Speaking of NAS storage, we started using a Yellow Box NAS RAID device at the office this week and I have to say I'm not that impressed. It replaced a single 300 GB USB 2.0 Hard Drive attached directly to the server and serves as a hot mirror/archive for files in case of problems with our primary systems. It has a RAID-5 configuration and is connected via NFS over 100 base-T.
File I/O operations are about 1/4 the speed of the previous drive. This makes sense due to the relative speeds of the two technologies: USB 2.0 versus 100 base-T ethernet, plus overhead.
For a concrete example: If I filled the entire NAS system to capacity (667 GB) it would take 24 hours to MD5 the entire contents of the "drive".
So, IMO, with NAS go gigabit ethernet or keep your expectations low.
Exactly! Any NAS nowdays should definately do at least Gigabit ethernet, RAID 1/5, and jumbo frames. Period! No exceptions! Anything else is not worth buying.
also, there are large write permission problems with NAS.
We have a simple NAS storage device at the office. Person A will need to be granted "write access". At the same time other persons may not write to the disk, unless person A turns off write access. So in the end you have to shout to your collegues: "hey, I need to save something, turn write access off!" all the time. And often, the device doesnt register this change, and you have to reboot Windows/MacOSX in order for the NAS device to re-register permissions.
also, there are large write permission problems with NAS.
We have a simple NAS storage device at the office. Person A will need to be granted "write access". At the same time other persons may not write to the disk, unless person A turns off write access. So in the end you have to shout to your collegues: "hey, I need to save something, turn write access off!" all the time. And often, the device doesnt register this change, and you have to reboot Windows/MacOSX in order for the NAS device to re-register permissions.
Lame system!
Are you sure that's not a problem specific to the device you are using? I don't think that's a problem with all NAS devices.
Exactly! Any NAS nowdays should definately do at least Gigabit ethernet, RAID 1/5, and jumbo frames. Period! No exceptions! Anything else is not worth buying.
agreed! that is why i have gone for the infant readyNAS -- because it offers all of that plus *claims* to be mac compatible. infrant have support forums with an apple section (kudos to them) so i'm reading up on any issues now before the box arrives tomorrow.
Yea, I've looked into the ReadyNAS in the past but how well does it handle the OS X native networking protocol, filesystem, long filenames with weird charachters, etc.????
it uses afp 3.1 and bonjour (or you can use SMB)
it just arrived (woot!) and i'm copying over from our old file server to it. seems FAST!
agreed! that is why i have gone for the infant readyNAS -- because it offers all of that plus *claims* to be mac compatible. infrant have support forums with an apple section (kudos to them) so i'm reading up on any issues now before the box arrives tomorrow.
I bought the rackmount version for home. Not cheap, certainly. However having 1.5TB at the ready allowed me to start to doing weekly backups of my PowerMac, PowerBook and my PC.
Comments
Speaking of NAS storage, we started using a Yellow Box NAS RAID device at the office this week and I have to say I'm not that impressed. It replaced a single 300 GB USB 2.0 Hard Drive attached directly to the server and serves as a hot mirror/archive for files in case of problems with our primary systems. It has a RAID-5 configuration and is connected via NFS over 100 base-T.
File I/O operations are about 1/4 the speed of the previous drive. This makes sense due to the relative speeds of the two technologies: USB 2.0 versus 100 base-T ethernet, plus overhead.
For a concrete example: If I filled the entire NAS system to capacity (667 GB) it would take 24 hours to MD5 the entire contents of the "drive".
So, IMO, with NAS go gigabit ethernet or keep your expectations low.
Exactly! Any NAS nowdays should definately do at least Gigabit ethernet, RAID 1/5, and jumbo frames. Period! No exceptions! Anything else is not worth buying.
We have a simple NAS storage device at the office. Person A will need to be granted "write access". At the same time other persons may not write to the disk, unless person A turns off write access. So in the end you have to shout to your collegues: "hey, I need to save something, turn write access off!" all the time. And often, the device doesnt register this change, and you have to reboot Windows/MacOSX in order for the NAS device to re-register permissions.
Lame system!
also, there are large write permission problems with NAS.
We have a simple NAS storage device at the office. Person A will need to be granted "write access". At the same time other persons may not write to the disk, unless person A turns off write access. So in the end you have to shout to your collegues: "hey, I need to save something, turn write access off!" all the time. And often, the device doesnt register this change, and you have to reboot Windows/MacOSX in order for the NAS device to re-register permissions.
Lame system!
Are you sure that's not a problem specific to the device you are using? I don't think that's a problem with all NAS devices.
Exactly! Any NAS nowdays should definately do at least Gigabit ethernet, RAID 1/5, and jumbo frames. Period! No exceptions! Anything else is not worth buying.
agreed! that is why i have gone for the infant readyNAS -- because it offers all of that plus *claims* to be mac compatible. infrant have support forums with an apple section (kudos to them) so i'm reading up on any issues now before the box arrives tomorrow.
You haven't looked at a lot of multi-drive NAS devices, have you?
You are right. I haven't.
I just keep buying peripheral hard drives.
An Apple easy solution would get me to purchase.
Yea, I've looked into the ReadyNAS in the past but how well does it handle the OS X native networking protocol, filesystem, long filenames with weird charachters, etc.????
it uses afp 3.1 and bonjour (or you can use SMB)
it just arrived (woot!) and i'm copying over from our old file server to it. seems FAST!
agreed! that is why i have gone for the infant readyNAS -- because it offers all of that plus *claims* to be mac compatible. infrant have support forums with an apple section (kudos to them) so i'm reading up on any issues now before the box arrives tomorrow.
I bought the rackmount version for home. Not cheap, certainly. However having 1.5TB at the ready allowed me to start to doing weekly backups of my PowerMac, PowerBook and my PC.