Project NAS Server

Finally found a case. Change the case to this one because of the price.
For the same price as the Lian Li PC-Q08B I have 2 of these and I needed two of these to move my current NAS to.

Project NAS Server

I check this evening a bit what motherboard to use. I wanted a mini ITX board and there are 2 main options:
1. An Intel Atom and onboard raid or on a small daughter board like with the jetway.
2. AMD E350 board + RAID controller

The AMD is in general a bit faster and newer, for example you have PCI-e, usb 3 and 4 sata 600 connections. But no raid support on the board itself. In my current server I have a 4 port raid controller and this cost around 100€ and a board of this type can be found for about 85€.

Intel board are starting from around 50€ but the version with the feature I want on board is something like 160€. So the price is more or less the same.

Software raid is also an option but I don't have much experience with it, so I feel more for hardware raid for now.

At the end I preferred the AMD E350 a bit more because it is generally faster and newer features.

On ebay I found a raid controller “HighPoint RocketRAID 2640X4” for about 65€ + 24€ shipping cost.

For the motherboard I’m looking to buy 1 of these two:
1. ASRock E350M1
2. Sapphire PURE White Fusion E350 IPC-E350M1W

I will wait for ordering this until I know what case I will take.

Next thing is check the power supply option but this will be for tomorrow.

Project NAS Server

Thinking about the hardware a mini ITX board as based looks like the best solution for what I need. AMD just launch his Fusion platform what looks like something powerful enough for what I want to do, it has 4 sata 600 port, PCI-e, usb 3, …, but none of then having any RAID options. Intel Atom platform you can find boards that have Raid build in but most of them not so powerful and with raid option the price good up. I will have to look in to this a bit more. But I’m sure to take a mini ITX board because of the power consumption that is low and the price that is good.

To find a case seems to be the biggest problem.

Real server cases cost too much, for 4 bays it is easily 150+. Looking at servers I also can across HP HomeServer that has a nice case and in total not so expensive, but only supporting Raid 0 + 1.

Then I was thinking about a desktop case, but when they are big enough the price is too high and most other version can only hold 2 hdd.

Another option was a standard midi tower case but I wanted something smaller than that.

So I found this option:

Lian Li PC-Q08 has 6 bays can fit a normal power supply and still room for a dvd-rom. The price was only a bit to the limit 85€. But until know it is the best option I could find. And ideas or suggest about this are welcome.

http://lian-li.com/v2/tw/product/upload/image/pc-q08/flyer.html

Projects

I started 2 projects this and last week.
And because I want to keep a history of it, I will try to use my blog.

Project 1 is because I all most don't have any HD space left anymore I need to have a second NAS server.
And on the side also redo a bit my current NAS server. The machine that is currently used was to play with Linux a bit and I added a raid control to it and in the time to test I install Windows Vista on it. I never removed/redo it since then.

So the search for Hardware and options is started. What is important here is a small case that can fit 4 or 5 HD and can be stacked. It also has to be low power stuff in idle as it will run probably the complete day.

I will post my progress on this in coming post. Any suggestions are welcome. :)

Second project is to work on the attic a bit. First plan there was to make 1 room out of it and that was done. But now the wife thought it is better to make 2 rooms of it so that the kids can sleep there.

I will post some progress about it this evening.

Transtec 5012

I just got a Transtec 5012 for free. After installing a server for a customer he ask if I would like to have his Transtec 5012 including 12 disks of 250gb. And I said yes.

The Transtec 5012 is a 5 year old 12 disk pata array that needs to be connected to a scsi control of a computer. I also got the scsi controller (adaptec 29160). Did a quick test and only 1 drive is failing. So this weekend I will configure it using RAID 5.

Mini Mac

Already for a few weeks now the mini mac is getting slow. After some troubleshooting it looks like the harddisk is ready to break.

So solution a new harddisk...

Without check if any HD will do I bought a 500gb 2,5 HD to replace the current 120Gb HD.
Had some fight to open the mini mac, and forgot to take some picture, but the drive is now install.

Then reinstall mac os X because any lazy I took the first disc I found, I suspect a copy of mac os 10.6, drop it into the drive and guess what it didn't boot on it. Search internet telling a lot of buttons to push but now boot. Finally I went and took the original cd's. And then I had to remove the DVD inside it. But this was not possible mac pc's don't have a button for ejecting the cd/dvd and the keyboard button was not working after trying different things the only solution I found was to open the drive itself and take out the cd.

The rest of the install went prefect.

RAID troubles

After a lot of tries and a few raid cards tested, I finally got a working RAID system in my home server. Running windows vista, something I have to change soon. Think about Linux or window server 2008.

After 2 month running troubles started. When Bittorrent is running after 30 min the speed went to 10k our something like that and the raid disk can't be accessed anymore. When I request the machine to do a restart it was blocking and I had to manually stop and start the server.

Investigation on the problem reveals a message from the RAID system in the event viewer. But I could not find any info on internet about it:

The device, \Device\Scsi\2310_001, did not respond within the timeout period.

A firmware update of the RAID card (highpoint 2310 with four disk of 1T in RAID 5) didn't solve the problem.
After checking it further I see in the log of bittorrent a message about 100% overload. Again on internet not a lot of useful information, a few tips to avoid the problem but not really solving it like:

1. Increase cash because the message means that the cash is full an can't be write to the hard drive, but making the cash bigger is only delaying the problem.
2. Check the mode of the disk drives that it isn't set to PIO
3. And a few others

Nothing that work then I check what the disk cash option where of bittorrent and you have options like "don't use windows disk cash", after un-checking all these option it is WORKING again. I don't now what the cause is of this but it is working :)

Linksys Kiss DP-1600

Some more playing with the linksys.

It is not so bad. Only had problems with a few files to play. HD stuff I have will not play without converting, something I will not do. But the solution for this can be media servers like Tversity, that can convert on the file. Will test this later on. But in general I like it. The dvd player is good.

You also find some media sharing software like freekiss on internet the make sharing of the files easier then the default software of Linksys. I also did some test with wireshark to see how the linksys is communicating with the software and it is looking easy. So later on I will try to create some thing to do the sharing myself. When it is done, or started, I will publish the software some where.

The negative point about the linksys is support of the linksys it self. This is very poor. No new firmware sins a will now. And there are still a few bug to solve. Also missing a timer on the player.

Apple TV

Yesterday I didn't had the time to pick up the apple TV now I have to wait for 2 week after my vacation. So later more about this

Linksys Kiss DP-1600

Finally the time to look at the new Linksys.
First some picture:
It is looking nice. About have the width of a standard A/V device.
First thing to do was installing it. That went without any problems, I'm using the SCART cable because the TV in the bedroom is an old one.

Then turning it on and the basic setup went like a dream. I 'm using the wireless connection for now. The entry thing toke about 10 min.

First thing I checked was the Firmware, on the site the latest firmware is v1.1.17 but the one install was v1.2. A bit strange so after some searching on internet I found that the 1.2 was only install on the newer device and never release to the public, why nobody now.

So next thing a DVD works perfectly.

Then the real stuff, playing with the network. You have about 4 web service of the device but all in English and most of then not really useful for me (My wife does speak very well English).

Installing the PC-link on one of my computers to test the media part. The installation went good and the software works OK. At last for the first 2 min I used it. I added some folders with some movie to test and the player played all of then. Tomorrow I will take a look to install it on my server and do some more tests with more different formats.

Server to warm

Shit,
I just see that there where troubles on my array in my home server, due to warm inside the server, I think anyway. Now I'm searching for a good tool to monitor these values. Any ideas?

6 disc in on standard desktop case is many a bit to much. With these temperatures.

Apple tv

I just see that I won a apple tv on Internet. The version that has 40 gb for something like 122,5€. I will try to pick it up today. And let you now what I find of it.

Linksys Kiss DP-1600

After my DVD player in my bedroom went dead I looked around to buy a new player but I wanted to have a device that also could play stuff from my network.

The specs I was searching:
-DVD player
-Network access
-Played almost anything (for example mkv)
-Not to expensive
-Harddrive support.
-Upnp

I look at the new Popcorn hour C-200. It looked like it can do all I want it to do (and more), only the price in Europe is a bit high for now.

Looking a bit more I found the Linksys Kiss series that wasn't looking so bad. So after reading a lot about this device and not having a lot of other options I bought the KISS 1600 on internet for about 99€ + 15€ shipping.

Negative point where for me:
-No support for mkv
-Not playing everything correctly
-And bad support from linksys. Helpdesk and firmware support.

But I needed a dvd player so for that price I could try it.
btw if you any other device that can do the stuff I want please tell me.

The player arrived yesterday and I will test it tomorrow.
I will (try) to post some picture and comments on my first impression as soon as I can.