Hi Experts, Hope you can assist me, or tell me I am on the right/wrong track. I guess I am after how other people user their NAS devices for reference. Sorry in advance for the long post.
Summary : New 314 NAS, 4 x 4TB drives. All running fine, added UPS (APS Backups 650), that is connected and also working fine. Email alerts all configured and working fine. Plex running on the NAS, in parallel with Plex running on my 'server' (server is just the name for my PC that is full of hard drives currently - to be replaced by the NAS). Plex is running on both until the NAS has proven itself for transcoding etc.
Before I was able to 'trust' the NAS (I am new to them) I have created the following NAS shares to match the folders/drives on my existing 'server' - Movies, Pictures, TV Shows, Documentaries, Music, Workstuff, Documents. I have in my existing 'server' a D drive, M drive, T drive and U drive (all 3TB) with all this data on it. I have setup some filesync sync jobs on my 'server' to copy all changes from these local drives to their corresponding NAS shares. The NAS has all been working fine so I am about to 'roll out' the NAS for this data, then remove the physical drives from my 'server'.
I was thinking of this -
Step 1 - Use one drive mapping from my 'server' as n: to the \\readynas\data share as an admin share with no view of hidden files/folders in explorer (so only the created shares are seen) i.e 'net use n: \\readynas\date /user:admin password'. That way the 'server' PC will see N:\Movies, N:\TVShows, N:\Music, N:\Pictures, N:\Workstuff. I fel this would be easier to manage than creating multiple mapped drives to each share on the NAS. Im after some direction on this. I am the only user so security will not be an issue.
Step 2 - The plex running on the NAS looks at its local NAS drive - so no changes required there. But for the time being, I still want to run Plex on my 'server' PC, but change Plex (on the 'server') to monitor the n:\movies, n:\TVShows, N:\Documentaries - so both Plex's are looking at the same files on the NAS. Once done, I can remove the corresponding 3TB drives in the server machine as they wont be used.
Step 3 - I run MediaCentreMaster on the PC 'server' that download TV shows, gets metadata etc and that can be changed to write to N:\TVShows on the NAS.
Step 4 - The readynas software on the 'server' if I tell it to create a backup of my local server 'Documents', it creates a share on the readynas as SERVER-Documents. It is best instead for me to work off the readynas itself and change my 'server' PC to use N:\Documents instead, hence I would save nothing to my local PC. Further to this, I have tested out iSCSI and that all work fine - should I create an IScsi area instead so that my PC drive is actually on the NAS regardless, and hence not work on shares ? My PC 'Server' has a 512GB SSD as its C drive that currently houses (in addition tot he OS) documents, picture, and music, which I imagine will be much faster to access locally- so should I keep using them locally, and backup to the NAS. Finally, if I am to keep saving these locally ont he server, rather than have the Readynas software backing up to 'SERVER-Documents', "SERVER-Pictures" and "SERVER-MUSIC", I was thinking of just running my automated 'FileSync' batch jobs to copy/update the files on the 'normal' NAS shares.
Step 5 - Live TV Recording. I currently run Windows Media Center on the 'server', with 3 HDHomeRun Dual network tuners (so 6 tuners) and that writes recorded TV to m:\RecordedTV. I want to back this up so I can either change it to write to N:\RecordedTV on the NAS, or I can have a sync process ? or shoudl I use the IScsi drive ? I have tried the DVBLink software to move away from WMC completely but as I am heavily invested in IceTV, this software does not seem to offer me the same control, the same guide info, and was recording duplicate shows in my testing, so for now, I think I will stay with WMC - maybe the future HDHomeRun DVR software will run on the Readynas and that will be a better solution.
Notes - so far I dont use ITunes on the NAS (may later). I use 4 x xbox360 and 1 x XboxOne machines with plex native app for the content delivery, but also have one Roku3 player.
So, again, sorry for the long post, it is my first here....... In summary, I dont know if there are any out there with the same requirements exactly as me, so I am after some replys on how you use your NAS for this stuff, and why.
One thing you haven't mentioned is NAS backup - which is a critical piece. RAID is handy, but RAID arrays and devices fail. So you should have a NAS backup strategy in place.
You certainly can use the admin account and map \\nas\data to a single drive letter (n in your case). I do that on one PC (which also runs its own Plex).
You can also create shortcuts on the desktop, or add network locations to "computer". Some applications support network locations directly (\\nas\foldername format), so you might not really need to map a drive letter.
I am not sure what you are trying to accomplish in step 4. Sometimes it sounds like you don't want to directly store documents on the PC, sometimes it sounds like you do. I also don't understand why you settled on iSCSI, and what benefit you see in copying data in the iSCSI LUN to a NAS share. It sounds too complicated unless I am missing something.
What I do is use a PC backup tool (Acronis TrueImage in my case) to back up the C drive of each my PCs to a NAS share. Periodically I look through the documents, and re-organize them into folders on the NAS. Though I have multiple PCs (it sounds like you do not).
Right now I don't use iSCSI at all (for anything). I'm not particularly adverse to it, I just haven't found any need to use it. iSCSI isn't set up for multiuser, and as far as the NAS is concerned the iSCSI LUN is opaque (it has no idea what's stored in the LUN). (There is also a Microsoft equivalent called a VHD, which is also opaque, can be encrypted, and can be hosted on the NAS. Though the NAS has no direct tools to create this, it is just a big file as far as it is concerned).
If you have an application where that opaqueness is an advantage, then by all means use iSCSI. But I don't have a need for it myself, and would just as soon be able to access the files directly from the NAS from any device. NAS backup is also more efficient (and easier) if you don't use iSCSI. And AntiVirus can be used, etc.
I have external 3TB and 5TB USB3 Drives that I forgot to mention - as they are currently configured to backup my 'server' every night and sync changes from TVShows, Movies, RecordedTV, pictures, Music, Books etc. Once I move all this to the NAS, then they will be connected to the back of the NAS and put into play there instead. I was saving that for another post as there seems to be much discussion on that. I want a backup that is readable by windows so when I go away on holiday etc, I grab those drives and put them in the boot of the car at the airport. The documents are synced to dropbox which covers the most important. The workstuff is synced to another external USB drive that goes to and from work with me (and synced to work PC also). This drive also is copied to my work PC.
This will all be another post.
In reply to your 'local documents' question - I guess I am after what others do ? I am fine to work off the NAS or also fine to work locally and backup to the nas. The build in readynas app on the 'server' pc however creates backup folders I dont really like (SERVER - Documents, SEVER - Pictures, Server - Music), so I think I would prefer to either :
1 - keep on the PC server and manually sync to the shares on the nas as required (backups therefore are done in that process, plus the ability to ready those NAS folders should the kids ever want too). 2 - keep it on the nas and work from the NAS (and lose the speed of my local SSD drive).
I will ignore IScsi for this functionality for now then (but will use it for my future vmware vsphere as is the norm)
I don't use the readynas app on the PC (its backup is limited to specific folders). Though I think the reason for the SERVER- convention is just to allow multiple PCs to be backed up.
Another option for manual sync is to use a Robocopy batch file script on the PC.
>>>I am fine to work off the NAS or also fine to work locally and backup to the nas. We do some of both. A lot of documents are only on the NAS. Though generally new documents begin life on a local PC. My work stuff is kept on my work laptop.
Nice1. Cheers. I will work locally for Documents, Music, Pictures, Workstuff and have the usual nightly filesync batch process (like robocopy) to update the NAS shares then. Just gotta find a use for 3 x 3TB drives now.....
