So I was thinking of getting a NAS and a print server,

[imported_Tick]

Any reason not to do this?

 

[RichUK]

can i just ask why the hell would you wanna run a NAS storage system. This only benefits you if you either want to take down some servers and dont want to lose you File Print Connectivity (aka server down time), and its usually part of a cluster .. aka a sh!t load of storage servers.

Unless you genuinely have a need, i dont see what sort of cost benefit analysis is going to be in your favour. For instance the company I work for did not deploy this sort of topology when we had a 5k user base .. but when it reached a 40k user base the network was entirely rebuilt with the inclusion of NAS.

(Network Attached Storage)

 

[imported_Tick]

Originally posted by: RichUK
can i just ask why the hell would you wanna run a NAS storage system. This only benefits you if you either want to take down some servers and dont want to lose you File Print Connectivity (aka server down time), and its usually part of a cluster .. aka a sh!t load of storage servers.

Unless you genuinely have a need, i dont see what sort of cost benefit analysis is going to be in your favour. For instance the company I work for did not deploy this sort of topology when we had a 5k user base .. but when it reached a 40k user base the network was entirely rebuilt with the inclusion of NAS.

(Network Attached Storage)

Because, for the lazy among us, it's a convenient way of backing up. Also, I can put a basic drive image of each computer on the NAS, so when things go wrong, I can just image the drive over the network, without having to pull any HD's.

 

[RichUK]

what sort of storage are we talking about here (amount of storage), i would highly just recommend using a large file print server.

 

[anarchyreigns]

Just get a Maxtor Shared Storage Drive.

 

[phisrow]

The Dell is likely to be more power hungry and/or larger than a standard NAS box and you'll need to monkey with the operating system. XP Home is not the choice of champions for server duties so you might well have to set up Samba or shell out for a non crippled version of Windows. If you don't mind a bit of config, though, you can get a linux box to do fairly expensive NAS, or even ISCSI, tricks.

 

[imported_Tick]

Originally posted by: RichUK
what sort of storage are we talking about here (amount of storage), i would highly just recommend using a large file print server.

<100 GB.

 

[imported_Tick]

Originally posted by: phisrow
The Dell is likely to be more power hungry and/or larger than a standard NAS box and you'll need to monkey with the operating system. XP Home is not the choice of champions for server duties so you might well have to set up Samba or shell out for a non crippled version of Windows. If you don't mind a bit of config, though, you can get a linux box to do fairly expensive NAS, or even ISCSI, tricks.

Well, I can also use the dell box to run DL's at night, instead of my more power hungry main system, thus negating the power woes. Also, I intend to install Linux and/or one of the BSD distro's on it, so that's not a concern.

 

[phisrow]

In that case, jump on it.

 

[RichUK]

Originally posted by: Tick

Originally posted by: RichUK
what sort of storage are we talking about here (amount of storage), i would highly just recommend using a large file print server.

<100 GB.

Explain you circumstances a bit more, if you have already got a FP configured server can you not just wack another disk in, ~160Gb?.

If you really wanted to you could set up a NAS, but for the application of just a 100Gb+, and for the use in which you have explained i would not recommend it.

However, if in the future if you do look to expand your storage capacity to a sufficient amount, setting up a NAS node with jbod (or what ever array you want to run) might be a good idea.

Its just the way i see it at the moment, if you are looking to have a print server aswell, you might aswell just combine the two services to work on one server, an FP server, especially since you are just wanting greater then 100Gb storage, and for your application purpose, just storing loads of backup images, you would not need fast access time i.e. SCSI.