Advice: I don't know what I need... Server or NAS?

[DannyM]

Hey folks,

Sorry for the strange topic title, but it is exactly that, I am unsure as to what I need exactly.

I need something that serves the purpose of file storage, but I also need something that doesn't use much power. Now it is screaming NAS, but I'm studying at University and maybe having a server box with a small home server enviroment for me to fiddle with would perhaps help me get a better understanding of things.

I can get the latest server OS's for free through http://www.dreamspark.com/ (advantages of been a student )

I currently leave my computer on practically 24/7 and everytime the bill comes from electricity company, I get the evils from the parents, so I'm thinking I'll try do my bit just now.

For those that don't want to check my current system it's basically:

QQ6600 (OC'd 3.0GHz)
4GB RAM
1GB 4870

So you get the idea, it's a bit power hungry. (the PSU is the corsair 620HX modular I think that's what it's called anyhow, I'm pretty sure it's quite energy efficient, but the hardware it runs isn't)

So I'll layout some requirements just now:

• Most importantly has to be energy effcient.
• Quite a bit of room for storage, if a NAS, I'd probably want a few drive bays.
• Budget - Well there is and there isn't one. I'd like to avoid spending loads (like £500+) but if something is suggested that is worthy and it's above said budget, well A) I'll probably end up getting it and B) you'll get a slap even though you helped me -
• HDD space isn't really important now, I just need the piece of hardware to put said HDD's in.

I was originally looking at these:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/168130
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/168131

But it's fairly generic hardware inside, so wasn't too sure on how 'efficient' they would be.

I really would appreciate some advice, I mean, as I say a NAS does seem an obvious choice, but a server has a bit more flexibility.

Thanks in advance for any help, I could do with a bit

[jim]

Having had the opportunity to play around with Server 2003 at work, I'd pick that every time over a NAS. There's just so much more you can do - yes, a NAS has its own advantages, but at the end of the day it just isn't that flexible. It will save you money and probably do most of the things that you want it to, even torrent downloading or media sharing, but it just doesn't give you that room to experiment in the same way.

With a server, you can have a crack with your own DNS, active directory, web servers, all sorts of things. Not to mention that it's very easy to offload a lot of your computer's tasks to a server. For example, do you want to do some downloading - why not let the server do it whilst you play a game on the PC. Or you want to re-encode some video - chuck that onto the server while you use your PC, without it slowing down to the point of being unusable. Not all of those types of things will be possible with a NAS.

You might even want to look into Windows Home Server - it doesn't have the flexibility of a full Server OS, no active directory for example, but it has a lot of nice features and can do some pretty neat stuff. I have a Tranquil SQ-A5H with Windows Home Server on it. The only thing I would be careful of is to avoid full-on servers that need SCSI drives and FB-DIMMs... in my opinion it really isn't worth the additional expense for a simple server you're going to use on a small network.

[DannyM]

Having had the opportunity to play around with Server 2003 at work, I'd pick that every time over a NAS. There's just so much more you can do - yes, a NAS has its own advantages, but at the end of the day it just isn't that flexible. It will save you money and probably do most of the things that you want it to, even torrent downloading or media sharing, but it just doesn't give you that room to experiment in the same way.

With a server, you can have a crack with your own DNS, active directory, web servers, all sorts of things. Not to mention that it's very easy to offload a lot of your computer's tasks to a server. For example, do you want to do some downloading - why not let the server do it whilst you play a game on the PC. Or you want to re-encode some video - chuck that onto the server while you use your PC, without it slowing down to the point of being unusable. Not all of those types of things will be possible with a NAS.

You might even want to look into Windows Home Server - it doesn't have the flexibility of a full Server OS, no active directory for example, but it has a lot of nice features and can do some pretty neat stuff. I have a Tranquil SQ-A5H with Windows Home Server on it. The only thing I would be careful of is to avoid full-on servers that need SCSI drives and FB-DIMMs... in my opinion it really isn't worth the additional expense for a simple server you're going to use on a small network.

Thanks for that, your post makes a lot of sense, so it seems a server it is. Now all I need to do is spec something together that's energy efficient.

[abaxas]

Thanks for that, your post makes a lot of sense, so it seems a server it is. Now all I need to do is spec something together that's energy efficient.

You're going to be hard pressed to ever get near the efficiency of mini nas box.

My linkstation uses about 13 watts from the socket.

[DannyM]

You're going to be hard pressed to ever get near the efficiency of mini nas box.

My linkstation uses about 13 watts from the socket.

Now your just making things awkward

[Funkstar]

This is what i've posted on the subject in the past on another forum

How much is this little system going to cost you?
How much can you buy a second hand, basic PC for? (probably < 100 Euro)

What are your running costs for the low power system?
What would be your running costs for the second hand PC once you strip everything you don't need out of it? (optical drive, floppy, card readers, etc.)

Now taking these two comparisons into account, how long is it going to take you to spend more on energy powering the second hand PC, than the purchase and running costs of the Geode system?

And if you are doing it for environmental reasons, then buying new hardware to save the environment is not going to work and is flawed thinking The carbon footprint to you for the Geode will be a lot higher than the zero for recycling the second hand PC (someone else has already taking the carbon footprint hit for buying that one new in the first place). And as a bonus, the second hand PC will have the performance to run other services if you needed and will be far quicker at serving your 3 or 4 Classics.


However, you can ignore all that if you want to build this as an excercise in putting together something cool

The original thread is here: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?p=409310

[DannyM]

It's not enviromental reasons, it's to save money just compared to my current system.

I'm going to start getting some stuff together just now, it seems like a server would be the better option. I'd ideally like to know what is going into it, so I can get a rough idea of how efficient it will be, so a second hand system maybe out of the question unless I know everything about the insides of it.

[Funkstar]

It's not enviromental reasons, it's to save money just compared to my current system.

The same reasoning, especially the first paragraph still stands though.

If you spend say £300 building a new low power PC, how long will it take to save that £300 in reduced energy usage?

[jim]

It's not enviromental reasons, it's to save money just compared to my current system.

I'm going to start getting some stuff together just now, it seems like a server would be the better option. I'd ideally like to know what is going into it, so I can get a rough idea of how efficient it will be, so a second hand system maybe out of the question unless I know everything about the insides of it.

Well, if you look at the specs of my Tranquil Server in my sig you can see it really doesn't require anything at all. I've got an Atom 330 and 2GB RAM (more a case of why not than anything else, I didn't want to have to open the case to upgrade later), and have never had any problems with it at all.

I'd say cool and quiet was the most important thing for me (a loud one would've been within earshot of my bedroom), followed quickly by aesthetics and size, as it was going to be visible and I didn't have a lot of space. Performance came a very very long way behind those two, and it still didn't matter.

[arthurleung]

Now your just making things awkward

My laptop idles at 17W from the socket if that is what you want to compare...That is with a 2.5" HDD though. And unless you're running at GbE speed I don't see why would it even go over 30W.

For Maximum Transfer Rate Mbps/Watt NAS can't beat a "server" tuned for energy efficiency under any circumstances.

If I'm building my own NAS now I'll look at second hand Athlon 64 / Sempron (<100W all up), or an older model Atom netbook (~17W) or a 2nd hand laptop (keep in mind 2nd hand might have some faults that doesn't appear until after a couple months). A cheap 2nd hand Sempron system will most likely be cheaper than any other options including NAS boxes.