NASLite Network Attached Storage

Hello,

I am currently running Naslite+ ver. 1.5 CD and really love it. But after coming to the forums for a technical issue, which I believe is solved, I found ver. 2 CCD is available. After reading the features it looks great and I'm interested in SATA support as well as USB storage support. The GUI also looks much improved.

These things aside, can anyone give me their opinion on weather or not I'll see much of an improvement in overall performance with 2.0? There was a mention of the file system being more robust w/ 2.0 in my support thread. If this is the case, I would have to reformat my drive to take advantage of the new file system correct?

I can still get 2.0 for the upgrade price so any Pros or Cons you have would be great.

Thanks!

J

Hi Jmonti,

If you love the V1.5 then you are in for a treat with V2.
sata support, firewire, usb, raid. rsync, mirror, better info on the server status.

I dont put my server under a great deal of stress and i havent benchmarked the versions so I cant comment of speeds etc. there was a post by Ralph when he showed his results of V2 and they was very impressive.

if you can get v2 for the upgrade price then i;d suggest you take advantage of this right now..

the only thing that will change is the disk numbering will change you will get a Disk-0 upwards. you dont need to format. there is a option to add a jounel to the filesystem and thats your filesystem done. only takes a few seconds.

Cons are you will want to get more Hard disks!

Hi Gaiden,

I appreciate your help in my other threat as well.

Looks like the upgrade is a solid improvement worth buying. I wish now I hadn't purchased a 400Gb PATA drive. I have an old Asrock mobo with a 3.0 P4 and gig of Ram with SATA Raid support just sitting at home gathering dust! Although my electric bills would surly go up with that Prescott running 24/7....

Thanks again for the help!

J

Jmonti:

I don't think you can get v2 from 1.x for an "upgrade" price, unless you are talking about the 35% discount that would apply. In that case (very worth it) you end up with a second license (a 1.x plus the new 2.0x license).

A disadvantage (at least for me ... this may NOT apply to you): a] the "Disk-x" naming order could change when you move to 2.0x.

Also note: just because your Mobo says it will do RAID don't assume it is REAL hardware RAID (which is the only type supported by v2.0x) ... even if it is, check the documentation first to see if the chipset is supported. ( I am NOT a fan of RAID. )

But having said all that I would highly recommend upgrading; the advantages are numerous (as pointed out by others above), and also note you do NOT have to reformat at all, you just use the HDD from 1.x with its data as is. (But you might want to apply a "JOURNAL" (from our other post).)

Georg

I'm guessing you haven't seen the benefit of RAID first hand - first time you have a drive in a server that's running your business drop dead and watch the resulting havoc, you'll think twice, and the next time you see a drive in a RAID array fail in identical circumstances, and the server continues to run, and the business continues to generate revenue, you'll think again - and when the tech walks through the door, pulls the failed drive and pops the new one in without even taking the server off line (assuming you have hotswap drives) you'll be a believer.

A junior tech once asked how do you replace a RAID drive - the answer - pull, push, watch - and be amazed.

Regardless of whether Georg likes RAID or not, NASLite-2 will *only* implement RAID on a true hardware RAID implementation. Check the hardware compatibility document for compatible RAID cards.

Thanks to everyone for the advise and help!

I pulled the trigger yesterday and purchased Naslite 2 CDD for the $19.95 discount price. So far, all I can say is WOW. Very nice user interface.

If I go with RAID at some point I would most likely get an add-in card as I believe you are right about it being a software RAID on the Asrock mobo.

I do have one or two more questions if you'll indulge me.

The box I'm using is a Dell L800r w/ a P3 800Mhz and currently 384Mb of Ram. I just installed V.2 last night and formatted my 400Gb drive. This morning from my Vista PC I started to transfer 143Gb of files back to the Nas server. Vista said it would take about 6h 43m to complete. I then went over to my iMac and started a transfer of 9Gb of files to the nas server. Time to complete about 43m. While these to transfers were taking place I opened up firefox and went to the Nas system page ( Oh what information goodness! LOL). My Ram usage breaks down like this: Total ram 374, used 370, available 4 . My system load was 20% across the board.

So, would I see even better transfer rates by installing 512Mb ram? How much ram do most people use in their Nas servers? I dont think a faster CPU would do much, but am I wrong there?

And finally, I usually transfer files by browsing to the "Disk" in either Explorer or Finder and dragging files back and forth. Would I see better speeds by using an FTP client like Smart FTP or Cyber Duck?

Thanks again!

J