Hi.
I'm looking into buying myself a new NAS server(four bay if possible). What NAS is recommended? Also want to run SAB on it smoothly. Thanks!
Best NAS to use with SAB
Re: Best NAS to use with SAB
Ample memory, go for 1G at least.
More important: check whether other people are using it that way and what their experience is.
More important: check whether other people are using it that way and what their experience is.
Re: Best NAS to use with SAB
Hardware like HP proliant microserver may be worth a look. There'll be plenty of people with experience with those machines, since there has been a 100 pound rebate (uk only) on those things for a long time which made them really cheap.
Re: Best NAS to use with SAB
As a relative newbie to the world of NAS devices (and HTPC's for that matter - been running XBMC for 2 months), I wanted something that was relatively simple to install and use.
Being swayed [strongly] by the £100 Cashback offer HP are currently running, I went ahead and purchased the HP ProLiant Microserver (N36L) mentioned by the above poster. I would recommend Ebuyer, since thats where I got mine from, as they were a good price and could deliver next day.
Coming in at only £130 (after cashback) made it considerably cheaper than a Synology DS411j, for example. The synology is a great product too and well thought of but can only house 4 discs. The HP box (which is very well put together by the way exceptionally compact) will house 5 drives as standard if you forgo an optical drive, which you don't need for a file server / NAS anyway, as it boots direct from a USB flash drive (straight off the motherboard - eliminating the possibility of it getting accidentally removed). In fact, at a squeeze, you can get 6 drives in if you use one 2.5" drive.
The link below gives an excellent step-by-step account of how to build and configure the HP box, with some excellent photos.
http://www.avforums.com/forums/networki ... d-nas.html
Anyway, I digress. I had read quite a bit about unRAID a neat little OS for NAS boxes. unRAID is from a company called Lime Technology and comes in 3 flavours, a basic FREE version which is limited to 3 drives and two paid for (but very reasonable) versions supporting upto 21 drives. Its based on Linux and is very compact. You can run it from a 128MB Flash drive if you so desire.
unRAID has an excellent community and the forums are very active as well as being very informative and helpful. I have never waited more than a few hours to get relpies to my calls for help and assistance. Not that I needed it for setting up unRAID itself, that was a doddle. The friendliness of the community and the speed of response on the forums shouldn't be overlooked IMHO.
But one of the best things about unRAID is the plugins you can get for it which allow you to run additional programs, like SABnzbd, Couch Potato and SickBeard, from within unRaid. In the unlikely event that you don't know what these programs do, they are fully automatic media downloaders. You can also install 'Headphnes' the automatic music downloader, but I haven't got that far with mine yet.
In short I think the HP mcroserver with unRAID, SAB ,SB & CP make an excelent little NAS box. Mine sits in the corner of my living room running almost silently 24/7 downloading all my media and streaming HD media to my HTPC without glitches or delays (even over a 10/100 network - I plan to add a Gigabit switch this week).
Being swayed [strongly] by the £100 Cashback offer HP are currently running, I went ahead and purchased the HP ProLiant Microserver (N36L) mentioned by the above poster. I would recommend Ebuyer, since thats where I got mine from, as they were a good price and could deliver next day.
Coming in at only £130 (after cashback) made it considerably cheaper than a Synology DS411j, for example. The synology is a great product too and well thought of but can only house 4 discs. The HP box (which is very well put together by the way exceptionally compact) will house 5 drives as standard if you forgo an optical drive, which you don't need for a file server / NAS anyway, as it boots direct from a USB flash drive (straight off the motherboard - eliminating the possibility of it getting accidentally removed). In fact, at a squeeze, you can get 6 drives in if you use one 2.5" drive.
The link below gives an excellent step-by-step account of how to build and configure the HP box, with some excellent photos.
http://www.avforums.com/forums/networki ... d-nas.html
Anyway, I digress. I had read quite a bit about unRAID a neat little OS for NAS boxes. unRAID is from a company called Lime Technology and comes in 3 flavours, a basic FREE version which is limited to 3 drives and two paid for (but very reasonable) versions supporting upto 21 drives. Its based on Linux and is very compact. You can run it from a 128MB Flash drive if you so desire.
unRAID has an excellent community and the forums are very active as well as being very informative and helpful. I have never waited more than a few hours to get relpies to my calls for help and assistance. Not that I needed it for setting up unRAID itself, that was a doddle. The friendliness of the community and the speed of response on the forums shouldn't be overlooked IMHO.
But one of the best things about unRAID is the plugins you can get for it which allow you to run additional programs, like SABnzbd, Couch Potato and SickBeard, from within unRaid. In the unlikely event that you don't know what these programs do, they are fully automatic media downloaders. You can also install 'Headphnes' the automatic music downloader, but I haven't got that far with mine yet.
In short I think the HP mcroserver with unRAID, SAB ,SB & CP make an excelent little NAS box. Mine sits in the corner of my living room running almost silently 24/7 downloading all my media and streaming HD media to my HTPC without glitches or delays (even over a 10/100 network - I plan to add a Gigabit switch this week).
Re: Best NAS to use with SAB
I have a 6 Bay Qnap NAS and I love it (8TB in Raid 6). www.qnap.com
I also have a 4 Bay Drobo plugged into the USB Port on the NAS for an additional 4 TB of storage.
I run rsync jobs to backup the NAS Data to the Drobo at night.
My XBMC Media boxes are running on Acer Apire Revo's (I have 3 of them).
Rock solid!
I also have a 4 Bay Drobo plugged into the USB Port on the NAS for an additional 4 TB of storage.
I run rsync jobs to backup the NAS Data to the Drobo at night.
My XBMC Media boxes are running on Acer Apire Revo's (I have 3 of them).
Rock solid!