NASLite Network Attached Storage

Hi to y'all,

Since my NASLite boxes are whispering effortless 24/7, year after year, there is hardly any need to visit the forum. Maybe it is time to say - again - how happy I am with NASLite.
I will start selling cheap servers with NASLite in the coming year: 'Create your own Cloud' is the message.

There are still some NL glitches, however. This weekend I upgraded both servers (bigger drives, new fans), and noticed awkward behavior of the timeserver querying.
Both boxes are using the same IP address for their querying: nist1-pa.ustiming.org / 206.246.122.250 / Hatfield, PA - European timeservers mostly have now pool addresses like 'nl.pool.ntp.org', which doesn't fit the NL format.

Box 1 is using NASLite-2 x64, box 2 uses NASLite-2 32bit.

Box 1 boots very quick, but doesn't seem to query the timeserver: ' LAST SUCCESSFUL SYNCHRONIZATION UNKNOWN'
Box 2 boots VERY slow, and queries the timeserver for a long, long time, but in the end time syncing is successful: 'LAST SUCCESSFUL SYNCHRONIZATION Mon Nov 17 12:47:52 UTC 2014

Is there any wise man or woman out there, who is able to shed some light on this behavior?

Pieter

Hi

Change the IP of your time server.

The older version of NL could get stuck on a "not answering" time server. The last version skips the time server if it is not answering. You may upgrade to the latest version of NL

If one of the boxes is never updating (it is done once a day around 24:00), either the time server is never answering or you have not set in the IP of (something but I can't recall what ) in the config screen. I'm working from memory as I have changed my NL server with a NetGear server and I don'y have a working NL next to me.

Robby

Well, the strange thing is that the quick booting box has 2.6.30.3-64-CORE3 OS (doesn't synchronize); the slow (like 10-15 minutes) booting box has 2.6.37.6.CORE3 - so not much difference version wise. But the latter synchronizes.....
I'll upgrade both. Good idea.

Why did you change to Netgear? Web functionality?

P.

http://www.serverelements.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3753

What your describing was fixed some 2 years ago.

My office server was 8 years old and I didn't want it to die with my data during working hours... I wanted something smaller, quieter and consuming less energy. Having distant access, personal cloud etc is nice to have too but as I had said, up link is "slow" so working from home is not something I do not do often.

It took me some time and many e-mails with NetGear people to have work as fast as (and even faster) NasLite... The first server I tried (entry level Synology) was way too slow. The mid level NetGear (ReadyNAS 312, plenty of RAM, quad core CPU, 2 x Gigabit LAN cards etc...) was fast on big files but slow on small ones. I got it working very fast on all files (some firmware glitch )

For your not synchronizing NL, don't forget to check if it has internet access (from memory, setting the "gateway IP" to you router IP).

Robby

I just replaced three fans, only spinning at 500 rpm. Together with two large 140mm slow spinning fans, the power supply, and a big Zalman CPU cooler - so 7 fans in total - the sound level is very low. Also I think that the cooling of the hard drives is much better in a well ventilated mid-tower case, and therefore the drives will live longer, I am guessing.
I still find the software made by Tony & Ralph charming, robust and fast. So I will keep using NASLite, hoping for a remote tool/interface, so you can get to the server from elsewhere.
The only - but workable - solution to work from elsewhere I know of, is using Windows' remote desktop. Somehow it should be possible to connect direct to NASLite, through a HTML interface, through a certain port, but I never read anything about such an interface. Any ideas?
You & I can play music from my NL, as you know. Subsonic just points to the network drive: \\NasLite-11\Disk-3, and streams the music through a dedicated port after getting a request to do so. That doesn't seem so different as getting to your other files.

Later edit:
Just installed Filezilla Server. That should do the trick. I now can even use Outlook.pst elsewhere, and later replace the file with the updated one. I do have to test it, but it looks promising.

P.

Yep, you can access NL from elsewhere if and only if you have another computer running on the same LAN as NL or if you have a server that accepts VPN connections (my case with NetGear) on the same LAN as NL.

Robby