Using a NAS for HT audio/video media.. Anyone here do this?

[Emulex]

celerra from emc and lefthand VSA from hp are both nice but they are more oriented towards block storage which has real advantages in speed and flexibility.

 

[Modelworks]

I could use some input guys.

I would LOVE to have a quiet HTPC with a Ceton tuner card to replace my two TiVos. If there's some way to make THAT box ALSO a media server AND store backups for other computers, I'd be set.

What I want is WHS with WMC so it can be my home server & media center.

Install windows 7 instead of WHS. It can do everything that WHS does as well as the recording functions.

 

[Modelworks]

Freenas has had a pretty easy setup for CIFS/SMB for a while. no need to edit the .conf file as pretty much all the settings are right in the web setup now. The main thing that wasn't right on the page/wasn't supported in past releases was Asynchronous I/O, which is now right there.

Editing files isn't the problem for most people. It is understanding what the options actually mean that will take some time for people to learn. The Unix world can be confusing for windows users with the permissions, users and groups settings and how chmod and chown work.

I usually get around 70-90 MB/s if I have the server setup for speed and around 30-40MB/s when everything is tuned down for power saving. This is way more than you need to stream files. For me it was easy to transfer about 2.5TB to my raid array and then enable tuning for the power savings.

Any OS doing the serving should be able to send files at the max speed of the ethernet port it uses or something is configured wrong. It also shouldn't be in burst but constant. The biggest difference I have gotten wasn't in the server but in the switch. The off the shelf consumer switches would work but couldn't deal with sustained traffic or multiple destinations without slowing. Replaced with a switch from allied telesis designed for ISP use and throughput is constant regardless of what I throw at it. Ebay has a lot of used ISP gear and is a good place to get a good deal. The switch I have retails for about $400 but on ebay was $30

 

[CubanlB]

Any OS doing the serving should be able to send files at the max speed of the ethernet port it uses or something is configured wrong.

When I stated speed thats not what a transfer trails off too, just the speed I get after setting my hitachi drives for cooler operation, and running the cpu at 800mhz. These speeds are pretty much to or from drives set for power efficiency.

With my setup there will always be overhead to run samba and the softraid, I'm more than happy with my transfer speeds. (it' shouldn't, but I now want to try for some reason. ha.)

Anyway, you've motivated me to actually try the nic bonding I had planned for the server and see if this has any affect on throughput.

I can agree that group and permissions may be a bit confusing for some, but it's pretty easy to work out. There are lots of tutorials for FreeNAS and an active user community.

As someone with VERY limited Unix/Linux experience I can say that I learned a lot while setting it up, but overall it was pretty easy.

 

[Modelworks]

When I stated speed thats not what a transfer trails off too, just the speed I get after setting my hitachi drives for cooler operation, and running the cpu at 800mhz. These speeds are pretty much to or from drives set for power efficiency.

Give passmark a try.
http://www.passmark.com/products/pt.htm

It has a network test in it that will graph it over time
http://www.passmark.com/products/pt_advnet.htm

 

[CubanlB]

Give passmark a try.
http://www.passmark.com/products/pt.htm

It has a network test in it that will graph it over time
http://www.passmark.com/products/pt_advnet.htm

Freenas has a built in network monitor, so that not really needed. Plus thats a windows program, and I don't really do much windows - windows sharing.

I just disabled all power tuning from the FreeNAS box and pulled a ~20gb bluray rip to my windows 7 machine at a sustained 75Mbyte/s which is pretty much maxing out the WD Green drive thats in the win7 machine. Copying 1 large file to each of my windows machines from 2 different volumes on the server maxes out the ethernet card at about 970Mbit/s. I'm pretty happy with that.

I guess my point is that the issues setting up samba, at least in terms of speed, are a thing of the past for FreeNAS.