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[AG6732]

Hi, sorry for asking a basic question, but I was after some good advice. I am new to home networking and have no experience of programming or Linux so I was wondering if the 323 is Ok for a basic user.

My requirements are pretty simple; I want a network store (so I can take all the data off the desktop and laptop and store it in 1 place) and have a "network" printer attached. I want to be able to store my music (ITunes) centrally and have a RAID1 config (I am very worried I will loose my data if a HDD crashes). Sometime in the future I may want to stream audio/video to my home cinema system (I'm not ready for this at the moment). I'm not bothered about accessing my data over the web (at the moment) and will probably do backups via an external USB disk drive. I want to set up a few users with personal storage areas and a couple of public areas.

My setup is straightforward, a desktop and laptop both running XP (SP3), wireless router (Linksys) and a cable broadband modem (from Virginmedia). I've set it up as one workgroup, but I don't share resources between the desktop and laptop (I try to keep them turned off when not in use). Hopefully I'll change the desktop to a Windows 7 machine next year.

I looked into Buffalo NAS but they didn't have the functions I wanted. QNAP and others seemed a bit to advanced for me. I am really looking for something that is menu driven, simple to use and reliable.

I would really appreciate any comments or thoughts. Thanks in advance.

[krenkey]

Personally i love my 323 I use it with 2 X 500 raid 1 as a home network storage medium, i find it extremely reliable and very easy to use ive got a couple pc's and laptops as well as 2 ps3's for streaming movies and vids to the home network. I have found that we can stream 2 high def movies at the same time with absolutly no problem. I use it to store all my pictures and home movies on as well as i use it as a itunes media server.

My 2 cents it would work for you as it has worked for me.

[fordem]

Hi, sorry for asking a basic question, but I was after some good advice. I am new to home networking and have no experience of programming or Linux so I was wondering if the 323 is Ok for a basic user.

My requirements are pretty simple; I want a network store (so I can take all the data off the desktop and laptop and store it in 1 place) and have a "network" printer attached. I want to be able to store my music (ITunes) centrally and have a RAID1 config (I am very worried I will loose my data if a HDD crashes). Sometime in the future I may want to stream audio/video to my home cinema system (I'm not ready for this at the moment). I'm not bothered about accessing my data over the web (at the moment) and will probably do backups via an external USB disk drive. I want to set up a few users with personal storage areas and a couple of public areas.

My setup is straightforward, a desktop and laptop both running XP (SP3), wireless router (Linksys) and a cable broadband modem (from Virginmedia). I've set it up as one workgroup, but I don't share resources between the desktop and laptop (I try to keep them turned off when not in use). Hopefully I'll change the desktop to a Windows 7 machine next year.

I looked into Buffalo NAS but they didn't have the functions I wanted. QNAP and others seemed a bit to advanced for me. I am really looking for something that is menu driven, simple to use and reliable.

I would really appreciate any comments or thoughts. Thanks in advance.

The mistake you're making is in viewing RAID as a means to prevent loss of data - the intent is actually to reduce and hopefully eliminate downtime in the event of a disk failure, apart from that your idea's sound

[KK]

A DNS-323 with 2x1.5TB is the best deal for you at this time.

RAID 1 will prevent loss of data in the event of a single disk failure.

Put the box high up so that a tsunami won't damage it.  Got a friend whose whole life's work was destroyed after his backup disk was washed in the Dec 2004 tsunami.

[fordem]

RAID 1 will prevent loss of data in the event of a single disk failure.

100% correct - trouble is disk failure is not the only cause of data loss

Put the box high up so that a tsunami won't damage it.  Got a friend whose whole life's work was destroyed after his backup disk was washed in the Dec 2004 tsunami.

And here's one example of why RAID won't protect from all types of data loss, if the unit itself fails or is destroyed, you loose access to your data.

Now let's say you follow KK's advice and use a RAID1 array AND put the box up high - can you still lose data?

Yes - and very easily - you can delete a file by mistake, RAID will not help you recover that file - so the solution is to backup, and, as apparently did not happen in the case of KK's friend, make sure the backup is in a safe place, the question becomes how do you know what is safe in the case of a tsunami - if the data is worth it, maybe an online backup service in a different country.

[KK]

The solution has to be crafted in the context of the real world problem.  Consider:

a.  The probability of a hard disk failure.
b.  The probability of a DNS box failure.
c.  The probability of the back-up being not usable.
d.  The probability of a tsunami/fire/earthquake hitting me

From my experience, it's like (rough numbers):

a.  <0.001 and getting better all the time
b.  not sure - but doesn't matter as data is still intact
c.  0.9
d.  <0.0001

Hence, I don't bother to do back-ups anymore.  I always duplicate data at file level and keep them online all the time.  At terabytes level, doing back-ups can become impractical when the time of backing up is longer than the frequency the data gets changed.  And it's even more impractical to verify that the integrity of the backup is ok to be used to restore any time.

Granted that on a good spinning hard disk, there is still some probability that an individual sector or track can fail.  So it's good to get a second DNS box and zap the data over.  Better still is to put the second box in another location as far away as possible.

When you have gigabytes and beyond, the important thing is to know that the backup copy of your data is intact and good.  Storing on hard disks is a cheap and effective way as failures get your attention most of the time - a red light, an error message, loud noises, or some smoke, etc.

I have a DNS-323 with 2x1.5 disks.  I have already got a second DNS-323 with another 2x1.5 disks.  I haven't gotten round to finding a way to duplicate the first onto the second in an efficient manner over a narrow pipe WAN.  Like most users, only a small portion of the data gets changed each day.  Any suggestions?  Maybe I should start a new thread for this.

Thanks.

[fordem]

You left out a few ...

Possibility of deliberate or accidental deletion of files
Possibility of corruption of files due to a virus or power glitch
Possibility of theft of the NAS

Please note that I am not considering probability here, only possibility, as I have no way of determining the probability at your location.

As a practising tech support professional, I know only too well that failures of both the disks and the NAS can occur and with a significantly higher probabilities that you consider possible, and the incidence of viral infections and corruption of disk structures leading to OS reinstalls is even higher.

Your methodology creates new issues and challenges for data management, keeping those duplicates "in sync" without which it becomes almost impossible to determine which contains current data and which is obsolete.  Maybe you haven't noticed that the new buzzword is "deduplication" - every one else around you is trying to eliminate duplication, and you are pushing it.

By the way - if you feel that the time taken to backup relative to the frequency with which the data is changed, perhaps you need to review the way the backup is done - incremental or differential backups rather than full backups, backing up transaction logs rather than the full database.

If you choose not to backup your data, it is your business, but you can bet your last dollar that your bank is backing up their data - it's all about the value you place on that data.