Anyone use a NAS for assets drive?

[leo.surrealismo]

so at the end, wouldn`t it be better to have a server running file sharing services and backburner manager?

[Morbid Angel]

so at the end, wouldn`t it be better to have a server running file sharing services and backburner manager?

Well, if you are IT savy, you can of course build a raid 5, or raid 10 or whatever server which will be exactly like the NAS, probably better, what this will involve though is your time. Nas offers that in a bundle thats all. For me, running a small business where I have to do many things at once, and just don't have the time to do this my self (or knowledge) nas is a good solution.

[AlexP]

Well, if you are IT savy, you can of course build a raid 5, or raid 10 or whatever server which will be exactly like the NAS, probably better, what this will involve though is your time. Nas offers that in a bundle thats all. For me, running a small business where I have to do many things at once, and just don't have the time to do this my self (or knowledge) nas is a good solution.

Exactly this

[tricky]

Well, we have something on order so lets see how it goes...

[alexyork]

I think a simple low-power PC running backburner and license servers etc. connected to a NAS is the way forward. This creates redundancy. If your NAS goes down at least your server is up, and visa versa.

This is something I'm intending to do here soon. I've just been running all my license servers etc. off my main workstation since it's on 24/7 anyway, and I have a manual backup solution between the workstation and some local nodes, plus external drives which come home with me for off-site backups, plus web backups for critical admin files. Quite a nice system but a small NAS box would be handy too.

Richard - let us know how you get on with it - would be interested to see your findings.

[tricky]

I think a simple low-power PC running backburner and license servers etc. connected to a NAS is the way forward. This creates redundancy. If your NAS goes down at least your server is up, and visa versa.

This is something I'm intending to do here soon. I've just been running all my license servers etc. off my main workstation since it's on 24/7 anyway, and I have a manual backup solution between the workstation and some local nodes, plus external drives which come home with me for off-site backups, plus web backups for critical admin files. Quite a nice system but a small NAS box would be handy too.

Richard - let us know how you get on with it - would be interested to see your findings.

Will do Alex.

Bit of a back story: we have had a number of servers over the years - probably 3 or 4 in total. In general - apart from the very first 'SGI' one I bought off Ebay (!) some 12+ years ago - they have been built and installed for us. Our current HP system is getting a bit tired. Its a quality piece of kit - cost us a bloody fortune! - but maintaining it is getting expensive. The drives are all SAS - small and expensive, but reliable.

Moving over to a NAS with SATA drives is a bit of a worry as two of our historic servers that were based on (allegedly 'VERY' good) SATA drives catastrophically failed...big time! Due to the nature of our business, the drives get hammered daily. I am hoping the WD Red drives are capable. There do seem to be a series of 'datacentre quality' WD drives that are a step up from the Red drives, but the Red are supposedly designed for RAID environments.

[alexyork]

Will do Alex.

Bit of a back story: we have had a number of servers over the years - probably 3 or 4 in total. In general - apart from the very first 'SGI' one I bought off Ebay (!) some 12+ years ago - they have been built and installed for us. Our current HP system is getting a bit tired. Its a quality piece of kit - cost us a bloody fortune! - but maintaining it is getting expensive. The drives are all SAS - small and expensive, but reliable.

Moving over to a NAS with SATA drives is a bit of a worry as two of our historic servers that were based on (allegedly 'VERY' good) SATA drives catastrophically failed...big time! Due to the nature of our business, the drives get hammered daily. I am hoping the WD Red drives are capable. There do seem to be a series of 'datacentre quality' WD drives that are a step up from the Red drives, but the Red are supposedly designed for RAID environments.

That's a bit worrying - can I ask why you didn't have an appropriate RAID setup then? Even if your primary drives fail you should never be in a situation like that where you have a catastrophic total failure.

The WD Reds are supposed to be excellent and the Blacks for normal use are great too.

[tricky]

That's a bit worrying - can I ask why you didn't have an appropriate RAID setup then? Even if your primary drives fail you should never be in a situation like that where you have a catastrophic total failure.

It was advice we were given at the time. It was a RAID 5 setup. Unfortunately, for an unknown reason, two of the disks failed at the same time. RAID 5 is good for a single disk failure only. Its just the 'blink' way - if there is a rare event, it will occur to us!! Fortunately we had off-site backups, so loss was reduced.

[alexyork]

It was advice we were given at the time. It was a RAID 5 setup. Unfortunately, for an unknown reason, two of the disks failed at the same time. RAID 5 is good for a single disk failure only. Its just the 'blink' way - if there is a rare event, it will occur to us!! Fortunately we had off-site backups, so loss was reduced.

Ouch! I guess it's one of those live and learn things. At least you had off-site backups to fall back to. I remember working at a particular studio once upon a time who's backup routine involved an automatic backup of everyone's machines every evening... so long as they were turned on! So naturally lots of people in the office would boot down their machines in the evening, not knowing this would prevent backups. I remember at least 2 major panics for various people there as a result of corrupted live PSDs/max files and zero backups. It also, at one point, transpired that there were ZERO backups made for several weeks..... I'm sure they changed their setup after that..!

[tricky]

Ouch! I guess it's one of those live and learn things. At least you had off-site backups to fall back to. I remember working at a particular studio once upon a time who's backup routine involved an automatic backup of everyone's machines every evening... so long as they were turned on! So naturally lots of people in the office would boot down their machines in the evening, not knowing this would prevent backups. I remember at least 2 major panics for various people there as a result of corrupted live PSDs/max files and zero backups. It also, at one point, transpired that there were ZERO backups made for several weeks..... I'm sure they changed their setup after that..!

They weren't called 'blink' too were they??? lol

[Morbid Angel]

It was advice we were given at the time. It was a RAID 5 setup. Unfortunately, for an unknown reason, two of the disks failed at the same time. RAID 5 is good for a single disk failure only. Its just the 'blink' way - if there is a rare event, it will occur to us!! Fortunately we had off-site backups, so loss was reduced.

What i think is if you have more then 2 people using nas, then you need a bigger nas like raid 10 or more, on top of that you can nest them so plug in one nas into another and mirror. This will ensure redundancy.

I got the nas with segate raid compliant drives, they are not your typical drives. I had bad experience sith WD though, not the raid ones but regular WD raptors that I had, all failed (I had like 6 drives) with in 1-3 years of life.

Lastly, larger facilities these days use isilons, they are expensive but I guess they are worth it

[AndresAhumada]

First of all ...

Create a radi 5-0 5 +1 .. etc .... that is RELIABLE, require expensive and dedicated controllers that hambiente discs. Doing it with the controller program or motherboard, is CRAZY for heavy environments.

In our office we use Revodrive 1 tera Drives for file storage. In addition to a network FullDuplex teen Giga format. (A band of 100 to 100 to one side and the other, I mean two giga cable with separate directions.)

To TEEN driver you need a good card with a high cache. Over 512 MB integrated.


It works perfect.

[Morbid Angel]

First of all ...

Create a radi 5-0 5 +1 .. etc .... that is RELIABLE, require expensive and dedicated controllers that hambiente discs. Doing it with the controller program or motherboard, is CRAZY for heavy environments.

In our office we use Revodrive 1 tera Drives for file storage. In addition to a network FullDuplex teen Giga format. (A band of 100 to 100 to one side and the other, I mean two giga cable with separate directions.)

To TEEN driver you need a good card with a high cache. Over 512 MB integrated.


It works perfect.

how much does a setup like that cost?

[Morne]

What did you end up getting Richard, and hows it performing so far?

[tricky]

Synology DS1513+ with a RAID5 setup. Seems pretty good thus far. Not too many issues. A lot quicker than our ageing HP server with 5x the capacity.