Rumbaar 13 Posted January 10, 2017 Posted January 10, 2017 Probably newbie questions, but just looking to venture into better storage and delivery management for my library. As concurrent users will be increasing from 1 to 2-4 users, and don't want bottlenecks and it might be overkill. Also Currently I'm running a dedicated Media PC, i5 SSD and attached storage (3 x USB) and 1 x MyCloud NAS. So I'm looking to consolidate my library into a QNAP NAS (looking at the TS-453a) running RIAD 5, I'm not looking to have EMBY running from the NAS as that will be operated via the dedicated PC. My question is, as a pure file server, all the heavy lifting will be done by the host PC so no transcoding and such (not sure if it can share the load?) will the TS-453A be overkill? Can I go for a lower spec CPU/RAM combo or is that still important? Appreciate any feedback or direction.
Rumbaar 13 Posted January 11, 2017 Author Posted January 11, 2017 Okay, maybe I asked this in the wrong section. Can I get it moved to the General Discussions? I'm really after what others are running as their EMBY file servers, etc. Will 4G RAM version be enough? examples of others that want a smallish SOHO setup with redundancy, speed and access.
Luke 42077 Posted January 12, 2017 Posted January 12, 2017 Sure, I've moved it to general. @@breezytm what do you think? 1
AdrianW 1058 Posted January 12, 2017 Posted January 12, 2017 4GB will be plenty. Mine only has 2GB. I have an original 853. I also have an 859 which only has 1GB and that copes as well. You'll be fine with four users. 1
Rumbaar 13 Posted January 12, 2017 Author Posted January 12, 2017 Sweet, thx. I figured as much, endless amount can be spent.
barat 27 Posted January 12, 2017 Posted January 12, 2017 I may just say, that I had Xpenology on HP N54l with 4GB of ram, and it was doing well for 4-6 devices (where one mac and two windows was doing regular copies + 1-2 devices was watching movies and so on) and there was still plenty of free ram... so as for pure storage - QNAP 453 will be really good 1
Rumbaar 13 Posted January 12, 2017 Author Posted January 12, 2017 (edited) Yeah, I'm mindful of future usage as well. Ideally I'd love a socket base QNAP with a i3 or so processor, but that's extreme overkill at the moment (plus $$$) for my SOHO setup. But the cheaper NAS like the HP micro servers and such only support RAID 0 1 (10), and I want the added redundancy of RAID 5 (plus not cutting down my available storage pool by 50%) and the speed boost on read requests, etc. But looks like I'll go with the 4G version at least. Thanks all for feedback. Edited January 12, 2017 by Rumbaar
barat 27 Posted January 12, 2017 Posted January 12, 2017 (edited) Synology (so Xpenology on N54l as well) has SHR which has nothing to do with hardware raid capabilities I suppose, that QNAP does same thing Edited January 12, 2017 by barat 1
Rumbaar 13 Posted January 12, 2017 Author Posted January 12, 2017 Well reading up on SHR, it's a better version of RAID that I've looked at before. Might have to investigate that more, specially the ability to grow the array when you can upgrade drives to larger capacities.
PenkethBoy 2068 Posted January 13, 2017 Posted January 13, 2017 I have an 853A - big brother of the QNAP you are considering Works fine as a file server no issues - fast, responsive etc As for SHR - no QNAP do not have an equivalent - but raid1 up to raid 10 all have a migration path and disks can be exchanged for larger on all - that ability has been around for years and nothing to do with shr shr - allows you to use different size disks though which might be handy in a few situations another option is to use snapraid and stablebit drivepool together - its a popular choice - parity from snapraid and drive pooling from er DP Remember Raid is not a backup you need something to backup the raid to..... 1
breezytm 124 Posted January 14, 2017 Posted January 14, 2017 (edited) Kind of late to the party. Busy week at work. Anywho, as others already mentioned; it should be more than enough to use to consolidate all your contents into one location. It could potentially be even enough to also run your Emby server. But that really depends on your usage and the contents you plan on streaming. Another factor could also be whether you plan on streaming internally or externally. Here's my setup. I have a TS-559+ Pro 1.5 GB of RAM. I am using it as the center of my home theater. I have all my applications on there including Emby. My contents are converted to MP4s, compatible videos codecs and also AAC 2.0 first track and 5.1 AC3 secondary track. Profile Level is usually 4.1. I tried to convert my files to prevent converting on the file and with that concept, I can stream as many videos as I want as they are all "direct playing" internally. I have a 150 upload speed so that's more than enough to accommodate for external usage. Again you should be fine. Happy Streaming Edited January 14, 2017 by breezytm 1
Rumbaar 13 Posted January 14, 2017 Author Posted January 14, 2017 @@PenkethBoy Yeah, I was looking at the Synology boxes. But they seem under powered and the software RAID of SHR doesn't seem a must for me, as I feel I'll be using all 4TB drives, and the upgrade path will be a long ways out. Yeah, I currently have no backup plan in my library and I'm adding the RAID option as a redundancy. But all media can be reacquired, so my only must for backups is personal media and I'll have a backup plan for that. Cheers. @@breezytm yeah, I'll have a dedicated Media PC for that heavy lifting, so looks like I'll be quite fine with that. I think with my media, I've never fully appreciated the codec requirements to ensure smooth playback. I've only ran into one or two that had issues playing back on devices. Lucky on the up speed, currently only have 1000kbs on my connection
AdrianW 1058 Posted January 15, 2017 Posted January 15, 2017 ...as I feel I'll be using all 4TB drives, and the upgrade path will be a long ways out. You may find that upgrade coming sooner than you think - consider starting with 6TB drives, that'll make it last much longer. 1
breezytm 124 Posted January 15, 2017 Posted January 15, 2017 You may find that upgrade coming sooner than you think - consider starting with 6TB drives, that'll make it last much longer. I would second that. I think 5 bay is ideal especially if you are doing raid 5. Four bay? Not so much. 1
Rumbaar 13 Posted January 15, 2017 Author Posted January 15, 2017 You may find that upgrade coming sooner than you think - consider starting with 6TB drives, that'll make it last much longer. Yeah, cost is a big factor here. Tho I currently have two 4TB MyCloud NAS drives that I'll try to leverage as 'archive' devices to handle less important or infrequently accessed media content. With the new NAS to handle new/current content. My library isn't that big, at only around 5-6TB, but nature abhors a vacuum, so I'm sure it'll expand exponentially as the space is available. I would second that. I think 5 bay is ideal especially if you are doing raid 5. Four bay? Not so much. Yeah, I've looked at 6 bay units too. Trying to work between cost and ROI, I'm currently operating with zero redundancy. Might look at the 5 bay options too. Related question, has anyone had a drive fail on their RAID array? The more you read the more you read of horror stories, and in an ideal world you would run RAID 10 with backup tape options, but that's massive overkill and cost for a digital media library that can be reacquired relatively easily. Personal content is the only import thing that would be on the array and you can self manage that content with backup sources.
breezytm 124 Posted January 16, 2017 Posted January 16, 2017 @@Rumbaar For media I think raid 10 is an over kill. It's funny you asked about drive failures because there is a thread where I was being made fun of me because of my many drive failures. I would say STAY AWAY FROM THE WD RED DRIVES. You are welcome. LOL
Rumbaar 13 Posted January 16, 2017 Author Posted January 16, 2017 @@Rumbaar For media I think raid 10 is an over kill. It's funny you asked about drive failures because there is a thread where I was being made fun of me because of my many drive failures. I would say STAY AWAY FROM THE WD RED DRIVES. You are welcome. LOL Yes me too. I was actually looking at the WD Red drives primarily, so I guess I'll have to revise that thought process. Are you very unlucky or have a high data usage?
barat 27 Posted January 16, 2017 Posted January 16, 2017 I use only WD RED ... oldest has more then 2 Years, and my NAS is running 24/7 ... Just have even cheap UPS so NAS will close gracefully on power loss. 1
PenkethBoy 2068 Posted January 16, 2017 Posted January 16, 2017 All HDD will fail at some point - some on the first day some several years after their warranty runs out Manufacturers go through phases of having good and bad drives e.g. Seagate DM drives Currently i'm using HGST drives for my raid on my QNAP NAS - so far so good but i have had them for less than a year so.... The important point is get NAS drives for your array not desktop drives - they will work but are not designed the run 24/7 and will have shorter lives all other things being equal And make sure you have a backup - as raid is not a backup Rebuild times can be long on large arrays - this can cause other drives to fail during the rebuild due to stressing them with the rebuild From experience the rule of thumb for raid would be raid5 4-6 disks then raid6 up to 12 discs. As cpu's are so much more powerful these days the speed benefit of raid10 is minimal compared to the loss of space Or avoid raid and go for drive pooling options - with or without parity etc 1
AdrianW 1058 Posted January 16, 2017 Posted January 16, 2017 I have two 8 bay Qnaps both running RAID 6. The first has eight 2TB Samsung drives. One of which failed within the first few weeks - I simply pulled the drive out and put in a spare one and the array rebuilt. Samsung replaced the drive under warranty - and that drive has been sitting idle in a drawer ever since (just in case I needed it). I'm still using this Qnap six years later with the same drives - although it's mostly used for backing up irreplaceable stuff from the new one and is scheduled to only start up on Sundays. That Qnap became almost full after just over four years, when I added the second Qnap. This one I populated with eight 6TB WD Reds. These have been running perfectly for the last two years. 1
breezytm 124 Posted January 16, 2017 Posted January 16, 2017 Yes me too. I was actually looking at the WD Red drives primarily, so I guess I'll have to revise that thought process. Are you very unlucky or have a high data usage? Really can't say. But I did have the black ones and they lasted me more than 5 years.
Rumbaar 13 Posted January 17, 2017 Author Posted January 17, 2017 Really can't say. But I did have the black ones and they lasted me more than 5 years. The blacks are only standard consumer drives? I had a black as my primary in my Media PC, since upgraded to a SSD.
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