NASLite Network Attached Storage

Howdy, sorry for the generic question but I've had such great luck with asking questions on here before and first THANKS IN ADVANCE.

I have a DELL system that is a P4 2.53 GHZ CPU with 512 MB of Memory. It has a Intel Pro/100 NIC and USB 2.0.
It also has a LSI LOGIC MegaRaid i4 N661 Raid controller that is feeding 2 500GB PATA Disks in a RAID 1 MIRROR configuration.
I'm currently running NASLite-2(NSL) V2.11 02-2009.

I currently just use the drive as a network drive for about 5 different computers in our home network and most of the data is just about 60mb of iTunes Music/Video and other backup files, etc.

I'm looking to add an Apple TV to our Home Entertainment system and want to move about 2TB of movies from my Brother-in-Law onto our system. It would really be nice if it was served up on the network as opposed to attached to one of the computers.

My inital thought was to just get a 2TB USB External drive and take it over to him and have him load it full of movies and then come over and plug it into my NAS BOX seeing how NSL supports USB drives. Well, then it hit me....

You can not take a Windows NTFS formated disk and plug it into NSL, it is Linux ext3 format. Ok, so there goes the portability aspect of it.

Next thought, purchase a 2TB USB External drive and attach it to the NSL and format it. Then bring his External drive over, attach it to a computer on the network and move the data across. Well, a friend at work just purchased a 2TB external drive and attached it to his LINKSYS/CISCO Wireless N router with Storage Link and it seemed to work fine until the external drive went into Sleep mode and then would never come back out until he power cycled everything. So that had me thinking that may not be a great idea.
And I'm not sure the USB would be a great bus for serving up 2TB of movies.

Next thought, purchase a 2TB PATA internal drive and hang it off 1 channel of the exsisting RAID controller. Well, I'm not sure that you can purchase a PATA drive that big...

So barring any other great ideas from the NSL community, my next thought would be to purchase a PCI SATA controller and a 2TB SATA internal HDD and serve it up via NSL.

The question to that would be, what is a good PCI SATA card that would be supported by NSL?

I'm trying to keep this on the inexpensive side, so that would be a plus.

Again, thanks in advance and I appreciate any pointers.

Mark

i use a promise sata card - have a couple a 2 port with a pata connector and a 4 port - both work well - have tried other supported ones but they did not perform that well when streaming video - that could have been the low spec pc - but as i say with the promise i had no problem

there are always a few on ebay - price varies but they are not a fortune - £20 will usually buy one - sometimes a lot less

Any particular model on the PROMISE SATA RAID card?

Thanks

Oh, yeah, would I anticipate any conflict if both raid cards are installed? (LSI PATA and the PROMISE SATA)

In terms of redundancy, I would choose a very affordable 3Ware 2-port RAID controller http://www.3ware.com/products/pdf/8006_DS_040406UD.pdf

Talking to 3Ware, they assured me that this card can take 1 TB drives (currently I have this card running with 2 500GB in RAID -1 with a backup to a single drive every night).

the sata promise cards i refer to are not raid - just 2 or 4 drives - the 4 way one is the sata150 TX4

The first thing I have to ask is, Why apple TV? All apple devices are proprietary and suffer from some form of DRM issue/s. They also do not play allot of files that Windows Media Center will.

Now you wouldn't be talking about copying content that you don't own or have a license for because that would be illegal. Tony, Ralph, and the rest of us could not help with that for legal reasons.

As a purely theoretical exercise I will detail how I might go about such an endeavor for you though. My system is setup much as you might want to do your self.

When we start talking about media files, video in specific, they can get rather large. HD content is far bigger. My first piece of advice is that you spend a few bucks and get a good hardware RAID card. This will allow you to expand the array as you fill it with content. Though it will not be easy it shouldn't cause major pain the way it would if you just had a JBOD. Promise, Adaptec, LSI/3ware, and a number of others all have cards that will meet needs.

A 2TB PATA drive does not exist without a translator card.

To do this right I would advise that you get a pair of the drives. One for the NAS box and another in an external case. The external case drive is for transferring the data from the brothers to your NAS by hanging it off of a PC to transfer. 2TB of data over a USB will take a fair bit of time and it would not stream well to multiple clients from the NAS.

If you don't have the scratch for a pair of drives then there is software for accessing EXT files on a PC and you could just load one on your brothers PC and mount the external drive that way after formatting it with NL.

Hope my rambling helps in some small way.

Mike

Mike, Tony thanks for the replies, yes they were helpful.

I think the best way to go is to get a Promise SATA (non-raid) controller and add it to the system along with the LSI PATA Raid card (Hopefully, no conflicts). Add a 2TB Internal HDD, Format the storage with NSL, then remove the drive. Then, mount that drive on a Windows system using a USB-SATA adapter cable. Mount the USB drive with the data and start the transfer. Granted it may take a day or two.

The Apple TV will be used because I like the interface. It will be loaded up with the BOXEE software for accessing other online content and such. I understand the DRM issues but I think the interface will be much easier for other family members to use.

Thanks guys!!!
Any other recomendations on Non RAID SATA PCI controllers that you have had good experience working well with NSL?

You should be able to mount your NL2 box to serve content to the AppleTV, there's howto's out there.

Well, windows7 and windows media center are working pretty well for me and the interface is pretty well polished. But go the Apple TV route, "Have Fun".

Mike

I installed a Promise SATA300 TX4302 in an old XP box. Two internal, and two external SATA conectors. Works wonderful. If the hot-plug capabilities work with NL2? They might, since the driver is installed at boot. About $70 on eBay, incl. shipping.

Anyone had any problems, or could I expect any problems if I were to install 2 different raid controllers in the same box?

Found this PROMISE FASTRACK S150 TX4 RAID controller on ebay for inexpensive: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWAX:IT

It is listed as supported by NSL, but wonder if I will have problems with it co-existing with my LSI RAID card already installed? Granted I have to worry about power, etc. But I think for right now, I would just use the card and just 1 2TB drive in a NON-RAID configuration.

But just wondering how I would get to each cards BIOS at Power up time to configure, etc.

Thanks!

I am using the Promise Fast S150TX4 with succes in a XP box. However: this card will not work as a RAID card in NASLite, because software RAID is NOT supported. Since it is a RAID 0/1 card, your alternative is a 3Ware 8006-2LP, limited to 2 1TB drives (officially 500GB, but 3Ware confirmed testing 1 TB drives) http://www.amazon.com/shops/A2GOFP3LLPC4SM $68

Edit:
OOPS! Didn't read the last line. This card WILL work in a NON-RAID manner. It's just a SATA interface, and you could use your motherboard connectors instead, if available.



It is very easy. 3Ware is ALT-3, Promise (I think) ALT-P or CNTR-P. They come sequencially, luckily, and not all at once :-)

Ok, thanks. Ok, so understand that it(The PROMISE SATA RAID) will not function as a RAID with NSL, but it will still function as a normal SATA card, so that is fine. And also that the CARD BIOS's will both still be available.

Thanks again!!!

Can't really say until you install both cards and try an boot it. I have an LSI dual channel SCSI controller on my motherboard and the machine hangs when I try to boot it with the LSI dual channel FC-AL card. These aren't even RAID cards so you just never know. It's the wild west out there in the "add in" card world.

Keep us posted on the outcome,

Mike

ONCE, I had two 3Ware 8006-2LP brotherly working together, slot to slot. No shouting, no fights. Quietly and peacefully did they fulfill their boring duties.