Oh, boy, there is so much info available to ingest, and so many options available to backup and manage my data.... Makes my head hurt!
Let me lay out for you where I am right now, in the hopes that I can get honest recommendations and comments on if you think I am making the right choices for my needs. This could be long....
After reading many reviews of NAS devices, my big concerns have to do with:
- scalability. IE A two bay 2 drive NAS can not be upgraded to a 4 drive NAS without buying a whole new unit.
- Mbps throughput to achieve smooth 1080 playback.
- Streaming data/video from home to remote locations over the web at lower resolutions.
- A real dislike for the proprietary disk formats that lock the disks out from being installed in a PC and accessed.
- A very short support window of many (most) of the NAS products in my price range.
Talking to some of the network guys at work, they suggest a real server rather than a NAS system. So I turned my attention to Microsoft Windows Home Server (WHS). Been researching this software for a few days now, and I'm liking it better than the NAS products for the following reasons:
-.Micrsoft continues to release upgrades to the software regularly.
- It runs on inexpensive PC platform/hardware.
- The interface is easy to use and extensive.
- Microsoft has great forums for WHS and a big knowledge base to search, all free.
- There are lots of WHS forums to go and get free applications, or just buy special apps I want.
- Real Virus Protection! For free! (Microsoft Windows freeware)
- WHS is not "new", its a modified version of Microsoft's business server software.
- WHS supports so much of what I want to do now, its nearly complete in my eyes.
As with anything, the faster you want to go, the more it costs. Be it cars or PC's.
Compared to the cost/performance of a Synology DS210 w/two 1 tb drives (about $430/50Mbps) or a DS210+ w/two 1 TB drives (about $1000/100Mbps), I can buy and build a new true home media server for
$388 including WHS (add $30 for dvd burner) with the following new components and software:
- AMD 3.0 gig dual core cpu.
- Asus mother board that has Gigabyte ethernet and raid 1, 0, 5, and JBOD, 2 slots for DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) with a 16 gig limit, four SATA II ports, two ATA133 ports, six USB2 ports, 2000MHz Hyper Transport (4000 MT/s), 32 and 64 bit support, one PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot, one PCI Express x1 slot, and two standard PCI slots, onboard graphics and sound, and onboard surge protection. And its "green".
- 2 gig of DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) on one stick, leaving the other slot for upgrade.
- A 22x DVD writer - going w/ a ATA to not take away from the SATA ports.
- TWO HITACHI Deskstar HDD 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drives. That leaves two more open SATA connections for two more HDD's if needed.
- Mid-tower case (atx format) with multiple USB ports on the front, multiple fan support, more disk space that I will ever need, and 'green' power supply 200/450 watts.
- The latest release of Microsoft Home Server (Power Pack 3) running NTFS drive format. And support for drives greater than 2 TB, support of windows 7 and Vista (OE).
The above motherboard is an upgraded Asus board used in retail servers (from what I read) and has all the features needed to get data in and out fast.
Based on what people have posted about on various forums, they built servers that are using older boards and less memory, less CPU, and have recorded speeds over 200Mbps on a gigabyte network. On a regular 100Mbps ethernet, speeds up to 90 Mbps are not uncommon. And it does it all with multiple users. Streaming 1080 hd video is silky smooth.
There are numerous websites that go into detail on exactly what specs to look for when choosing a MB, HDD, and other components to build a Home Server using WHS. The current articles read pretty much the same. So I priced out a system using current/popular, but not cutting edge products.
The drawbacks to WHS as I see it are:
- Higher power draw when in use. For my family, about $0.20/day.
- A monitor, mouse and keyboard must be connected during initial setup. (I have those available). But after that, WHS can be managed remotely.
- Genuine Microsoft Techinal Support for WHS is a pay service.
- I'm buying a Microsoft product. I'm not their biggest fan.
It seems to me this is a no brainer. WHS on a PC platform will run circles around the NAS systems in the same price range, and have much larger user support and applications.
Before I pull the trigger and place the order for the hardware and WHS, I would like to hear your opinions.
Sorry this is so long...
Thanks!
Mark
