I am looking for info about a suitable network HD that I could plug into my 3com switch and access it/mount it on my different PCs in my household. I am not fully aware of the standards or protocols and now that I was looking all products mostly mention Windows or Mac but duly forget linux in compability.

Here for example

IOMEGA NETWORK HDD HOME 320GB

Apparently there must be some kind of minimal OS installed on the harddrive, I wonder what this is. Is there a possibility to use, for example, ext3 or such as a filesystem and mount them via nfs or is it a more complicated issue?

Can more than one machines simultaneously mount the same drive?

I would appreciate some experiences and tips, maybe even recommendations?
I mainly want to share my mailbox, music and videos in my LAN...

Many (most?) of these consumer NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices are running a minimal Linux system wrapped in a user-friendly web front-end. They generally support SMB/CIFS shares through Samba, as well as FTP and HTTP. Looking at iomega's offerings, it looks like their device is no different.

The nature of these devices make them operating system agnostic for the most part. Configuration is done via any web browser, and they offer a number of network protocols which can be easily supported under Linux or any other modern OS.

At the moment I am looking at Qnap TS-109 as a solution. It would provide NTFS and quite a few extras too (internet radio) but is a bit pricy in comparison...cheapest drives I get below 100 EUR (acting as mere NAS) and here I'd be already close to 300 EUR.

Hi,

If you have a old PC in the closet then 'FREENAS' would be the cheap alternative. A little time on your part but worth it if your strapped for cash.

This link and others are available from 'Slackware-Links'. More than just Slackware® links!

I'd follow along the 'old machine' method. Many of these off the shelf NAS solutions that you can buy at office depot or best buy don't have have raid configured.. not that it's an end-all solution, but it helps.

I personally used an old PII box, and shoved all the drives I could get. I couldn't afford a good raid controller, so of the 4 drives I have in there, I have two large drives (320's). I share one out using samba, and then use rsync to sync the second drive up each night. The smaller drives also are shared via samba, and I put less 'critical' stuff on them. The shares are really only for my wife (she has the only windows box on the network), personally I use rsync/ssh/sftp to copy files from my desktop or servers, or in the event that I actually want to mount it, I just use samba.. a little slow, but it served my needs. For a while, I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I used an XP pro box to share out drives with cygwin running cron to backup remote files off of a server.

Well there is the point that Qnap for example would be quite powerfriendly and from what I've heard not at all that slow in spooling up on wake-on-lan event. Running a normal PC day in day out gets actually quite pricy in one year...Qnap 209 would allow two disk raid too and would provide more data security but I think I could go with 109 and simply risk it...

Hi,
How is it going to be quite pricey? Power consumption? Go green if you desire. If you strip the system and minimal hardware with running headless your power is going to be minimal. You don't need a power cpu a 486 would meet the requirements, max the memory. I have several PIII that would meet my specs fro a NAS, along with a decent controller for the hdd. A nice NAS could be built.

Your PSU for the Qnap is going to provide source power to the controller which is a 500Mhz CPU w/256Mb memory along with the control circuitry, interface ports will consume power over the 24/7 period ($$?).

At a cost of $600 for the Qnap unit as compared to a small footprint retired PC(free). I think I could put together a NAS with components then run it (24/7) for several years for the cost of the Qnap.

The Qnap uses 14 watts under load, and 6 watts idle. There is absolutely no way you would be able to get a x86 PC down that low in terms of power consumption; a P3 CPU draws upwards of 30 watts by itself.

Let's be generous and say you get the entire server running at around 60 watts: drawing 60 watts 24/7 would consume roughly 44 kWh per month, or 528 kwH per year. At the US national average of 11 cents per kWh, that puts the cost of running the x86 PC at $58 per year.

The Qnap at 14 watts would consume about 132 kWh a year, at an annual cost of $15. That doesn't even take into account the Qnap's idle power consumption, which would likely bring the average cost per year into the sub $10 range.

The Qnap TS-109 goes for around $250 online right now, so you would be looking at returning your investment in 6 years at the worst. This sounds like a long time, but is really not that bad in energy terms; it can take solar systems upwards of 20 years to pay for themselves.

I get your point that the price difference is not that big of a deal on this one device, but that is really the wrong way to think about it. If you looked at every device in your house this way, the cumulative effect would be much larger. There is also no telling what energy prices will be in 6 years. Maybe electricity will double between now and then? Suddenly saving that ~400 kWh a year seems like a very good investment.

The global economy has become jaded by the concept of cheap energy for a long time, and it is one of the things that has gotten us into our current energy crisis. It seems like a good a time as any to reevaluate what we consider acceptable waste.

Hi,

The price you quote still puts the use of a small footprint PC at a cost that would be better than the Qnap. Your power consumption for the PIII would still be affordable. A 486 would be a better choice but the controller choices I would make would require more CPU.

I'm not going to get into a pissing contest with you over power. At this point in time for me the power usage would not be an issue for a 24/7 NAS based on a headless PC. The PSU requirements would be lower therefore a PSU change to minimize source. The PSU limits for a the hdd selection will fall within the parameters of the system. For me that would not be an issue but for some the choice of the hdd subsystem will be an additional cost.

My electrical cost is around .06395/kWh so with the cost you present of $299, the power usage would still be covered by the difference for a good period. Who's trowing money now? Not me, I choose to do something other than pay China for the Qnap. The parts I use for the older PC basically were made in the USA or Taiwan for some of the support parts. I don't need a lessen on power consumption or use so cut the condescending voice/view point. I believe we as a society(US) do waste a lot and not just energy.

If I was concerned by the waste of power or limit the life of the PC by wasting power (the difference between a dedicated NAS vs a homebrew) then I would choose a Qnap/similar. My power usage for an all electric home is good as compared to others with the same size home that use gas/LP to heat. They cannot even compare the A/C for their homes. BTW, my home is a 5,000 sq ft ranch with able insulation and proper weathering. I've done a lot to get to this point.

Technically you are correct about the power issue with the Qnap but there is gain in using older equipment for purposes other than original design. Beats being in a landfill or being shipped overseas to some poor country that doesn't know nor care about how to properly dispose of old recycled equipment. Plus you get to play while your are building something.

Go Green!

Correct me if I'm wrong but I imagine you wouldn't be able to ssh into a nas-box when its sleeping vs a regular nas with an embedded OS while disks are spinned down.

Excluding power consumption argument, if you'd need to ssh/access the unit while in low power state, without use of any extra hardware, seems you'd be obliged to have to go with a conventional nas, right?

Hi,

Not really, the device would wake if setup properly. The NAS system would have the same WOL capabilities. The FreeNAS system would work but the NIC and system would have to have the ability to WOL.

Please excuse, I forgot to mention if done over the internet (considering wol packets seldom make it across the globe). You'd still have to have something to ssh into (thats "awake") on the lan, before you can wake anything else.

And that would still be one of the distinct functional differences between a machine vs embedded (os & processor) based nas, right? Even if the nic had wol capabilities.

Hi,

I don't think most people would expose a NAS over the Internet. If you have a local server then that would be the means to provide access via the LAN. The NAS would best be suited for the LAN. I really don't think the ssh would be a problem as that is the means one would perform operations on a headless system. I have several pieces that you use the LAN to perform maintenance over the LAN with ssh/telnet, be they on standby or running. Most networked appliances use a form of standby that will wake when accessed, not just NAS.

If one is worried about propagation then a NAS would not be the the device of choice to begin with.

If there is a lan of regular pc's/freenas's.

Your not going to be able to access them over the internet (wan) vs a traditional nas, without some intermediary step & hardware. Meaning "yes".

That seems to stand as the main functional difference between a traditional nas (by design) & a freenas. Exclusive of what you consider most people do.

I'm still a little suspicious as to whether these mini-itx units made the bridge of being able to access "pc's" over the wan while in a low power state without having to explicitly "wake" them up via an intermediary lan device. http://www.mini-box.com/Intel-Mini-ITX-Boards