ReadyNAS Ultra 2 as Media Server

Avoid WD Green disks

The WD RED disks on the other hand are designed for use in NAS units

The Constellation and UltraStar are enterprise disks

For your storage needs you need at least the Ultra 4. 4x3TB disks would give you about 8TB of space

First of all, you can ignore the -600 and -300. No mechanical drive is fast enough to saturate SATA-300, and the NAS runs SATA-300 anyway. (SATA-600 is compatible though).

Second of all, for streaming BluRay you really don't need a fast disk. BluRay data rates are 50 mbits/sec, which is about 7 megabytes/second. All of these drives are much, much faster than that.

Third, the WD30EZRS is not designed for NAS use. Even though it is on the HCL I would avoid it.

The Ultrastar and the Constellation are enterprise drives. Enterprise drives are designed to be working 24/7, and they are designed to handle vibration from nearby drives well. They generally also have 5 year warranties. Those features are what make them more expensive. The Barracuda isn't an enterprise drive, but it is a high-performance consumer drive.

The WD30EFRX is specifically designed for consumer NAS use, and has a three year warranty.

The WD30EFRX uses the least power and is the quietest (leaving out the caviar green). The Constellation and Ultrastar have higher performance and longer warranties, but also use more power and are noisier. The Barracuda is similar to the enterprise drives, though I think I'd choose the Constellation over it, given the small price difference.

Personally I'd get the WD30EFRX. It is more than fast enough, is cheapest, uses the least power, and is the quietest. I am using them now, and am happy with them.

However, the Ultrastar and the Constellation also have good reputations. Note that Hitachi's disk division is now owned by Western Digital.

BTW I agree with mgdm that a 4 or 6 slot unit would be better than the ultra-2. At 20-30 titles per TB, your BluRay library will fill up the NAS fast.

Thanks for the fast replies.

So from what I understand, the best thing would be getting a ReadyNAS Ultra 6, and for starters buy 3 or 4x Western Digital WD RED WD30EFRX 3TB, and then when the needs are bigger, get more of either those or maybe there are even bigger HDD's out there at that time.

Is that a good solution, and is it wise to mix HDD's?

That would be a good solution. If you also want to use DLNA with transcoding, the best option would be Pro-6 (using plex). For straight streaming, the ultra 6 should work nicely. You probably don't want it in the same room as the home theater, since the fan will be audible. You could construct a baffle if that is essential (I saw a blog entry somewhere from someone who had done that with a ReadyNAS).

It is fine to mix hard drives, though keep in mind that future hard drives would need to be 3 TB or larger.

The default XRAID-2 raid configuration would work nicely, just make sure you install all 3-4 initial drives together (don't start with one and then add the others, that will limit your expansion later on).

I just realized that the Ultra 6 is far more expensive than for example the Ultra 4. Maybe I should just get the Ultra 4, and ship it with 3x WD Red 3TB, and then add on another if neccesary. I'm also thinking that they will keep upgrading the HDD's, so maybe in 1-2 years when I need more space, there are bigger supported HDD's available for the same price.

What would you guys do in my shoes? I want a good solution, which isn't overkill, and of course keeping the price a little down wouldn't kill me(but I rather wanna pay a little extra to get something that works).

Any help is greatly appriciated.

You have to make the decision on which unit to go with, but as a long time Seagate user, I can heartily recommendt the WD Red EFRX drives. I have a Pro 6 with 2x3TB and 2x1TB WD Reds and they are far quieter than my Seagates and so far more reliable. I also have some Hitachi 3TB drives that are very quiet and have been in service for 18 months with no problems, but they have been discontinued so I went the the WD Reds when I wanted some more 3TB drives.

If you want a 6 bay NAS and are willing to wait, watch the sales. You did not give a country location, so can't give you some sources to watch.

Hello PapaBear,

I'm from Denmark in Europe.

I'm not sure if it's a overkill for me, getting the Ultra 6 instead of the Ultra 4. Right now I have a Mede8er which has almost used all of it's 3TB, and I haven't even put on any TV Shows etc, so I think I need atleast 6TB.

I'm moving to my new house in about 7 months, and I frankly don't need it before then, so I would appriciate some sources to watch for, while I'm waiting anyways. :)

if the 6 bay is out of your price range, the ultra 4 should be sufficient for your near/medium term.

with 4tb drives available now, you can get up to ~11tb usable with 4x 4tb drives which I would expect to last quite awhile even with bluray storage.

In any case, you will be able to see how quickly your storage gets used and start planning for a second 6 bay device farther down the road.

If you stay within the readynas line and architecture (ie x86 to x86), you can even move your existing drives over to the new chassis without any changes.

alternatively you could get additional drives so that one nas can backup to the other.

How many bluray titles do you have? Are the TV shows also bluray, or are they smaller?

You could get by with the ultra-4 for now (as TeknoJnky says it can provide 11 TiB with 4 TB drives). Though if the budget will stretch to 6 slots, it is probably the way to go if you are a BluRay guy.

You could also try converting some of your BluRay main movies to a somewhat lower bitrate (e.g, smaller file size), and see how much space that saves. There are a lot of audio tracks (various languages and codecs), and if you delete the ones you don't need you can save quite a bit of space. Also, you can usually cut down the video bit rate with little or no perceived quality loss. Though this processing can be time consuming, and you do lose extras, etc.

I pretty much only get bluray titles for movies(Something like 350+), but they are not always huge. Normally they are like 10GB. TV-shows I hardly ever get in bluray, so those are alot smaller.

Hmmm, I don't think I'm into the whole converting etc. I want it to be so stressless as possible, so I just get the ones I like and play em'.

I guess I'll start off by getting the Ultra 4 with 3x 3TB. Then I can add on another HDD later if needed, or get the Ultra 6 later on.

Is the ReadyNAS Ultra 4 silent?