[xeonicxpression]

I've tried unraid (no trust in it), very briefly tried openfiler (required another machine running), setup my own simple servers (.) and I've used a readynas (haha) - and have stuck with and use freenas for storage.

No time to elaborate more atm. My reading of this thread was completely blinded by some silly posts, if you are actually planning on storing 24tb of data you obviously will be doing some research and testing.
Personally I think the idea of running windows, running apps on the same machine and letting parents/girlfriends control it is completely nuts.

Not sure if you thought the data would be stored on the same computer as the HTPC, but they are seperate. My parents wouldn't actually use it. I just was trying to say it would be nice if someone that totally technologically inept could use the system. I only have about 2.3tb of data right now so I wont be filling it up instantly. With the ever expanding availability of HD content 24tb wont really be that much space.

I'll have to look closer at FreeNAS, it looks interesting. I was thinking of using the server to re-encode dvds to H.264, but that was just a thought. FreeNAS would kind of mess that up, but I guess it wouldn't be a big deal. I could just keep them in Video_TS folders and skip the re-encoding. It looks like a lot of people have some interesting setups and ideas.

[Jezz_X]

Of the three software's I've seen in this thread at this point, I think I like freenas the most. Might be time to think about doing something with it.

I tried freenas once it was major league slow in samba sharing do a google for freenas slow and you you will find plenty of people saying it

[hazeh]

Silly thing to say?! You're using what? I've done some incredibly anally retentive bandwidth testing with a fair few systems btw. I could google a million problems for a million people running a million apps that were caused by a million reasons, what what that show?

With unraid you're using an 'unstable' software raid (I could suggest a fair few things to google that are slightly more concerning than samba speed issues on old versions of freebsd), with freenas you can use a 'stable' software raid, hardware raid or neither. I'm using some cheap hardware (its still a relatively modern skt939 system) for my main storage machine and have absolutely zero issues with stability. I've got a mix of IDE and sata drives, I'm not using raid and realworld performance over a cheap gb network is limited by each disks throughput.

Read the hcl, use intel network cards and consider things like bus limitations to get an idea what to expect in theory. I'd like to see any out of the box system work 'perfectly' with samba over a gb network without editing the conf.

[hazeh]

I was thinking of using the server to re-encode dvds to H.264, but that was just a thought. FreeNAS would kind of mess that up, but I guess it wouldn't be a big deal. I could just keep them in Video_TS folders and skip the re-encoding.

You can make any of these systems do whatever you want with varying degrees of difficulty. Defeats half the point in them I guess, whats a server whats a nas blablablaba

I think you should experiment with everything to achieve what you want, google only tells you so much and there's often all sorts of misleading info. If you havn't got the time or patience to play around maybe a commercial solution is what you're after. Annyways, the difference between 20 and 100MB/s might not be as big as it seems.

[Jezz_X]

hazeh you seem a little too upset over a personal obsevation of mine :\
Last time I used free nas it was at least 20% slower in file transfers to and from it than a windows box with an extra HDD in it shared. Thats all I said

[hazeh]

Yeah, you should see me banging my desk with my bright red hands and screaming at the screen

Not a fan of any mis/un/informed opinions to things like this where there is any 'right' answer or solution . Human nature to justify purchases and choices and things, I try and encourage everyone to try things for themselves. Thats all I meant

It might look like quality retarded babble, but I'm english

[Bram77]

If you want to simply store data to be accessable from the network I would go for the Conceptronic C3SNAS. It comes without any driver and costs about 125 Euro.

You can put discs of any size in it (SATA), has a Gbit ethernet connection, uses about 7 watt under load and 4 watt idle, can be configured in two disc usage, single disc usage RAID and JBOB. The admin interface and firmware are solid and it's running Linux which creates te ability to install funplug and thus install Linux software. I'm using two 1GB discs. Performance is superb. I have a 100Mbit network, but I've read that people with a Gbit network can write to the disc with up to 20MB/s, when jumboframes are enabled (this can be done from the configuration interface).

[link433]

Why do all that??

I have the perfect solution... and I use it!

MyBook! It's an external NETWORK hard drive. I have the 500GB edition, but they also come in smaller and up to 1TB. Just hook it up to your router, and bingo!

I use it with my XBMC to watch movies over the network (no lag what-so-ever), and I have a 50ft. ethernet cable from my router to my xbox.

You can use it on any PC/Mac (Windows, Linux and MacOSX all see it). Right now, I have over 300 movies, and I can play every one of them on XBMC, on my HDTV, and they look BEAUTIFUL!

[BLKMGK]

Silly thing to say?! You're using what? I've done some incredibly anally retentive bandwidth testing with a fair few systems btw. I could google a million problems for a million people running a million apps that were caused by a million reasons, what what that show?

With unraid you're using an 'unstable' software raid (I could suggest a fair few things to google that are slightly more concerning than samba speed issues on old versions of freebsd), with freenas you can use a 'stable' software raid, hardware raid or neither. I'm using some cheap hardware (its still a relatively modern skt939 system) for my main storage machine and have absolutely zero issues with stability. I've got a mix of IDE and sata drives, I'm not using raid and realworld performance over a cheap gb network is limited by each disks throughput.

Read the hcl, use intel network cards and consider things like bus limitations to get an idea what to expect in theory. I'd like to see any out of the box system work 'perfectly' with samba over a gb network without editing the conf.

What's "unstable" about unRAID exactly?

I LIKE the fact that unused disks can spin down, that my parity isn't striped, that losing more than one disk doesn't mean I lose it all, I like not having to have hotspares, I like that I can use normal recovery tools on a drive if I must. I like being able to buy whatever disk I want on sale and slap it in when I run low on space but still have parity protection. Best of all I like not having to screw with it all the time.

It's NOT the fastest setup for writes but it's plenty fast for reads. I run two unRAID, one is 12 drives and the other 8. Together this is pushing something North of 8TB. Uptime is regulated pretty much by how often I have extended power outages. Don't use it if you don't want to but try to be factual when you criticize something you've obviously not used.

[hazeh]

This is fun!
I put it in quotes a for a pretty valid reason in my mind. If you think I'm lying about trying, testing and using unraid then why are you replying? I didn't have any problems with stability, but I did take the time to look at what actual software it is running... I could go on and on, but you've said in previous posts that you're not the biggest nix guy and maybe you're not familiar with the historys of various filesystems, softraid implementations etc.

I'd hoped that it might spur anyone interested in data storage into doing lots of reading, better than writing random defensive posts. I'd still call zfs "unstable" but I love it and use it and tell people about it.

It seems like you would LIKE every single storage product with more than a single disc in it btw.

I'd rather a slow system that I didn't have to crc check every 5 mins than a fast one

unraid is fine, maybe I should have just listed freenas, unraid, nexenta, flexraid, openfiler, clark connect, suriyan, opene, naslite, whs, etcetcetc as alternatives that are already done for you.

[Bram77]

Why do all that??

I have the perfect solution... and I use it!

MyBook! It's an external NETWORK hard drive. I have the 500GB edition, but they also come in smaller and up to 1TB. Just hook it up to your router, and bingo!

I use it with my XBMC to watch movies over the network (no lag what-so-ever), and I have a 50ft. ethernet cable from my router to my xbox.

You can use it on any PC/Mac (Windows, Linux and MacOSX all see it). Right now, I have over 300 movies, and I can play every one of them on XBMC, on my HDTV, and they look BEAUTIFUL!

I've bought three of them. One for myself and theother two for my sisters (all 500GB). Mine had a hardware problem and the orher two software problems, as it seems. The software is terrible. Very slow and unstable. All three are back at the shop I've bought them. They are tested and marked as doa. I got a refund. I've hacked one of them (linux is running on it) to install funplug but I was unable to make the drive faster and more stable.

Check the reviews about the WD MyBook World edition, they are not! good. Trust me...sped 100 euro's more and you'll be happy with the CH3SNAS for quite a while (also check the reviews about this solution!).