DLNA network storage

[mville]

Just setting up my home DLNA network and would like some feedback on the best way to go on network storage.

I have my Windows 7 workstation running Asset UPnP but want to store the data separately, so I'm looking at a 2 x 2TB raid NAS box with a wireless n gigabit router.

Any recommendations?

[petacat]

Re: DLNA network storage

Interesting that you are looking at a RAID server. Why not have a simple uPnP server and back it up. You could do that for under $500 with 2+2 Tb of disk and get at least as good security as with RAID. To implement a RAID server would conservatively cost $1000+ and still not protect you from a server (CPU, Comms etc) failure. Running the whole uPnP Asset program on a low power consumption device makes much more sense than running a power hungry PC that is liable to reboot itself for software updates etc. Your greatest performance problem is most likely to be the extra hops between media player, media server (windows 7 PC with uPnP Asset) and the remote data store.

I have a HP mediasmart server that does very well and has absolutely no performance problems - in fact it is super fast. A Gigabyte switch is probably the most important thing to have - unless your internet connection is over 100Mbits/second.

[Spoon]

Re: DLNA network storage

A 2nd backup which is not connected to the server IMHO is much better than RAID, raid is not needed on music servers where the music changes infrequently.

[Jamil]

Re: DLNA network storage

Just happened to be browsing this and stumbled across this older thread. It drew my curiosity, because I recently installed a QNAP NAS for all my media and everything else. In my case, I went RAID and the highest level of redundancy available (RAID 6).

Reason being-- I wish to eliminate my CDs, DVDs, etc. and have my lossless audio and video be my only source of data. In this case, RAID is absolutely required. Otherwise, I lose a hard drive and lose my data.

[Spoon]

Re: DLNA network storage

It is possible you get a power spike (in PSU) which takes out all HDDs, virus, etc, or 100 different scenarios other than a HDD failing. Hence why RAID is not a backup.

[Jamil]

Re: DLNA network storage

Okay. This last post is reasonable.

I imagine the thinking is you do not need RAID for media, because you'll be backing up all your data anyway. If a hard drive dies. replace it and restore from backup. There would be no need for redundancy.

Yes -- there could be a catastrophy that causes you to lose all your data with RAID. I would think this would be an extremely rare occurence. At least in my case, my unit is connected to a battery backup with surge protection and etc. I would never expect a PSU surge to happen (at least it has never happened in all the years I've owned a computer). My NAS is a top of the line device, so I wouldn't expect it to contain cheap parts (such as the PSU).

I see your point though -- better safe than sorry. The issue is how can I possibly backup (potentially) over 10TB of data. I'd have to purchase a second NAS to copy data from one to the other followed by turning it off and storing it in another location off site. lol.

[garym]

Re: DLNA network storage

Yes -- there could be a catastrophy that causes you to lose all your data with RAID..

Theft? Fire? RAID is NOT a backup plan.

[Jamil]

Re: DLNA network storage

Okay -- so how do I backup over 10TB of data? I'm all ears. I guess I will not be backuping up. Redundancy is good enough for me. Also, if you review this thread, no one stated that RAID was a backup plan. For large amounts of storage though, RAID should be a requirement (someone above did state that RAID was not necessary, which I disagree with). The more hard drives you add that are dependent on another in a filestore, the more you increase the chances of failure. With a lot of hard drives, you really want to run RAID with redudancy.

Actually, I have an interesting story from my own experience. A few years ago I had several scsi drives in an all scsi system. Along with this, I had a scsi tape backup unit that I would backup all my data several times a week. I actually set this up to run automated backups off hours. This was a Seagate tape drive, but I do not remember the model now.

In any event, my Seagate Cheetah drives never had a problem in all this time of backing data up. The funny thing is that my tape backup actually broke. I could no longer back data up. My hard drives out lasted my tape backup unit by several years My take away from this life lesson was not to worry about backups.

[garym]

Re: DLNA network storage

Okay -- so how do I backup over 10TB of data? I'm all ears. I guess I will not be backuping up. Redundancy is good enough for me. Also, if you review this thread, no one stated that RAID was a backup plan. For large amounts of storage though, RAID should be a requirement (someone above did state that RAID was not necessary, which I disagree with). The more hard drives you add that are dependent on another in a filestore, the more you increase the chances of failure. With a lot of hard drives, you really want to run RAID with redudancy.

Actually, I have an interesting story from my own experience. A few years ago I had several scsi drives in an all scsi system. Along with this, I had a scsi tape backup unit that I would backup all my data several times a week. I actually set this up to run automated backups off hours. This was a Seagate tape drive, but I do not remember the model now.

In any event, my Seagate Cheetah drives never had a problem in all this time of backing data up. The funny thing is that my tape backup actually broke. I could no longer back data up. My hard drives out lasted my tape backup unit by several years My take away from this life lesson was not to worry about backups.

I also know some 95 year olds that have smoked several packs a day for 85 years. There are always exceptions, but it doesn't mean that smoking may not be bad for your health. It's your data, so we're not arguing with you. If the data is lost, it doesn't affect anyone but you. You may be very lucky. The probability may be very low, but with 10TB of data, I think I WOULD have a backup plan that relied on separate disks, and in a separate location. Go over to the readynas forums and read the tales of woe from the users that thought their redundant raid setup was a backup!

In my 30 years of owning computers, both work and personal, I've had two disk failures. Absent backups, both would have been a catastrophe. But with backups, I was back in business in a few hours.

I have a bit less than 6TB to backup. I use numerous 2TB USB drives (and have several sets of these, spread out across 3 separate locations). I also have a vortexbox appliance with 6TB of drive space (my main squeezebox music server) and a ReadyNas Duo with 4TB of space. I'm not against RAID, it's just not a backup. And the RAID experts would be the first to tell us this. RAID is useful when you must have instant access to data when a drive fails (bank, website where customers are ordering stuff, etc.).

[Jamil]

Re: DLNA network storage

I do agree -- RAID is not a backup.

I still believe that it is a requirement for anyone with multiple drives running that depent on the data across these drives. 6TB is a lot of data. I hope you'll never have to restore it. I just do not want to be in a position of waiting hours to re-copy data when it's simple enough to replace one or two failed drives while continuing to access your data as if nothing was wrong.

I suppose a reason to not want to use it could be your particular hardware. On some NAS boxes, RAID 5 or 6 slows down write access quite a bit. On others, there's no performance impact at all. In this case, the user can best decide what to do.

...and no worries -- I'm not trying to argue. It's just personal opinion and the sharing of ideas. One shoe does not fit all...

[garym]

Re: DLNA network storage

...and no worries -- I'm not trying to argue. It's just personal opinion and the sharing of ideas. One shoe does not fit all...

agree! Good to share opinions.
p.s. I just copied almost 6TB to some new drives recently. Took less than a day copying to USB drives from my networked server. Home network is running CAT6 and all gigabit switches so my file transfer is pretty fast. (and I had access to my music during this time by running my backup server that sits on my ReadyNAS DUO)