Ok, so I've been wanting to get a NAS (Network Attached Storage) device for quite a while. And when Bloyd got one a while back, that just made it worse. (gadget envy)
I wanted something that would accomplish the following:
1) Backup my lappy--a lot of my critical data is somewhere in the Internet cloud, but there are some things that are nowhere but my lappy. Especially things like my pictures. If my laptop drive dies, I would loose years worth of irreplaceable pictures.
2) More storage space--I've got a 250Gb USB hard drive in the office and a 150Gb travel-sized USB drive that stays in the laptop bag. But they are getting full and I've had to start making decisions on what to keep and what has to go.
3) Redundancy--since this will be both a backup and storage solution, it needs to be redundant so that the failure of any single hard drive in the house (including its own) would not cause the loss of any data.
4) Access to all my files when not docked in the home office--right now, the 250Gb drive in the office has all of my media and some other data that I can't access unless I'm plugged-in in the office. It would be nice to have access to them when using the laptop on the couch. (like now)
5) Ability to print when not docked in the home office--I do quite a bit of stuff either in the living room or at the dining room table. It sucks to drag the lappy to the office and plug in just to print a receipt from Gmail.
6) Not ugly--I want all of this in a device that doesn't look like a giant, ugly computer. (especially since this might be placed in the living room)
7) Cheap--I could buy something pre-built, but I'm *way* too cheap for that.
After hearing several opinions of people who know more about this stuff than I do, I decided to build my own little PC that would run Windows Home Server.
Windows Home Server (WHS) is server software designed to be used exactly for these kinds of purposes. It's Windows Server 2003 with additional software designed to be used as a home backup / media / storage solution without the regular maintenance sometimes required by server operating systems. (handy, no?)
After some research and a stop by my local Fry's, I came home with:
All told, it put me back about $550. Yeah, I wish it didn't cost that much, but if wishes were horses, we'd all be eating steak. Also, you've got to remember that this setup includes a total of 3Tb of hard drive space.
I really like the case. It's slick, small and doesn't look much like a computer. (pill bottle added for size reference)
As expected, there isn't much space in there. Just enough room for me to put in what I bought. (note that the PCI slot at the front of the pic takes up almost half the length of the mobo)
There's barely enough room for the fan that just came with the CPU. It still amazes me that they run so hot that they need a heat sink and fan that big. (CPU on left, fan on the right)
Here's about halfway through the Windows install. I copied the install DVD to a USB memory stick and didn't have to touch the keyboard once during the install. Smooth as could be.
So, here's what it looks like all finished. But it still looks a bit too much like a PC...
Ah, that's better. (replaceable face-plates and a color printer--such a good combo)
It doesn't even look too out of place sitting on the entertainment center.
Now I've got a fully-functioning NAS. And since it just needs a power and network cable, I can hide it virtually anywhere in the house and not have to worry about maintaining it.
And it's still a fully-functioning Windows machine. I've got remote-control software so I can do things like install a BitTorrent client or anything else I want.
But the built-in Windows Home Server software looks sweet. It comes with some client software you install on all your home PC's and it automatically takes care of backups. It does such a good job that I know of someone who had a WHS like mine when his wife's laptop hard drive died. When he bought a new hard drive from the store, he literally booted from a custom CD that comes with WHS and an hour later the laptop was fully restored to exactly where it was before.
The client software also gives me a nice interface for maintaining most of the server settings I need. It also supports a "plug-in" interface so anyone can write plugins for WHS that you can then maintain without touching the server.
It also has a web interface so I can maintain or access my files from anywhere in the world.
I'm pretty impressed so far.
5 comments:
dont you have to keep it "on" all the time? Doesnt that mean you are burning extra energy for just keeping two copies of files?? How is it better then a huge external hard drive with microsoft synctoy ??? What if a power surge occurs? A virus attack?? Since both your operating system are similar, a virus on one would cause it to spread on the other too..
Good questions. Let me see if I can answer them all:
- It only has to be on when I want to access files. But since the goal is to be able to access files any time I want, that probably means that it will be on most all of the time. (turned off for vacation and such) This is one of the reasons I opted for the lower-consumption K45 case. (check the link in the post)
- Yes, I'm burning a little more energy by writing to two drives. But I'd rather burn that little more energy than loose my data if a drive dies.
- This is better than a huge external hard drive and SyncToy for a couple of reasons: 1) It is an actual full backup rather than individual folder copies and requires less maintenance and setup. (I used SyncToy and an external drive for a while) It also eliminates the chance that I miss selecting important data for SyncToy to copy. 2) Since it's on the network, I don't have to be physically connected to the drive to access my data.
- A power surge would likely cause the same problems (or lack thereof) if I was using this solution or a big external drive. (big external drives require external power as well)
- In the many, many, many years that I've been running Windows, as long as I've had virus scanning software installed (as I do), I've never had a single problem. I have no reason to expect this NAS will change that equation any.
(sorry for the long reply, but I wanted to make sure I answered your questions)
I don't think the post was nerdy, just the fact that you actually stopped to take photos of them all. LOL
:)
Ours looks like it belongs on the ent. center too. And it stays off mostly, we just back up stuff every now and then so there is a chance we could lose stuff but it wouldn't be much.
that bottle of vodka was quite impressive-looking. :) - sneffnie
I hear Charlie Brown's teacher talking. ; )
I wish you'd done this a year ago so then I wouldn't have wasted the money on the MediaVault. What you have built is pretty much exactly what I wanted for our place.
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