Juicester Posted January 21, 2013 Posted January 21, 2013 what about energy efficiency compared to a NAS?
goooobags Posted January 23, 2013 Author Posted January 23, 2013 I've got a pair of the previous incarnation, the N36L. One for play and one for movies, TV, music and a general storage bucket for things that I shouldn't lose. I have four 2TB drives and a Thermaltake 6x2.5" bay in the optical drive slot, SAS controller, the whole works and jerks. It can get a bit rattly so it doesn't live in the same room as the Hifi kit. Some slightly more polite drives would probably avoid that. Am about to have a play with NAS4Free on the second unit. mrdave, what RAID level(?) do you use in those machines? I was doing a fair bit of research before buying my NAS and you seem to be in the know about it all. I have found these articles that recommend not using RAID 5, whats your opinion? (don't want a debate just curious) http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/why-raid-5-stops-working-in-2009/162 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/raidfail-dont-use-raid-5-on-small-arrays/483 Cheers, Guy
Gruffnutz Posted January 23, 2013 Posted January 23, 2013 Yea but it runs Windows which as we all know can be flakey at the best of times. Yes; clearly we ALL know that...
cazzesman Posted January 23, 2013 Posted January 23, 2013 I have just bought the Synology 411Slim. It is 4 x 1tb (2.5) max. Runs Raid 0, 1, 5, 10. I use it only as my music server feeding JRiver V18. Great software with it. Seems to be running flawlessly. I only have 2 x 1tb in at the moment running Raid 1 (Mirrored drives). It is my first NAS so I'm no expert but as far as ease of use, good support (forum answered some questions very quickly), good software and performance goes I couldn't be happier. Regards Cazzesman
mrdave Posted January 23, 2013 Posted January 23, 2013 mrdave, what RAID level(?) do you use in those machines? I was doing a fair bit of research before buying my NAS and you seem to be in the know about it all. I have found these articles that recommend not using RAID 5, whats your opinion? (don't want a debate just curious) http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/why-raid-5-stops-working-in-2009/162 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/raidfail-dont-use-raid-5-on-small-arrays/483 Cheers, Guy Hi Guy, I went for stripes of mirrors, aka RAID10 or RAID1+0. Robin knows what he is talking about. Go 1+0 for four disks and stop having lascivious thoughts about 4TB drives 1
goooobags Posted January 23, 2013 Author Posted January 23, 2013 Hi Guy, I went for stripes of mirrors, aka RAID10 or RAID1+0. Robin knows what he is talking about. Go 1+0 for four disks and stop having lascivious thoughts about 4TB drives Thanks mate, when I get a 4+ bay NAS I will probably head down this route. Guy
nodice Posted February 1, 2013 Posted February 1, 2013 (edited) Just a word of warning, do not use Penta computers in Sydney. Thank god for american express's service, they got my money returned to my card and I have purchased from mwave who had the item ready for pickup the following morning. I have now got the nas running and also added a gigabit router to the mix too. Now I can sleep with everything backed up safely Edited February 1, 2013 by nodice
Toma Audio Posted February 1, 2013 Posted February 1, 2013 (edited) Ok I'm going to cop flac for this. Audioquest make a range of high end RJ45 cables with really funky plugs and there usual goodies for conductors etc. as I run by QNAP NAS in the rack with the audio gear I used 2. NAS to switch, switch to Streamer. And bugger me if they didn't improve the sound. I now stock and sell them. And we keep a roll of AQ cat 6 in our van for audio based networking. I'm signing off now and I'll cop the flac tomorrow. And yes the spelling of flac not flack is a pun. 😃 Edited February 2, 2013 by Toma Audio
GraemeB Posted February 1, 2013 Posted February 1, 2013 (edited) Toma, I too was sceptical until I recently bought two Coffee network cables, and with them connected my Synology NAS to my Billion router and then to my Mac Mini. I have no explanation for the noticable sound improvement, it just IS. And I'm happy and grateful that it is so. To be honest I don't give a flying fart what the neysayers conclude. Reliance soley on objective 'scientific' theory and measurements (and often choosing not to actually LISTEN to the products dismissed) can sometimes mean missing out on surprising improvements in sound quality. Each to their own, YMMV, etc, etc. Edited February 1, 2013 by GraemeB 1
Toma Audio Posted February 2, 2013 Posted February 2, 2013 I agree Graeme, It it the argument since the dawn of Hi-Fi. Listen or test and analyze. What DAC and software are you running from the Mac? Cheers,
GraemeB Posted February 2, 2013 Posted February 2, 2013 (edited) Audirvana Plus 1.4.4 into a Lampizator Level 4 Gen 4 DAC via a good quality USB cable (yet another endless source of contention!). I scratch my already balding head in wonderment at the highly enjoyable music streaming from my Synology NAS across to the shed in which I am listening. Would I still have achieved the improvements in SQ I'm hearing, and enjoying, if I'd paid too much attention to those who say these 'tweaks' are snake oil, or have not (currently) been scientifically validated? Who knows? Ultimately, each of us has to make a decision, that sometimes feels a bit risky, and find out what works in our individual systems, and unique sound spaces. I've found the process is part listening to one's gut sense of what might work, taking into account other's input (other users and/or technical gurus. So, if asked why some tweaks work, my answer might be what the Geoffrey Rush character in 'Shakespeare In Love' repeatedly says, "It's a mystery m'lord!" Edited February 2, 2013 by GraemeB 1
nodice Posted February 2, 2013 Posted February 2, 2013 Sorry Graeme did you mean you had the cat called running outside to the mini in the shed or are you going over wifi after the router? I wouldn't think the coffee cables were sold in such large lengths?
Toma Audio Posted February 2, 2013 Posted February 2, 2013 Hi Graeme, Yeah I concur with the USB as well. Everyone doubts it until I work through the range of cables and it keeps getting better and better. Nice rig by the way Geoff
nodice Posted February 2, 2013 Posted February 2, 2013 I'm about to try the ds213+ straight to the dac and control through the audio station iPad app. Has anyone else experienced this yet? I know they have just enabled 24bit last year, are there any limitations technically?
GraemeB Posted February 2, 2013 Posted February 2, 2013 (edited) Sorry Graeme did you mean you had the cat called running outside to the mini in the shed or are you going over wifi after the router? I wouldn't think the coffee cables were sold in such large lengths? Billion router > Netgear wifi extender from house to shed, about 10m distance. Can't use a powerline ethernet extender as the shed has a separate power supply from house. What surprised me was when I replaced the original Cat 5e/6 cables with the Coffee ones (0.75m cable between NAS > router in house, 3m cable between Netgear extender > Mac Mini in shed) I noticed an improvement in SQ. I didn't expect such an obvious improvement, especially straight away. Ooops, now I've trodden in the pile of controversial brown stuff called 'burn-in'. OK, better stop before the local branch of the Audio Klu Klux Klan come a visiting! Edited February 2, 2013 by GraemeB
GraemeB Posted February 2, 2013 Posted February 2, 2013 (edited) I'm about to try the ds213+ straight to the dac and control through the audio station iPad app. Has anyone else experienced this yet? I know they have just enabled 24bit last year, are there any limitations technically? Can't do any harm to give it a go nodice, if you have that option. The Lampi has USB and COAX RCA inputs only, so I can't connect the Synology DS direct to DAC. I use an iPad via iTeleport app to control my headless Mac Mini remotely. This app also enables remote accessing of Diskstation and Billion router menus, which comes in handy sometimes. Might consider moving the Diskstation into the shed when weather cools down a bit, to find out how much (if any) improvement there is from direct gigabit ethernet connection. The DS713+ has 2 gigabit connections, so would allow one wired connection to Mac Mini and another to the Netgear extender. This way, iPad remains wirelessly connected to all devices. I turned off the Mac Mini wifi deliberately to see if it reduced RFI. Not quite so obvious if it DID improve computer audio SQ, but I'm in no hurry to switch the wifi back on. So, I'll be interested in your findings nodice. Edited February 2, 2013 by GraemeB
roh008 Posted February 3, 2013 Posted February 3, 2013 (edited) Another vote for the HP N40L - I've finished building mine and dropped in more RAM and a GPU. Initially it was going to be a NAS but now with the GPU can use it as a HTPC as well. Streams Blurays easily (via GPU) using JR18 Running Win 7 on it too. Edited February 3, 2013 by roh008
markeroonie Posted July 1, 2013 Posted July 1, 2013 rather than start a new thread I thought i might as well tack my questions here to keep it all together. This is my first nas so apologies in advance is they have been asked already, I had a look around but couldn't find anything that seemed to answer my questions I have just bought a n40l from shoppingexpress since they were running them out on special yesterday, only $199. it has a 1.5Ghz processor, 2GB ram and a 250GB SATA HD already installed. What I want to do with it... Run Squeezebox music server, i have about 140GB of music, almost all FLAC, this would (as it currently does from my laptop) stream to a squeezebox Touch via the wifi back up two laptops via the wifi, probably using Crashplan, currently about 200GB Watch movies etc, perhaps streaming to my PS3 via wifi. Don't have many digitised at the moment, but do have about 100 dvd's that could go onto the NAS Perhaps use it to download torrents, that currently gets done on my laptop, using µTorrent leave on 24/7 Questions... what operating software to run. FreeNAS and nas4free I have seen mentioned a few times. another is linux, something i have had no experience with. I am after something that is as user friendly as possible, am happy to pay up to about $50 if needed. Is 2GB of ram going to be enough? i understand it can take up to 8 or even 16GB will the 250GB HD be ok to leave in to run the various software i want to use, or should i consider a solid state HD or run everything on the bigger HD I have to get anyway for the backup and storage purposes. i have also seen some comments that suggest using a usb stick to hold the operating system on, though not sure where this would go , inside or outside. I am thinking of just getting one 2TB WD Red Caviar since this is primarily a backup for the laptops as well as to stream music. I will also have another off site backup, I figure that makes three versions of my data, two always up to date and the external one being done every few weeks. i also have a lot of doc backups being saved in dropbox if i feel the need to have a RAID 1 setup then it will be fairly simple to drop in another drive how secure is this setup, if i give someone access to my wifi, like a house guest, will they be able to see and tinker with the content on the NAS thanks in advance for any advice mark
markeroonie Posted July 9, 2013 Posted July 9, 2013 Ok, i bought it, installed a total of 8GB of ram and a 2TB HD, it's booting up from a usb using ubuntu/linux, but that is where i am now stuck. when it boots up it asked what language, then asked if i want to install or just try/test. when i choose try/test, the home screen comes up and that is as far as i have gotten. how do i add or edit the boot up procedure, also how to i download/install squeezebox onto the usb. i also cant see if the 2TB drive is there, nor how to set it up so i can access it via the home network stupid me, stupid linux
Carrera1963 Posted July 9, 2013 Posted July 9, 2013 What surprised me was when I replaced the original Cat 5e/6 cables with the Coffee ones (0.75m cable between NAS > router in house, 3m cable between Netgear extender > Mac Mini in shed) I noticed an improvement in SQ. Is it an audio stream (buffered) or a file being opened (CRC checking)? Either way, a LAN cable will not impact the bits in a file being sent to an output device - unless you were getting latency or packet loss in the first place due to a faulty cable or massive interference. Possible a LAN cable could cause a ground loop, but you've got Wifi as one of the links anyway... Though the bandwidth for audio is tiny anyway, even a 10Mbps LAN link & 11Mbps wireless link would be fine If you were running Gig over an old cat3 or cat5 cable, a cat6 cable might fix problems - but they'd have been so severe you'd get drop-outs, not a difference in 'sound quality'
captainclive Posted July 9, 2013 Posted July 9, 2013 Ok, i bought it, installed a total of 8GB of ram and a 2TB HD, it's booting up from a usb using ubuntu/linux, but that is where i am now stuck. when it boots up it asked what language, then asked if i want to install or just try/test. when i choose try/test, the home screen comes up and that is as far as i have gotten. how do i add or edit the boot up procedure, also how to i download/install squeezebox onto the usb. i also cant see if the 2TB drive is there, nor how to set it up so i can access it via the home network stupid me, stupid linux I have the N54L running Ubuntu works a treat. Just google Ubuntu install and there is a zillion websites, Utube videos on "how to".
Star Woofer Posted August 25, 2013 Posted August 25, 2013 Has anyone tried the Logitech Media Server on the new Synology DS213j (the budget model)? Or is that asking too much from this device? It has a 1.2GHz cpu and 512G of RAM. Link here: http://www.synology.com/products/product.php?product_name=DS213j?=us
dralj Posted August 25, 2013 Posted August 25, 2013 I have the N54L running Ubuntu works a treat. Just google Ubuntu install and there is a zillion websites, Utube videos on "how to". I have just bought the N54L, also running Ubuntu, (needed help from my brother who writes code for linux), and am currently copying my files over to a partition on the hard drive, ntfs from my laptop via wi fi. Next step is to get my 2 Squeezebox touch reading this partition (I have set up a Samba Server). Do I just plug in the ethernet cable like an external hard drive OR load squeezebox server on ubuntu?
Gruffnutz Posted August 25, 2013 Posted August 25, 2013 You'll need Squeezeboxserver (Slimserver) running on the N54L. I don't think squeezeboxes can read a Samba share.
MWR Posted September 2, 2013 Posted September 2, 2013 (edited) Anyone have an opinion regarding Western Digital MyBook Live Duo? It looks quite easy to use for a digital novice I need to backup data wirelessly from another room as well as stream audio Edited September 2, 2013 by MWR
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