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[sev]

Hi all,

I'm looking to get a network drive hopefully with an integrated print server for my home network.

I've got my main machine and the other half's laptop in use at the same time, and ideally i'd like to share a printer and a hdd for simple backups and file shares.

I'm running a rubbish netgear ps121 print server which is a bit pants really.

She's using XP-Pro on the laptop and i'm using W7 RC1 on my main machine.

I was thinking about going down the all in one route like the freecom FSG or apple time capsule.

What would your take on the situation be? (bet TB says they're all rubbish!  )

[Welung666]

Hi all,

I'm looking to get a network drive hopefully with an integrated print server for my home network.

I've got my main machine and the other half's laptop in use at the same time, and ideally i'd like to share a printer and a hdd for simple backups and file shares.

I'm running a rubbish netgear ps121 print server which is a bit pants really.

She's using XP-Pro on the laptop and i'm using W7 RC1 on my main machine.

I was thinking about going down the all in one route like the freecom FSG or apple time capsule.

What would your take on the situation be? (bet TB says they're all rubbish!  )

or gay

For network storage and printing I've got our Samsung colour laser and a 1tb sata2 hard drive, both connected to my machine which is never switched off, but thats the easy way

[sev]

GAY yes you're right :  

[KillerWatt]

How much do you want to spend?
Are you looking for redundancy on the network drive?
How much storage space do you want?

I'm running an Infrant ReadyNAS NV10+ fitted with 4x 2TB drives.
This gives me 6GB of usable capacity, truly redundant (if a drive fails, all my data is still there), has a 1Gbps interface, 3x USB ports, print server, FTP server, Web server, etc, etc.

Bare box will set you back £400, plus the cost of whatever drives you fit.

[Tommy]

http://www.freegene.com/1products/show_product.asp?sid=231

[TheBoy]

NAS is probably the best storage option, but all the mickey mouse 'home' ones are preety shite perfromance wise, which may or may not be an option.  Ideally gigabit connected, probably too slow over wifi.

Dedicated print servers from the big manufacturers - eg HP Jetdirect - are the most robust. But you must ensure that your printer is network capable - not all are.

[TheBoy]

How much do you want to spend?
Are you looking for redundancy on the network drive?
How much storage space do you want?

I'm running an Infrant ReadyNAS NV10+ fitted with 4x 2TB drives.
This gives me 6GB of usable capacity, truly redundant (if a drive fails, all my data is still there), has a 1Gbps interface, 3x USB ports, print server, FTP server, Web server, etc, etc.

Bare box will set you back £400, plus the cost of whatever drives you fit.

Way too expensive for a dedicated 'home' crappo setup imho.  If using that kind of budget, i'd probably be going down lines of a proper server tbh...

[KillerWatt]

How much do you want to spend?
Are you looking for redundancy on the network drive?
How much storage space do you want?

I'm running an Infrant ReadyNAS NV10+ fitted with 4x 2TB drives.
This gives me 6GB of usable capacity, truly redundant (if a drive fails, all my data is still there), has a 1Gbps interface, 3x USB ports, print server, FTP server, Web server, etc, etc.

Bare box will set you back £400, plus the cost of whatever drives you fit.

Way too expensive for a dedicated 'home' crappo setup imho.  If using that kind of budget, i'd probably be going down lines of a proper server tbh...

The ReadyNAS is a proper server....print server, web server, ftp server, yada, yada, yada.
It just happens to take up considerably less space (200mm high, 130mm wide, 220mm deep) and consumes a mere 60W in use.

Obviously it's not for the likes of PC World customers, but you get what you pay for in life (which is why most of us have an Omega rather than a Ford Fiesta).

http://www.readynas.com/?cat=4


PS
If you think it's expensive now, you'd be shi**ing yourself at the original price tag when it was first released  

[sev]

Thanks all,

Good advice as always.

For my simple home needs I think i'll just buy her a removable drive and be done with it, which just leaves me the shared printer issue, perhaps i'll go for a networkable printer to throw on the router, and that way we're both happy.

I'd happily go the server route, but being a jasper conran influenced kinda girl the thought of whirring fans and drives would drive her potty, as would the thought of a machine running 24/7  

[TheBoy]

How much do you want to spend?
Are you looking for redundancy on the network drive?
How much storage space do you want?

I'm running an Infrant ReadyNAS NV10+ fitted with 4x 2TB drives.
This gives me 6GB of usable capacity, truly redundant (if a drive fails, all my data is still there), has a 1Gbps interface, 3x USB ports, print server, FTP server, Web server, etc, etc.

Bare box will set you back £400, plus the cost of whatever drives you fit.

Way too expensive for a dedicated 'home' crappo setup imho.  If using that kind of budget, i'd probably be going down lines of a proper server tbh...

The ReadyNAS is a proper server....print server, web server, ftp server, yada, yada, yada.
It just happens to take up considerably less space (200mm high, 130mm wide, 220mm deep) and consumes a mere 60W in use.

Obviously it's not for the likes of PC World customers, but you get what you pay for in life (which is why most of us have an Omega rather than a Ford Fiesta).

http://www.readynas.com/?cat=4


PS
If you think it's expensive now, you'd be shi**ing yourself at the original price tag when it was first released  

ReadyNAS is a toy, like all the other similar ones.  This type of system is 2-a-penny.  They do have uses though, but normally for people who need simple LAN storage, where performance is unimportant


60W is pretty unimpressive for a small, single use appliance - remember most modern workgroup servers are only pulling 70-100W depending on CPU workload.

[KillerWatt]

ReadyNAS is a toy, like all the other similar ones.  This type of system is 2-a-penny.

Of course it's a toy, and of course it's "2 a penny"...forgetting that it's best in it's class, you are obviously the PC World user I used as the example earlier if you are going to make statements like that.

 They do have uses though, but normally for people who need simple LAN storage, where performance is unimportant

PMSL @ "simple LAN storage where performance is unimportant"
I have to ask, do you know how a computer actually works when it is carrying out any given task?

60W is pretty unimpressive for a small, single use appliance - remember most modern workgroup servers are only pulling 70-100W depending on CPU workload.

"Workgroup server" is a bit of an open ended statement really, but I can tell you that a "workgroup server" isn't going to consist of a single hard drive that (if it fails), means the end user is f**ked if they don't have another backup elsewhere.
That aside though, read up on how switched mode PSU's work my friend

[TheBoy]

ReadyNAS is a toy, like all the other similar ones.  This type of system is 2-a-penny.

Of course it's a toy, and of course it's "2 a penny"...forgetting that it's best in it's class, you are obviously the PC World user I used as the example earlier if you are going to make statements like that.

 They do have uses though, but normally for people who need simple LAN storage, where performance is unimportant

PMSL @ "simple LAN storage where performance is unimportant"
I have to ask, do you know how a computer actually works when it is carrying out any given task?

60W is pretty unimpressive for a small, single use appliance - remember most modern workgroup servers are only pulling 70-100W depending on CPU workload.

"Workgroup server" is a bit of an open ended statement really, but I can tell you that a "workgroup server" isn't going to consist of a single hard drive that (if it fails), means the end user is f**ked if they don't have another backup elsewhere.
That aside though, read up on how switched mode PSU's work my friend

Yes. Of course I am.  


As for SMPS, oh yes, I think I've just about figured that out. About 30yrs ago.

Workgroup server - I'll class the OOF server in that class, though OOF's server probably at top of lower end of workgroup. Like most modern servers, its pretty prudent on the leccy, despite its disks, caching RAID card, RAM, Xeon chips, and a high performance tape drive.



Chill

[KillerWatt]

Workgroup server - I'll class the OOF server in that class,

PMSL at a web server being in the same class as a workgroup server.

Without knowing what your hardware actually is, I obviously can't pass comment on it's power consumption....although if it is a proper bit of kit that was designed for the rack rather than a £200 home tower that has just been thrown in the hole, then it's gonna pull a tad more than a pi$$y 100W (hell, even the el cheapo home tower pulls more than that anyway).
However, the fact you choose to use a forum that has more security holes than a Kings Cross whores knickers tells me all I need to know about your knowledge of IT

Let's leave it at that shall we?


PS

Spent 5 minutes researching your hosting company....they really need to do something about their customers usernames & passwords being so easily accessible.

[TheBoy]

Workgroup server - I'll class the OOF server in that class,

PMSL at a web server being in the same class as a workgroup server.

Without knowing what your hardware actually is, I obviously can't pass comment on it's power consumption....although if it is a proper bit of kit that was designed for the rack rather than a £200 home tower that has just been thrown in the hole, then it's gonna pull a tad more than a pi$$y 100W (hell, even the el cheapo home tower pulls more than that anyway).
However, the fact you choose to use a forum that has more security holes than a Kings Cross whores knickers tells me all I need to know about your knowledge of IT

Let's leave it at that shall we?


PS

Spent 5 minutes researching your hosting company....they really need to do something about their customers usernames & passwords being so easily accessible.

Firstly, I apologise, my previous post, when I reread it this morning did come over as arrogant, which wasn't my intention. Sorry  



The NAS question that was raised, the point I was trying to raise, was that any home type NAS is only suitable for pretty basic file sharing, and where performance, and in many cases security as well, isn't an issue.  A long way removed from a real NAS setup, yet many of the home type NAS devices try to claim or imply they are similar.


As to the OOF server, its hardware is a workgroup class server.  The hardware it runs on - HP Proliant - does far more that run a poxy website .  However, like all modern servers from the small stuff like OOF's server, through my usual day-to-day stuff (Sun's Coolthreads range of servers and blades, and HP's range of Intel based servers and blades), up to the Sun Enterprise class that we deal with, are all designed heavily with power requirements in mind.

Not sure how much legacy datacentre experience you may have, but even 5 or 6 years ago, the power requirements to power the servers at the datacentre I'm based at needed 6 generators, each one alledgedly capable of powering half a small town. Remeber, as you reduce energy consumption, you also massively reduce the energy needed to maintain the environment as well, so double whammy. Hence why all servers, no matter on the size, power requirements are critical. Hence why workgroup servers with a simple set of 2 or 3 disks can meet the 100W barrier with ease if they are not too busy.


How do they reduce power requirements?

At the CPU level, Intel has made big inroads with its new architectures since abandonning it's NetBurst architecture. AMD are following suit, but fell a bit behind when it took its eye off the ball to gobble ATI.  Sun have gone done a different line of increasing core efficiency by running extra threads in wait state times, and lowering the clock. At the chipset level, server chipsets have different requirements, thus different architecture optimised for memory, disk and network access, cutting out (or using low power/perfomance versions of) components that are required on desktop chipsets.

The other big power hungry device in server class systems is the disk system. Pretty much everyone has gone over to 2.5" disks, initially derived from laptop technology.



I think I have said a few times that YaBB would not have been my first choice of software to use - it doesn't scale too well to be honest. But its what we're stuck with for now, so we make the best we can of it.  But, as long as security to the underlying OS is maintained, it seems to be reasonably secure - much more so than similar open source projects such as phpBB and the like.  I am, obviously, very interested to hear of your concerns about YaBB's security - please PM me if you have any info


As to the hosting company giving out a load of FTP passwords, I assume you mean the hosting company for our images server? If so, yes, they cocked-up about 2yrs ago, though the incident did not affect OOF.  I'm not overly fussed if it did, as at worse, we lose some images that we can soon restore.  Reason we continue to use them is because of the low cost hosting (and OOF could not afford to go to dedicated server for the images server), they seem to be one of the best with regards to openness and support. And a million times better than the wasters we used before

[KillerWatt]

Firstly, I apologise, my previous post, when I reread it this morning did come over as arrogant, which wasn't my intention. Sorry  

It did come over as slightly "Mr Know it all".....but it's cool, I've chilled slightly since last night and I'm not taking it to heart.
Text based communication is limited at the best of times, and you can never really interpret what the other person feels when they type something.

The NAS question that was raised, the point I was trying to raise, was that any home type NAS is only suitable for pretty basic file sharing, and where performance, and in many cases security as well, isn't an issue.  A long way removed from a real NAS setup, yet many of the home type NAS devices try to claim or imply they are similar.

Aha, now I realise you think along the same lines as me.
As you say, the kit aimed at the home user (which has stolen it's acronyms from the pro stuff), is indeed taking advantage of ignorance and doesn't even come close to offering what it may lead the end user to believe.

As to the OOF server, its hardware is a workgroup class server.  The hardware it runs on - HP Proliant - does far more that run a poxy website

I never for one minute suggested that OOF was a "poxy" website, and I apologise if this was the impression you got from my previous input.
As it's an HP Proliant, I can tell you it's whacking a fair bit in the power stakes though (even at idle)

Not sure how much legacy datacentre experience you may have, but even 5 or 6 years ago, the power requirements to power the servers at the datacentre I'm based at needed 6 generators, each one alledgedly capable of powering half a small town.

Before I jacked IT on the head, I was regularly at Canary Wharf dealing with the likes of Redbus, ClaraNET, etc (major players in the grand scheme of things)

Hence why all servers, no matter on the size, power requirements are critical. Hence why workgroup servers with a simple set of 2 or 3 disks can meet the 100W barrier with ease if they are not too busy.

I would argue that it a lot of it depends on the PSU design as well.
My own personal (home tower) system uses a Silverstone Strider ST1000.
This has a 96% efficiency rating (considered $hit hot as you will know in the world of SMPSU) which will deliver a true 960W on the secondary side under full load while remaining within spec.

It draws 205W off the mains when in normal use, and hits 245W in gameplay use (gameplay being simple crap)....not bad considering it's keeping an overclocked dual core (3.2GHz o/c'd to 3.8GHz) CPU with 6MB of L2 cache going, along with 4GB of DDR3 RAM, a RAID 0 array, 2x 1TB slave drives, a pi$$y GeForce 7300 PCI-E graphics, a modified (modded for reading Xbox360 discs) Samsung DVD-ROM drive, along with a Pioneer DVR-216 burner as well as a multi card reader and a floppy drive.

Now replace my optical drives and crappy graphics for another couple of HDD's....and replace my PSU for the nowhere near as efficient PSU's you get in the pre-built hardware....and it's quite easy to see how you will get near the 300W mark.
Add a redundant PSU, and you've doubled that power consumption.

How do they reduce power requirements?

At the CPU level, Intel has made big inroads with its new architectures since abandonning it's NetBurst architecture.

Intel have been at the forefront of power saving technology for years, that is no secret.

AMD are following suit, but fell a bit behind when it took its eye off the ball to gobble ATI.

With all due respect, AMD have been chasing Intel for years in both power saving and performance......and they have never quite managed to catch Intel.

The other big power hungry device in server class systems is the disk system. Pretty much everyone has gone over to 2.5" disks, initially derived from laptop technology.

Now that's where you have to swallow on your earlier statement IMO......a full on server powering up 4x 3½" disks running at 7200rpm and pulling just under 60W is (while not impressive), something to think about.

I am, obviously, very interested to hear of your concerns about YaBB's security - please PM me if you have any info

Make no mistake, If I can be ar$ed to look for holes (and I'm sure I'll find them if I look hard enough), then you will be the first to know (via PM of course).

If you really want peace of mind, then scrape another £100 together and migrate to something like vBulletin....I'll quite happily talk you through the migration process so that no info/posts/etc is lost.

As to the hosting company giving out a load of FTP passwords, I assume you mean the hosting company for our images server?

Not quite, I'm talking full access to the servers themselves......again, that is not the sort of subject I will divulge too much info on in an open discussion.

CHARACTER LIMIT REACHED....SEE NEXT POST FOR CONTINUATION.