Question on Nas vs Home server machine

Hi i wanted to know if there is a big differences in power savings between a windows home server built machine and a nas device?

I was looking at this nas device
http://www.synology.com/us/products/ds710+/index.php

I also was looking at using one of these 2 cpus if i built a whs machine
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103714

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116072

I would use it stream sd and hd movies to my 2 media players (no transcoding). i want to be able to expand the storage as i go start off with a 2tb hard drive then add more as my collection gets bigger.

So does a nas device draw a lot less power than a whs with a 65watt cpu?

There's no way to know for sure. There's so much involved with making a system power efficient. Besides, if you outgrow the 2 slot, you have to buy another one. At what point will you decide it's better to just build a whole machine?

If you buy one of those 80 plus gold rated power supplies those push 85-90% efficient. If that power supply is not even 80 plus then you can give yourself a distinct advantage.

Me personally, when I was building a home server I went for a gold rated 80 plus power supply for the efficiency. If you run it 24x7 the cost of buying a more efficient power supply makes it a money saver over the long haul. When winter comes around and it gets cold outside I let it crunch for WCG/Boinc. Sure, it's almost pointless, but at least i'm creating heat by doing something useful.

Grab one of the 2 bay readynas devices.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-029-_-Product

Thanks for the replies. The ReadyNas Duo has a nice price but i want something that's expandable. My blu ray and dvd collection will eventually fill two 2tb drives.

Try the NV+

Or if you want even bigger go for the PRO (six bays)

Sorry to hijack the thead, has anyone used OpenFiler? I would love to play with that on a box with hardware raid!

yup used openfiler in production and for lab work...awesome product.

Unfortunely though its lack of automated streaming features make imho unsuitable for domestic uses....but great for datastore iscsi targets :) or san booting windows 7 ultimate

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Originally Posted by rogard

san booting windows 7 ultimate

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Nice, think I will be trying that soon! :)

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Originally Posted by phillyman75

Hi i wanted to know if there is a big differences in power savings between a windows home server built machine and a nas device?

I was looking at this nas device
http://www.synology.com/us/products/ds710+/index.php

I also was looking at using one of these 2 cpus if i built a whs machine
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103714

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116072

I would use it stream sd and hd movies to my 2 media players (no transcoding). i want to be able to expand the storage as i go start off with a 2tb hard drive then add more as my collection gets bigger.

So does a nas device draw a lot less power than a whs with a 65watt cpu?

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I have a couple cheaper synology's and i love em. Mine uses about 14-25 watts total. Huge energy saver from having a dedicated server running 24/7. The sleep function works very well, only takes about 2 seconds for the drive to wake up. I use mine to stream hd movies with no problem.

You could build a NAS device if you have the hardware hanging around. Here's a link to Openfiler, an open source NAS OS that I've found to be pretty easy to use. A headless server with a few SATA HDs would do the trick, and you might get away with a 200-300 Watt power supply... depending on what you stuff into the box. Also it's a great way to recycle some of your old hardware.

openfiler

Sorry to hijack, but ....

In a similar manner, I am using a PC as my file server, and I am perfectly happy with it for most things, however, Im finding that since Im in the process of moving my PCs to Windows 7, I have a mixture of different Operating systems, Win7x3, Linux x 2, XP64 x 3 ( my games PCs on the LAN ) and Windows 2000 ( Cos I love it ) and its becoming a real chore to have all of these somehow wit han inability to access the files properly due to permissions or whatever?

Anyway, when the file serves was XP64 I never had such issues, but now its Win7... I do!... I actually want Linux but thats even more awkward to access with the Win7 PC for some reason?

I was therefore under the impression that a NAS would be a much better solution for many reasons.

So, I dug out a test HD, I have a few spare Hitachi 80GB Drives, I formatted to ext2 and shared it, and sure enough I found it on my network and there was a niuce blank HD ready to play with.

Unfortunately, its slow.

I dont mean its a bit slow, I mean its utterly useless.

I copied a folder over to test, this folder was full of various sized files, mostly smallish, and there was 172 files in all... It took over 30 minutes

I then copied the same files to my normal file server and the very same files took just under 1 minute.

The NAS in question is an ICYBOX 4220-B

Its such a shame because I actually like the idea of using these NAS boxes because they are

A - Supposed to be Gigabit and hence fast
B - RAID and so have a much higher storage than a USB one ( Kind of )
C - Look sweet

Dedicated NAS devices use less power.

I'd recommend Synology or QNAP. Personally I am getting the Synology DS209 (2-bay) which has big speed advantages over cheaper, weaker spec'ed units, and the user interface and firmware are great. It can have functionality advantages over building your own server. Find how many drives and bays you will need.

If you look at the hardware you'll find its basically a miniature computer with a slick user interface with lots of features and functionality. It only needs 25 watts, and 10 watts with the drives in hibernation.

Go here for a demo of the interface to see how it all works:
http://www.synology.com/enu/products/demo/index.php

Here are the features of the current DSM 2.3:
http://www.synology.com/enu/products/features/index.php
http://www.synology.com/enu/products..._interface.php

Also, the resource I use...
http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/

Use dedicated NAS.

Ive used windows home server a couple times and both times I had an uneasy feeling , all customization is " Unsupported" Meaning if you do it Microsoft expects your setup to fail. I myself built an all in one setup .

HTPC, w/ 6TB storage, AMD Phenom II , 4 GB DDR3 , and a 4870 Graphix card for HDMI video and 7.1 through HDMI to my home theater reciever and finaly me Samsung 58"

It games, Hosts all my files , streams, does backups, and displays HD rips to the TV

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Originally Posted by Zippydachamp

Use dedicated NAS.

Ive used windows home server a couple times and both times I had an uneasy feeling , all customization is " Unsupported" Meaning if you do it Microsoft expects your setup to fail. I myself built an all in one setup .

HTPC, w/ 6TB storage, AMD Phenom II , 4 GB DDR3 , and a 4870 Graphix card for HDMI video and 7.1 through HDMI to my home theater reciever and finaly me Samsung 58"

It games, Hosts all my files , streams, does backups, and displays HD rips to the TV

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What OS did you go with Zippy?