OT: recommendations for networked drive?

[Lobster]

Well kind of diy I suppose, as I'll be installing it myself?!? I have great respect for the advice from many folk here so hope you'll bear with me...

I'm looking for an external hard drive for my home network, about 500Gb capacity, which ideally would be networked rather than simply a USB jobby. Mainly for backing-up purposes.

Any recomendations as to good models and/or brands, or those to avoid? I've noticed LaCie and Freecom at dabs.com - comments?

Don't know a lot about these devices, but if it's behind a hardware firewall (ie in my Linksys router) is it safe to assume a networked drive is pretty secure (ie without the software firewalls my PCs have?)

Are they intended to be run 24/7?

In general, are these upgradable like a PC - ie if I bought a small capacity one now could I swap in a new standard larger HDD in a couple of years time? Or is that oversimplifying things?

Thanks for any advice David

[Andy Hall]

I use LaCie ones together with Macs, as do my colleagues, and the mechanical build quality of the cases is good which is important for portable use.

These are generally using SMB protocol which is not the most secure of environments - basically it's Microsoft networking, and that company has never had a good reputation for networking.

The appliances generally are

Some are, some are not.

If you are up for a fairly simple DIY project and have or can get an old PC, a far better solution would be to make a backup server running Linux. Fedora 8 and Ubuntu to name but two, have all that you need to make an SMB file server that will do exactly what an appliance will do. You could install whatever drives you like and even use removable ones in trays if you want something a bit better.

You could also add a printer to this and make it a print server.

[Andrew May]

I have a 500Mb LaCie and find that it sits accessing the disk a lot even when not being accessed. Do you find this Andy or is it something that I should investigate futher?

Mine certainly has a USB output but without looking (and I am not at home) I don't know if this is just intended for daisychaining HDDs or whether it could be used as a print server.

Andrew

[Andy Hall]

What are you using with? Operating systems such as Linux or Mac OS X ( or even monitors like XP and Vista) do background work even when the user isn't doing anything.

[Pete Verdon]

All true. But I'd be happy to run one behind a normal router. I know referring to NAT as a form of security is Considered Bad, but if the router ain't directing packets to the device I reckon you're safe for most purposes.

In general, yes. The drives are standard 3.5" or 2.5" drives (probably the former if it has a power brick, probably the latter if not). The cheapest drives are those made in large quantities, ie standard ones, so these are what are used.

...while consuming ten times the power, taking up much more space, and almost certainly making more noise. This approach made sense once upon a time (I made a router out of PC parts when they were still very expensive as a purpose-built item) but the rise of cheap consumer devices negates the benefits of this approach in my opinion.

Pete

[Rod]

So do I (with the 350 GB version). I just ignore it. But nicely built and good reputation.

One alternative is to use a router like the Apple Airport Extreme Base Station - and simply plug any USB drive into that. I use a tiny Fujitsu bus-powered 40 GB drive at the moment. But you could buy a cheap USB housing and use that.

You can use a USB hub to connect more than one device. (We have a USB printer as well - I think you can connect multiple discs.)

Or the new Airport Time Machine (is that the right name?) - which includes a disc in the router.

Yes - all are used in some fashion by Windows XP and Vista machines and Macs. (Well, one Mac - partner has a Macbook. I am starting to like the look of it...)

I would avoid Iomega - heard/read too many not-so-good reports.

[Tim..]

Buffalo Linkstation- and yes you can update the HDD to a bigger one in the future.

Tim..

[Andy Hall]

Yes exactly. Considering the risk/return for most people at home, I think it's reasonable.

I agree to a point with appliances.

However, the other side of the equation is that the manufacturers of them (Buffalo, D-Link, even Linksys which is a Cisco division) typically do 2-3 software releases during the lifetime of the product. Some of them are buggy or lacking in performance. If you have a problem, the support is asymptotic to zero, so the risk is ebding up with a relatively expensive doorstop.

At least if I use a standard platform, I have something supported across a very large number of users and if need be I can switch software, The cost of data, restoring it and repair is much higher than the few pence to run a PC hardware server running Linux. The cost of the power is negligible in this context and in most houses it's possible to find a suitable installation place like the loft

[Mike Barnes]

I have a 500 Gb Western digital NetCenter, which I've had for about 18 months now and has performed flawlessly on my Windows XP Home network. One mains plug, one Ethernet lead, that's it. It's used solely for backups. For security I have it installed in a detached outbuilding, and I use Homeplugs to bridge the gap in the data connection.

The only problem, and it's actually quite a minor one, is that the on/off switch is electronic and needs to be pressed with a real finger. So if the mains dips out, the drive doesn't restart automatically.

Mine's behind a DrayTek NAT router and I regard that as safe enough.

I don't see why not. Perhaps I'm out of date but I always thought that frequent starting and stopping were more stressful for a disk drive than idle spinning.

If it were me I'd buy a new one and flog the old one on eBay.

[Lee]

Another Buffalo Linkstation user here, mainly because I wanted a cheap DLNA server for my PS3. It seems to do the job ok, though it can feel a touch slow in general PC usage.

Lee

[Adam Aglionby]

I use a no brand box from Maplins, turns up offer for around =A335 frequently, its a 3.5" enclosure with USB and network, only downside is its IDE only, SATA drives are getting larger and more common. Stick any old or new IDE drive in it and away it goes.

Western Digital got into hotwater with one of its versions that `protected` its users from copyright infringement by refusing to share certain types of file over the network.... probably dont want one of them.

Adam

[Stephen Howard]

If the OP is considering this route, I'd recommend a look at Freenas:

[John]

and add a drive of your choice.

John

[John]

Sorry, just looked again and it's max capacity is 250GB :o(

[Andrew Gabriel]

This is basically what I've done, except the PC is actually my fileserver, not just a backup server. My working PC's don't hold any files except their operating system, and they access data files from the fileserver, so they all see exactly the same set of synch'ed files. One day, I might make the working PC's diskless; they can all netboot and install from the fileserver already.

I use Solaris because I want the filesystem to be ZFS. I use its features for mirroring and snapshots and backup, and growing the filesystem over time. I have daily snapshots of all my files for a year now, which is a particularly useful feature. If I damage a file, I just copy yesterday's version back. If I know I'm going to do something which might damage a file or whole file tree, I snapshot it beforehand, and rollback to the snapshot if i don't like what I did. If a file has got unexpected changes, I can look back and see when that change happened anytime over the last year.

ZFS is also part of FreeBSD, and is going in to MacOS, if you are more familiar with either of these.

[dmc]

I have a lacie ethernet disk mini - the older release that doesn't have gigabit ethernet and it is *dog* slow. Really, really slow...

The gigabit ones are apparantly not a lot better - the limit isn't the network interface at all - more the slow cpu in the things.

My one runs a (old) version of linux of some flavour together with a smb service. The user interface sucks and if connected via usb you can't actually see any data until you've run a program that "mounts" the drive which can take some time (minutes).

I'd not buy another

I know someone else who has a freecom and it's similarly poor performing.

It's possible the newer lacies are better - but I wouldn't buy one personally. I'm waiting to see what the apple time capsule is like as for 180 quid for 500 GB and replacing my netgear router (which has an annoying habit of "forgetting" idle ssh connections) it's a tempting option for me in pretty much a mac only household :)

There are a few devices around now that offer a bit more in the way of features - running a torrent client or media server for example. Darren

[DM]

I was recently looking for something similar and ideally also for a media player so I could play some avi files on the TV.

In the end I went for a freecom network media player and stuck a 250 Gb IDE hard disk in, although it would take the 500Gb you require. Pretty straightforward to set everything up and get it shared over the network

It can be mounted as a disk over the network, and now all my files have been backed up to it. Hooked it up to the TV as well and plays the couple of files I have with good quality. I'm now looking to see which of the kids DVDs I can rip onto it and ideally free up some drawer space into the bargain.

The unit is fanless, pretty quiet, and does not run all the time. Only resally beenup and running a couple of days but so far I'm happy with this solution.

cheers

David

[Lobster]

Now *that* is a brilliant idea... my original thought was to stash the drive in my detached garage for security reasons, but I'd basically canned the idea due to difficulties of getting network access out there. I'd forgotten all about the existence of home plugs et al.

If you keep a device like this outside in an unheated outbuilding running 24/7, is it OK - ie presumably it will generate enough heat to prevent the electronics getting damp etc?

Thanks David

[The Natural Philosopher]

Get an old PC, a brand new 500GB disk, and install Debeian core and SAMBA and probably webmin.

Camnn be, but I did teh above solutin when teh 'nranded' solutin died.

I advise two disks inside with a second copy of everything. Auotosync can be done with linux scripts.,

That's why I recommend biting the bullet and doing it Linux/PC to start with.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well my customer says no. When the drive on his 'all in a box' failed he had zero way to get the data recovered, and it went back under warranty and came back with a shiny new and EMPTY disk.

Great.

Now the Linux PC chugs away, backs itself up to a special location every week, and he drags an image off it and sticks on a PC and burns a DVD.

If it ever goes down, I can fix it.

I've got most of the important data backed up here as well, thou pulling gigabytes over broadband is..not fun.

Most of these boxes ARE PCs running stripped BSD or Linux anyway. They draw just as much current.

Put a meter on. You'll see.