[ale] Home NAS

Ron Frazier atllinuxenthinfo at c3energy.com
Sun Jan 30 13:33:27 EST 2011


For Online backup, check out JungleDisk ( http://jungledisk.com ) which 
backs up in the background to Amazon's S3 servers.  They have highly 
reliable redundant multi-regional data centers.  You can program the 
software to back up the NAS to the Net.  Data storage is $ 0.15 / Mo. / 
GB.  It can add up if you have huge amounts of data.  Very configurable, 
and theoretically, very disaster proof.  After all, you want THEM to 
still be around, with your data, after a catastrophe.  Leo Laporte , 
uber podcaster at http://www.twit.tv has Carbonite as a sponsor.  $ 55 
or so / year.  I've never personally used them.  I don't think you can 
back up a NAS with them, only what's on your PC.

Depending on what you want to spend, I think Drobo ( http://drobo.com/ ) 
is probably the king of the hill in small NAS's in terms of flexibility 
and features.  I think it goes downhill from there.  If you can afford 
them, it should be great.  Disclaimer, I don't own one, but I want one!

No doubt, people on the list will probably point out how you can build a 
NAS with Linux, a spare PC, and a bunch of hard drives.

You'll probably want a commercial grade UPS.  I learned the hard way, 
you CANNOT read the label on a UPS box and take it at face value.  If it 
says you'll get 15 minutes run time, IT LIES, because more than likely, 
they are rating it at a totally unrealistic power drain of 100W or 
something.

The UPS has to run long enough to do a safe shutdown, and you have to 
set the power configuration settings on the computer properly and you 
have to connect the UPS to the PC and make sure they can see each 
other.  Ubuntu 10.04 recognized the unit I have with no problem.

I bought an APC Back-UPS ES 750.  I have a computer with a 4 core CPU 
and several hard drives on the UPS.  I also have two monitors on the 
same circuit.  These systems draw about 250 W at idle and about 400 W 
when the PC is fully loaded and running hard.  Don't plug laptops, which 
have their own battery, into the battery part of the UPS, unless their 
batteries don't work.

The box said 750 VA (approx 750W).  It also said 15 minutes run time 
(didn't read the fine print).  I figured I was OK.  WRONG!  I pulled the 
plug to test the system after the battery was charged.  Within 3 
(THREE!) minutes, the entire system lost power and damaged the file 
system.  I had to rebuild the entire system from backups.  It was not my 
intent to create a disaster by trying to prepare for one.

Now, 3 minutes is a very little time to shut down, particularly, since 
the control software typically wont even TRY to shut down until it 
thinks the battery has reached 15 % or something.  3 minutes is 180 
seconds.  Now, EVEN if the system reads the battery's charge state 
correctly, when the battery reaches 15 % under these conditions, there 
will be only 27 seconds of run time left.  That's cutting it very close 
for a Linux system which is busy, and it's hopeless for a Windows 
system.  (Also, an old weak battery can die when the system thinks it's 
at 50 % charge. )  On my windows system, I set the power controls to 
warn me when the battery reaches 85 % ( 15 % of power reserve gone - 27 
seconds after power failure - for THIS combination of battery and power 
drain ), and start the shut down sequence when the battery reaches 70 % 
charge ( 30 % of power reserve gone - 54 seconds after power failure ) 
.  Under these conditions, I should still have about 2 minutes of 
battery left before it dies, and hopefully it will have hibernated by 
then, but even that is marginal on Windows.  If the system is running 
Linux, it is much more likely that it will complete the shut down ( or 
hibernate) before the battery fails.

HOWEVER, (here's a question for the rest of you) - Ubuntu 10.04's power 
control application DOES NOT allow me the flexibility of setting the 
battery charge level where the warning and shutdown happens, as I CAN 
SET in Vista.  Ubuntu only asks what I want to do when the battery is 
critically low.  So, if it starts shutting down at 10 % or 15 % of 
battery charge remaining, which I suspect it will, the system may not 
survive a power failure even with the UPS, because it will have started 
to react too late.  If anyone else knows how to fix this, I'd love to 
know it.

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Ron


On 01/30/2011 12:18 PM, Asher Vilensky wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> I'm shopping for a home storage solution and thought to gather info 
> from the experience of users.  Here are my requirements:
>
>     * Need to support Mac, Windows (Samba ok), and Linux filesystems. 
>       Yup, all three.
>     * Need to be quite (we live in a small house...can't use a noisy
>       machine).
>     * Should have wireless accessibility so that wireless computers
>       can push data onto the device.
>     * Backup:  Either have backup capabilities or have something that
>       can push data onto  an internet based backup. The net backup is
>       almost preferred as it backs up the device itself.
>
>
> Comments will be welcome.
>
> Thanks.
>
> -- Asher
> man/listinfo
>    

-- 

(PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new messages very quickly.)

Ron Frazier

770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message.
linuxdude AT c3energy.com

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