I have to admit, that I'm not really a veteran on these matters, but I want to learn.
The idea is to have a NAS that I can use as media server. It needs to be fast enough to not cause problems for streaming BluRay material with bitrates in the higher end, and I want storage space for like 6TB minimum. Oh yeah, and I would like the noise to be very low.
I'm planning to order a ReadyNAS Ultra 2, as I was told that this would suit my needs best, but what do I do regarding the HDD's. I searched a bit on the 3TB HDD's that NETGEAR listed as "Hardware Compatibility list", and I'm honestly not sure which ones to pick as I don't know the difference between them, and how well they would work.
I've listed the ones which are available to me underneath, alongside I put in some relevant information, like how big it is, what type and ofcourse - the price:
So I see that there is quite a bit of difference in the price, even though the numbers look alike to me. I also see that some of them are SATA-600, while others are SATA-300. Also, would they work best being the same kind?
Any shed of light on these matters is greatly appriciated, GAPP
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.
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).
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.
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.
A full 2D BluRay rip is usually ~40GB. Some BluRays are created from older HDDVD masters, they tend to be around 25 GB.
If you have 10 GB titles, you are getting something already ripped and converted (likely MKV or MP4 format???) There's no need to reconvert those.
The ultra 4 is not silent, it has a fan. The typical noise is 31.5 dba (per here: http://www.netgear.com/images/ReadyNAS_ ... -57079.pdf) My guess is that is w/o disks, though I am not sure. I suspect it is loud enough to be clearly audible - but not really loud.
If you need something that is truly silent, you might check with Chirpa on this unit: viewtopic.php?f=33&t=67930 It is used (and custom, so there would be little support). But it would be a good choice for a media room location, since it is passively cooled.
A second option is to put the ultra in a different location. My pro is in my basement (where my ethernet switch is), the mediaplayers have their own ethernet connections to the switch.
In principle, you could also build a simple acoustic baffle to absorb the noise, though you would need to be careful not to obstruct the air flow. That is one idea you can find outlined here: http://www.readynas.com/?p=301#more-301 Note that article is measuring noise on the duo V1, not the ultra. The ultra is noisier.
Absolutely correct. Almost all of them are .mkv files, which seems to be supported on just about any mediaplayer (TV's etc). Will I have a problem with transcoding on the fly, with the Ultra 4? I mean, I don't know if it will happen enough to even consider changing the setup, but just to know.
I'm not sure where I should have it located, but I guess I can put it in the office or I'll make some kind of device if that's too much. The noise problem shouldn't be a huge prroblem, though of course it would be nice having a silent one. 🙂
well, the readynas builtin media server does not trancode, you would need the plex server or some other addon that can transcode.
I'm not sure if the ultra 4 will be powerful enough to transcode bluray in real time, but I am doubting it.
You would only need transcode for media clients that can not already handle the mkv/bluray rips, for clients that do not need transcoding the u4 will be fine.
From other posters here, I think the general experience is that you need the pro to transcode 1080p.
Though I have a pro, I don't use (or need) real-time transcoding. I convert the files up front to something my players can handle. So far my newer players can handle everything the older ones could, so I haven't run into any issues with that strategy.
I see. Thanks for all the replies, I'm really grateful that you guys would answer all my questions. Thank you. Do you know how often they update these models, or if there is some place I can get this cheap? The reason is, I'm moving into my new house in about 8 months, and I frankly don't need the Media Center before that, but my fingers are tingeling a little bit to get started, so do you think it's a smarter choice to wait the 8 months, and check if something newer has hit the market, or would it be the same thing?
The V2 platforms were introduced about a year ago, the ultra 4 and ultra 6 were introduced in the fall of 2010. It's hard to guess when Netgear will launch something newer. If they do, I suggest watching the forums for a bit, so you can make sure the product is stable before you jump in.
At this point you might as well wait until after CES (next month!) at least, and see if there are any product announcements there.
Also, there are sometimes sales (or rebates), so if you are not in a hurry you might as well track the pricing for a while and see if you can get a deal.
I had wanted a Pro 6 for a long time and when reviewing the ReadyNAS models on Newegg one day, I noticed they have a very, very good price on them and with a bundled 1TB WD Red drive it was $10 less than without the drive. I pulled the trigger on it and a few days later it was back up to it's normal price. I saved about $300 by just watching the promos and waiting. Some of course don't have the luxury of waiting and watching.
About the only hardware changes I can think that they might change is a different processor on the Ultra/Pro line and maybe USB3 support.
I don't think the noise level is enough to bother you unless you get one with a very noisy fan. I have not had a loud one yet, and the Pro 6 above has three fans in it. When you first boot them and the fan comes on full speed you will hear them and you may hear them if you get a line of drives that are noisy (the WD Reds I have are whisper quiet).
I'm currently using my Ultra 4 (not Ultra 4+) in conjunction with XBMC. This serves as my media centre setup. I have a MySQL Db hosted on the NAS alongside all my media, and am now serving the lot over the house using Powerline AV200 units. It works VERY well. If I were in your shoes, I'd buy the 4 required drives as a single job lot NOW. Even if you don't need the space right now.
This way you'll avoid any future price hikes, discontinuation of the model you are using, the drives will all be using the same firmware, and you won't have any worries about future expansion plans working (or not) as the case may be. And as others have said, get the WD Red's. They weren't available when I put this system together, but were I doing the same thing again now, WD Reds are what I'd go with. Seagate have had a bit of a rocky ride of late with reliability and firmware issues, but the 2x WD drives I do own, have been stellar, so I see no reason why the Reds shouldn't be the same.
EDIT: With regards Fan noise from the NAS, I've heard various people say that their NAS is noisy. I know the fans used in these things aren't made by a notable manufacturer, but I've yet to see an aftermarket fan that does the RPM's the ones installed in the NAS can do either. Yet while at boot time, it's loud, it's running at max speed until the OS loads and the system can adjust the speed. Once that happens i can only just about hear it in a dead silent room, stood right next to it. You may get a good one, you may get a poor one. The one I have is nowhere near as noisy as my desktop powerhouse (8x90-120mm fans incl. PSU).
Papabear, so you could recommend checking up on newegg a few times per week, to see if the price drops etc? I'm not in need to buy it right away, so I have all the time in the world. I'm just not really sure where to get it cheapest from, as I don't usually buy hardware from other than danish sites, and I did some calculations, that the whole setup will be like $1100. This will cover 3x 3TB WD Reds and the Ultra 4. Is that expensive?
Thanks for the comments gibxxi, really good to hear about the noise level and how well everything is working for you, makes me feel really good about this whole setup. Do you feel XBMC is better than Plex? From what I hear, most people go for Plex - what's your take on that? Also, these Powerline AV200, are those wireless solutions?
I'm overwhelmed by the support of everyone. Thank you.
Powerline networking uses your mains wiring as a network. So it is not wireless (radio). In my experience, performance is hit-or-miss. It can work very well on some circuits, and very poorly on others.
If you live in Denmark, would you need to pay import duty of some kind on stuff bought in the US?
XBMC is infinately more configurable than Plex. Plex is a Media Centre software which will be easier to maintain if the WAF (Wife Approval Factor) is an important consideration, or you want something that requires a minimal amount of tinkering or configuration, and you don't desire advanced functionality or add-ons.
XBMC is a better solution if you want advanced features, and don't mind tinkering to get a desirable end result. XBMC also differs from Plex in that each client is a standalone entity (unless your using MySQL Db sharing), whereas Plex uses a central, headless, server application to which each client connects.
Powerline feasibility depends largely on the structure and age of the wiring in your home. If you have old wiring and/or seperate ring-mains, it may be a less attractive option than Wireless. My place is a relatively new build, with a single ring-main, and Wireless performance for me was borderline because of interference. Each system (Wireless vs. Powerline) depends on your individual needs, circumstances, and surroundings.
I live in Denmark, and if I choose to import things from the US, I will have to pay duties of those goods, yes.
The house I'm moving into, is not built yet. It's done in August next year, so all the wiring etc will be very new, which I assume will work in my favor if I were to choose Powerline. I'm only renting it, so I don't have the choice to ask them to wire it with cat5 cables aswell, even though that would be preferable.
I'm e abit of a newbie regarding Media Center software, so could you please specify to me what kind of features we're talking about. I've read on some forums that XBMC is better, but Plex is way easier to setup. For example, I'm testing the Plex on my wireless atm. The server on my PC, and my laptop uses the client. I have to admit, it works really well with even Bluray movies with bitrates on 25k+ running though. I'm not totally sure if I'm doing everything correctly as I looked at the server confirgurations last night, and it seems like the max output is capped at 2MB - 768p. Not totally sure how its working though. 🙂
I don't know all that much about the features Plex is capable of because I only gave it minor testing (after having already been using XBMC for over a year). Suffice to say, I wasn't impressed enough in it's features or performance to want to switch.
😉
To list all XBMC's features here, would take too long, and not really answer whether it's the right Media Centre software for YOU. Best thing I can do here, is direct you to their wiki and allow you to draw your own conclusions...
