NASLite Network Attached Storage

I currently use my NASLite server as a multimedia storage setup consisting of approximately 1.6TB of hard drive storage to keep all our music and dvd-quality movies on for viewing on any tv in the house, sort of like the cable company's Video-On-Demand service, only mine has the stuff that I want to watch. However, an iTunes server based off of NASLite-2 could definitely be a worthwhile venture. I'd be curious to see how it would work.

I would be interested. My preference is that the feature be integrated into a release rather than offered as a separate product. I'd like to use the same server for storage and streaming.
I really like the product but don't care for your licensing model. I own NASLite-CDD. I don't think I should have to pay again for NASLite-USB. It's a different way of running the system, not a separate product. Please avoid this with the itunes streaming server. If it's integrated into a future release, I'll buy it.

Ah must say I do find SS a bit clunky sometimes, when its running leave it well alone.

KISS I like

If NASLite could stream somehow that would still be cool
I just need to find out somewhere (help please) what I need to receive the stream.

Ta for the link.

It's fairly easy to install a functioning daap server. Is there any way to get shell access instead of the admin pages when you telnet in?

I am following this topic with interest. I have been looking at my server set-up with fresh eyes, mainly due to rocketing electricity bills!

At the moment, like many here, I use my NASLite server to watch video and listen to music (I use a Showcenter). No iTunes, or anything proprietary. Just DivX, FLAC and MP3. But it means that I need two computers -- the NASLite box to host the files, and another computer for the server software (I use Swisscenter).

I estimate that the two boxes burn up about 120 to 140 watts between them (high, I know. My NASLite box contains six discs, and my main computer is an older power-hungry machine). And there's my laptop...and my wife's laptop...

My latest eye-wateringly high electricity bill means I'm taking a fresh look at everything that burns power, including our computer set-up, and having to run two computers just to listen to music/watch a video is obviously silly. I can't be the only one thinking along these lines. Alternatives such as the now discontinued NSLU2 (mentioned by a previous poster), running as a UPnP AV media server and burning 10 to 20 watts, becomes hugely tempting. The significance of running costs is only likely to grow as an issue.

I don't know what percentage of NASLite users use it as I do. But if it's a significant percentage, then IMHO I think the developers should consider giving some priority to the media server project.

I have to agree with you on the power thing. I have a NL box running 24-7 and shutter to think of the cost of running it. On the other hand I like having it available at the drop of a hat and since there are no real alternatives at this time that give me the performance I desire I don't see a solution. It would be great if there was a way to wake on lan with a machine in a hibernate state in a few seconds. I have often wished I had the know how to just embed the OS in the BIOS chip like Network Appliance did at the start. There is a way to do this, a group of Linux developers have made a machine boot from the BIOS area in like 8 seconds to a quiescent state. It would be great if the BIOS boot, NL, and WoL could be combined. Then you would really have something there.

For now, since I live in sunny southern California, I am looking at solar panels and inverters to run at least some of my stuff.

Mike

Looks like this is becoming a reality - for those of you that haven't discovered this for yourselves yet, here it is: viewforum.php?f=22

I finally got around to putting hard numbers on my PCs' power consumption -- and the figures are much worse than I imagined.

My main PC (Athlon 2200+, 4HD), which handles the server software for my Showcenter, burns 110 watts -- at idle! About 130 watts at full load. (And otherwise, it's a low spec machine, no fancy video card or any other power-hungry component),

My NASLite box (Celeron 700, with seven hard drives) burns 80-90 watts. My 19" Dell monitor, 25 watts.

So at current UK electricity prices, my main PC is costing about £15/quarter to run (assuming it's on on average 14 hours per day). That doesn't include the monitor. My NASLite box (on 24/7 at the moment), about £20.

So £35 a quarter, just for two of the household's four computers. Time to build a couple of Atom-based machines, methinks.

Average power draw of a 3.5" drive is 7 to 9 watts (12v and 5v combined), so you probably have 55w in drives. I'd highly recommend a via low power CPU as well as a single large diameter case fan (12/14cm) in addition to the supply fan. Using that approach you can lower power consumption to about 70w or so considering your original numbers.

Further, if your BIOS is capable of spinning drives down, you can enable that feature and change the status update frequency of NASLite-2 from 1 minute (default) to say 8 hours. That way drives will spin down during lack of activity and power up on demand (I don't recommend that since it places unnecessary high stress on your drives and power supply diminishing estimated MTBF) but it will result in lower power consumption.

Hope that helps.

Tony -- thanks for the advice. I wasn't that surprised at the power consumption of my NASLite box. As you say, the seven hard drives account for most of it.

The only way to make a real impact on that box is to use fewer, bigger (and "greener") hard drives (I think the new WD green drives average 4-6 watts). And I could probably save another 10 watts or so by re-building the box based on the new Atom desktop processor (TDP about 4 watts, I believe, compared to the Celeron 700's 18 watts).

I was more concerned about my main PC and total power consumption of all my boxes. M2 will help in that regard.

LOL, be happy you are not using a machine like mine. A pair of Opteron 285 processors (100 Watts each) A 8800 Ultra OC card (170Watts) Five 15K RPM Cheetah drives (about 60 Watts) Dual pump water cooling system and fans (About 100 Watts) I think at idle it burns around 650 Watts. I will not get into the other stuff I have on 24/7 but it runs around another 400 Watts. I just got a SAN array and it will take up to 12 drives and RAID them to FC-AL, wanna guess at that burn? Me either. Seriously looking at solar to power some of this stuff. My UPS is an online type and runs on a 120 Volt battery bank so it might not be that hard to do.

Remember that the grass is always greener where you can keep the neighbor from pissing on it.

Mike

Mike, That was a truly terrifying read.

LOL

Yep, I posted that to make the point that in the scheme of things "(Celeron 700, with seven hard drives) burns 80-90 watts. My 19" Dell monitor, 25 watts." don't sound to bad to me. My NL2.0 box doesn't have a monitor, KB, mouse, or even a video card for that matter and only has 3 drives. It is likely the most energy efficient part of my network.

The cost for performance and flexibility is heat, pure and simple.

Mike