Suggestions for gigabit NAS?

aqm consultant · Post by **aqm consultant** » Fri May 12, 2006 3:45 pm

I'd like to set up network attached storage to my network through a gigabit switch or router. The NAS packages that do gigabit throughput are EXPENSIVE. An alternative is to take an old PIII box I have, but a gigabit NIC in it, and set it up as a server (with associated non-insignificant software costs, unless I can do it under Linux). Anyone with any experience with either?

TIA

jdunning · Post by **jdunning** » Fri May 12, 2006 8:06 pm

I've been weighing the homebrew vs. pre-built NAS route as well. There have been a bunch of NAS-related threads:

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewto ... ht=infrant

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewto ... ht=infrant

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewto ... ht=infrant

http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewto ... ht=infrant

There seems to be a preference for Linux software RAID as opposed to a hardware RAID card, and suggestions that with older motherboards, the CPU is powerful enough but the bottleneck is the PCI bus. So having a newer board with GigE and SATA built in would be better.

arrikhan · Post by **arrikhan** » Sat May 13, 2006 1:52 am

jdunning wrote:There seems to be a preference for Linux software RAID as opposed to a hardware RAID card, and suggestions that with older motherboards, the CPU is powerful enough but the bottleneck is the PCI bus. So having a newer board with GigE and SATA built in would be better.

Your comments re: SATA and PCI bus are only relevant if you want to do some serious performance related work, which you wouldn't do over a network anyway so the point is moot.. ..unless you're talking dual purpose.

Gbe network can't sustain close to 100MB/s which is basically wire speed of Gbe. Funnily enough, without a dedicated TOE (TCP offload engine) card, as opposed to a standard network card, you're not going to be able to get this on a PII or PIII CPU setup without cranking the CPU.

If you (aqm consultant) want better feedback, I'd recommend you state what you intend to use it for. NAS is typically used for storing/streaming but moving out of those boundaries changes the rules.

If it's purely storage and streaming, PII with any OS and 100mbit LAN 'works'. Obviously higher network speed is nicer for multiple targets from the fileserver. I wouldn't expect the 'home-grade' NAS solutions off the shelf to be any better. So if you have a PII/PIII lying about, it's going to be cheaper to set it up with linux that any purpose built shell, just might not be too compact.

I've worked with enterprise solution NAS (at work obviouisly), and PII/linux home setups. The PII home fielserver setup averages 0.1% CPU usage and I am patient with 100mbit when moving files around (I actually have 2 fileservers due to having spare PII's to accomodate it), but for streaming, it works to a HTPC device without impacting the network for general WEB browsing that actually goes through (gateway/firewall are some of its other uses) the same PC.

Arrikhan