I recently looked around for a NAS to use as a dedicated slimserver, but in my experience I found that most if not all of the small NAS units were deficient in one or more of the following:
1. CPU Power 2. Noise (Fan and/or PSU noise) 3. Enough RAM 4. Disk Capacity 5. Ease of configuration (Slimserver installation) and support In "my" order of importance. Note that I plan to rip a considerably large number of CDs into flac. The order and importance of the features above might not apply to those with "smaller" music libraries or using smaller music file formats. I also did not look at the Qnap TS-101 very closely as it was not big enough for my needs. During my quest I mostly looked at multiple drive NAS units and I have been alternating between a "dedicated Slimserver" on a NAS or on a HTPC platform. 1. CPU Power - Given the size of my music library and the way that "I" see the Slimserver evolving - it will be necessary to use a more powerful SQL engine to manage large music libraries efficiently. As the SQL engine features and flexibility increase, so will the need for more CPU power. You don't get something for nothing. Slim Devices made this evident by providing a roadmap to MySQL, a more powerful SQL engine as their future platform of choice. For those using music formats that are not natively supported by the SB, there will a need for more CPU cycles to have those formats decoded and streamed by the Decoder/Slimserver in the NAS. Then there are the Plug-ins. The larger the number of plug-ins and the more powerful they are -> the larger the demand for CPU cycles. Rescanning the libraries and the Web interface also require precious CPU cycles. 2. Noise - For me this is very important. I live in a small apartment and the NAS has to live in my living room. It also has to fit my AV system cabinet or hide some where close to it. Fan/PSU noise in most of these NAS units, for me, is unacceptable. Most NAS units do not provide a way to "easily" turn them on/off either. They require another computer to manage them using a web interface. So, if you have a universal IR remote and want turn your AV system on/off; you have to get up for the NAS unless you want it to make noise 24/7 - (Hmmm, this might help with getting one accustomed to the noise) 3. Enough RAM - For the obvious reasons. (Increase speed and larger capacity for buffer/cache) 4. Disk Capacity - The small single drive units are limited by the largest size drive available in the market. If your library, like my flac library grows at a significant rate, then your drive might be full before the next size is available... what do you do? In my case, a multiple drive NAS with some level of RAID for fault tolerance is a must have. In particular RAID 5, which provides a high level of fault tolerance and convenience. With hot-swapping one can add an additional drive when the capacity is low and your multiple drive NAS is not fully populated. Also when a drive fails one might loose performance, but you're not completely out of business. Performance will suffer a bit furhter while a failed drive is being re-build on a newly installed or on a stanby hot-spare drive, but it is very convenient solution. I know that RAID 5 drastically reduces the per drive capacity and it is expensive. But that's a price I'm willing to pay for the convenience of not having re-rip CDs (flac ripping takes a looong time) or having to add more drive enclosures when I run out of space. 5. Ease of configuration and support - Oh, yes... how many more weekends and nights is my wife going to allow me to play with this thing. In reality the average Joe is not savvy enough to configure some of these NAS units with Slimserver. For those of us technical enough to shot our own feet, there is the issue of spending a long time configuring this thing just to listen to some music. Hello! My wife would say... "Get your lazy a$$ from the sofa and away from that laptop and play a CD" Some of this NAS don't even have the require modules to begin to install the Slimserver (Telnet, FTP... etc.) One has to build modules and pray that that you didn't miss a library that will prevent it from running in the NAS. Ok, for some this is fun, but for others this is a daunting task. Not to mention that you're on your own as the most vendors will not support your box once you modify it. Ok, enough of my ranting. After looking around the best that "I" and others have found are the multiple drives NAS units made by Infrant. There are very flexible and as powerful as any small multiple drive NAS that one can get. In particular I was very impressed by the ReadyNAS NV. It is a bit expensive, but I think it's worth it. Besides providing RAID 0,1 and 5 support it provides X-RAID for Automatic Volume Expansion You can read a review by Tom's Networking here: http://www.tomsnetworking.com/2006/03/03/infrant_readynas_nv/ I almost bought one of these, but the NOISE level and to some degree the fear of lack of sufficient CPU power made me rethink my approach to the dedicated Slimserver. The ReadyNAS NV supports the Slimserver out of the box, but it doesn't yet support "all" the plug-ins. I'm skeptical that it'll be underpowered to run the SlimServer with MySQL. One other thing. You don't have to worry about vendor support as Infrant supports "specific" releases of Slimserver with "some" limitations. Forget about the betas. Now, I'm looking to build a small "silent" HTPC using a mini-itx motherboard with a mobile core-duo T2300 CPU, a PCI Ex RAID adapter, 4x500GB drives inside a sexy fanless case that looks like an AV system component. This will give me room to grow my library and enough CPU power to handle future releases of Slimserver and its plug-ins. The RAID adapter also supports JBOD, just in case RAID 5 becomes too taxing. Of course, the looks of this box will also make my wife happy. Well, these are my 2 cents regarding NAS devices for a dedicated Slimserver. Comments? -- tamanaco ------------------------------------------------------------------------ tamanaco's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=4620 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=24428 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
