New DIY Home NAS

[chuckkoro]

Great site! I’ve been reading the posts for a few weeks since I decided to build a Home NAS. I’ve built the desktops in our house and I enjoy it, hence the DIY. I’m not sure the specs matter that much for my questions, but if they do: AMD 5000 CPU, GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2HP MOBO, 2GB RAM, DVD RW optical, Antec 300 Case, Windows Home Server & Linksys WRT310N Router.

It’s mostly for streaming music & movies, plus backup. I’ve scrapped plans for RAID, and decided to just go with 5 independent drives: 1 system drive, 2 data drives, and 2 backup drives for the data. Anyway, here are my questions:

1) Do I need to install antivirus software on the NAS box?
2) When I built my PC’s, I had to update drivers, firmware on the HDD’s, etc., but I did all of that within Windows. I also like to stress test the HDD’s to weed out a bad drive. Can I do all of that within WHS? If not, how do I accomplish those tasks?
3) I need to read the performance reviews on the WHS a few more times to understand them a bit better, especially the read limitations, but how about an easy question. What kind of read rate do I need to have to stream movies from the NAS to one of my PC’s?
4) Any advice on what I’ve written so far? Changes you think I should make?

Thanks in advance!

 

[thiggins]

1) Do I need to install antivirus software on the NAS box?

Not necessary as long as you are not downloading files directly to it and all your PCs are protected. Not sure how WHS would like that anyway.

2) When I built my PC’s, I had to update drivers, firmware on the HDD’s, etc., but I did all of that within Windows. I also like to stress test the HDD’s to weed out a bad drive. Can I do all of that within WHS? If not, how do I accomplish those tasks?

You can remote desktop into WHS and find a modified form of Windows Server 2003 SP2. But WHS treats its drives in a special way. So you may or may not be able to treat drives like you would on a normal Windows system.

3) I need to read the performance reviews on the WHS a few more times to understand them a bit better, especially the read limitations, but how about an easy question. What kind of read rate do I need to have to stream movies from the NAS to one of my PC’s?

Depends on the content you are streaming. See Video Streaming Need To Know: Part 2 - The Real World and HD Streaming Smackdown: Draft 11n vs. Powerline.

4) Any advice on what I’ve written so far? Changes you think I should make?

Putting "backup" drives on the same physical device is not a good idea at all. If a power supply or the mobo goes, all your data could be toast. Your "backup" device should be a separate device, preferably in a different physical location for some protection against physical damage and theft.

 

[chuckkoro]

Great, thanks for the input. Sounds like I have some more work to do, especially on backup. I'll be back as things devlop.

 

[vnangia]

Great, thanks for the input. Sounds like I have some more work to do, especially on backup. I'll be back as things devlop.

WHS has a for-pay antivirus plugin... perhaps it's on wegotserved.com ?

I doubt it's necessary to have the anti virus on the WHS box, but if you have computing power to spare then, why not?