[Nottingham] Anyone tried/using: "Cloud" NAS boxes...

[Duncan]

On 28/07/14 11:39, Jason Irwin wrote:
> On 28/07/14 11:24, Martin wrote:
>> But... Is their installed software any good?
> AIUI it tends to be tied into their services, although FreeNAS can be
> installed on some.
> 
> Me, I use a HP MicroServer (£100 after rebate). Depending on exact model
> it can take up to 16GB and 4 drives (not hot swap on my old one, that
> may have changed).
> It probably draws more power than a true NAS, but then it can do much,
> much more.
> 

There's an unofficial HP bios update for these boxes (I might still
have it floating around somewhere) which enables full speed on the
CD-ROM bay interface to make it 5 disks.
Mine has 16GB RAM,  1 SSD boot disk (in the CD-drive bay)
+ 2x1TB + 2x1.5TB. It also runs quiet and uses ~40W.

They also have an internal USB port.  I used to boot mine from it
until I got the SSD + Bios update.

I was put off commodity NAS boxes by the short life of my previous 2.
They both had mostly, but not entirely, working user interfaces
which led to hacking around in systems which were not designed to be
hacked around in.   Also, the first (a Maxtor) was so tight on the
electrical spec it couldn't spin up a replacement disk while
the second (a Buffalo) would OOM trying to run its own RAID
reconstruction/checking software.  Commodity NAS boxes may
be tempting but you cannot beat 16GB or RAM, and a chip that can
use normal distro repositories.


Have fun,
Duncan