaming NAS

[BuiltFORDTuf]

To begin I have read the http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30107/230/

From the research I have done it looks like what I want is more of a DIY job as budget is a must for me. I don't have thousands of dollars in fact I'd prefer to keep this below $500 if at all possible (of course the lower the better).

The requirements I'm looking for / wanting to fill.

Currently I have a HTPC set up with my entertainment center. It's set-up via wireless due to not wanting to run cabling on the floor through the house (wife/small dog)

HTPC consists of:
Intel E5200
4gb ram
1Tb HDD
HD 5570 graphics card

Nothing amazing but enough for 1080P playback and mild gaming.
The initial thought behind a 1TB drive was that it could hold my movies for playback. That quickly filled up and now I'm looking for more long term options. A NAS seems to be fitting the bill so far.

I'm looking for something budget of course, with at LEAST 4 drive bays preferably a few more for expansion in the future. As for RAID capabilities I could care less. If I had to choose I guess RAID 0, but I hate the thought of loosing all data if one drive fails, but also not in need of the redundancy of a RAID 1. Being that it's main purpose will be playing back HD videos (some files 10Gb+) I want to make sure it's capable of the transfer. I will also probably store music on it, wife will probably store photos, and we will probably back up odds and end files from our PCs in the house.

The best fit NAS I have found so far for me would be Qnap TS-412 Turbo NAS. 4 bays at what seems to be a decent price. Again I went to NAS charts and picked the drop down for HD and I see the throughput of this device, but I'm novice when it comes to data transfers and not sure if it fits the bill for the streaming I'm looking for. Plans are to get a small SSD for the HTPC and possibly move the 1 TB from there into a NAS, along with a 2 TB from my desktop. I know this kills RAID possibilities, but like I said I'm on a budget and trying to use what I have.

I love messing with electronics and pick things up fairly quickly, just not the most tech savy when it comes to data transfer and networking. Thank you in advance for taking the time to look at this!

 

[JoeJoe]

The TS-412 will have no problem streaming HD to multiple PCs/TVs at the same time.

Raid0 won't gain you any speed on these low end NASes. Avoid RAID0 it isn't worth the hassle/risk on a NAS.

Go with RAID1 for your family files, you can expand it to RAID5 as you add more disks on the fly.

 

[stevech]

And we preach: "RAID is not a backup". An external drive or remote server is a backup.

 

[BuiltFORDTuf]

I understand it's not the norm with these devices, but must you have your hard drives set up in a RAID, or can they simply be their own drives? I've been trying to find specifics on this, but all I've been able to find are the RAID capabilities of each system not if you can run them w/o. I'm just not sure if I'm a fan of RAID yet for the fact that raid 0 (option I'll probably go with if I must choose) all of your data is gone till your broken drive is fixed, and I don't feel I need the redundancy of RAID 1 for the majority of my data (let me know if my understanding of the 2 are off).

Also I don't want to get shunned for asking, but as my needs are again mainly for storing and streaming my HD movies, would something like the HP ProLiant N40L be ok?

 

[thiggins]

The QNAP you are considering will handle multiple 1080p streams just fine. No need for SSDs, either.

You can also set up drives as individual volumes, so you will lose only that drive's data when it eventually dies or if you get a power supply or controller failure.

The HP would be fine, as would any MacOS or Windows computer. You'll just need to supply the OS for the HP.

 

[JoeJoe]

You don't have to use RAID, you can use single disk volumes. See the online doc here, see the picture.

http://docs.qnap.com/nas/eng/volume_management.htm

You can then at a later time, convert a single disk volume to a RAID1+ volume if you want in the future.

If you're not sure about RAID, then selecting RAID0 is not something you want to choose.

In that QNAP NAS, it is easy to have for drives, and a single share on each drive.

 

[pterpm]

how much TB HDD can this one handle . Can it go up to 4TB for each drive ?
Please, let me know
Thank you

 

[travisco_nabisco]

Currently the Hitachi 4 TB drives are supported as long as you have the correct version of their OS installed.

Check here for compatible Hard Drives.
http://www.qnap.com/useng/index.php?lang=en-us&sn=862&c=355&sc=688&t=695&n=3887&g=4

 

[kitus]

The TS-412 will have no problem streaming HD to multiple PCs/TVs at the same time.

Raid0 won't gain you any speed on these low end NASes. Avoid RAID0 it isn't worth the hassle/risk on a NAS.

Go with RAID1 for your family files, you can expand it to RAID5 as you add more disks on the fly.

If you by "streaming HD" also understand "transcode", am afraid you are wrong. Transcoding needs a lot more horsepower than what the ts-412 can offer. My 2 cts.

 

[JoeJoe]

If you by "streaming HD" also understand "transcode", am afraid you are wrong. Transcoding needs a lot more horsepower than what the ts-412 can offer. My 2 cts.

Streaming is sending data from one location to another, not altering the data into another format.

If you want to transcode, a higher powered intel NAS is recommended.