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Mad_Scientist

New Around Here
So this weekend (for pretty much 36 hours) I have been researching NAS and server solutions for the engineering dept at our company. We are having problems with LONG read/write times to the main server, and also with file errors as we are well over the 100m spec of Cat5e, with about 7 users on the one line.. Time to fix things up.

I have come to the conclusion that a NAS setup in our office would solve most of our problems. Get our bandwidth off the main server, (we would only be accessing it for email/internet with the nas) and speed up our downloads and writes as well. It would also give us yet another backup (as we would still use the main server for weekly backups) Right now We are using about 600gb of data for our dept. This is growing rapidly. Our bigger files are in the 75mb range. (I think we have 1 that is 120mb but thats as big as it gets) But we do saves every 3-5 minutes to prevent losing any work.

Now where i get confused is with the RAID setups. Im thinking that raid 10 is going to be the best for us. Id like a 6 bay NAS with RAID 10 Support and either 4 1tb or 2tb drives depending on how much the owner wants to spend. (the extra 2 bays for future proofing)

Our computers are all gigabit ready, as well as our switch so i want to use as much of that gigabit as I can. (Hence the raid 10) Im not sure if Ill be able to get a managed switch unless I find one cheap enough.

I would certainly appreciate it anyone here would tell me if Im getting off on the wrong foot or if I need a different RAID. But I Could really use some suggestions on which NAS box to get. Ive looked at what seems like 500 different boxes.. LOL... I am pretty sure Ill be going with Red drives though.

thanks for any input.. my brain is fried.

ps...id like to do this for around 1200-1300, but definitely under 1500
 
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re having more than 100m of cat5e.
If it's a LOT more than 100m, then mid-way, insert an ordinary ethernet switch which will regenerate the signal.
Or run fiber if it's possible.

The 7 PCs... do they connect to an ethernet switch at the end of the long cat5e? If so, do they show 100 or 1000BT connection speeds? (assuming they're not WiFi based).

Re RAID and all that... tell us if a PC connected near the NAS gets good speeds. You should expect a one-at-a-time transfer of one large file to reach 40-80MBytes/sec (Big B = Bytes, little b = bits/sec)
 
Not sure if this is the right forum for NAS discussions, but regardless, take a look at Synology. It is an extremely well made NAS but does many other things as well. You'd be impressed. I use Synology 1812+. 8 bays with 8x3 TB drives. But there are many other sizes and models. It supports Basic, ‧JBOD ‧RAID 0 ‧RAID 1 ‧RAID 5 ‧RAID 5+Spare ‧RAID 6‧RAID 10 ‧Synology Hybrid RAID.

Brad
 
I'm happy with my DS212 - low end Synology. 4TB is fine for my needs.

On RAID... we preach that RAID is NOT a backup. You need a strategy to copy all or key folders to some other media, such as via eSATA or USB3.

On-line backup is too slow.
 
I came up with a net gear gs108t switch, and onap 669 pro 6bay, and 41tb red drives. Ill be locating the switch about 40 feet down the line to help a little. hopefully i can get the read speeds I want in raid 10
 
How did it work out for you?

Just wondering if you ever acted on your research. If so, if time permits, could you update the thread with what you actually did and how you feel about the results?

I'm just always curious about how things actually turned out as opposed to what was planned. ;)

-irrational john
 

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