[CentOS] OT: Home NAS device

[Guy Boisvert]

Rob Townley wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 12:35 PM, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com 
> <mailto:lesmikesell at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     Joseph L. Casale wrote:
> 
>             The Dlink DNS-323 looks exactly what you are asking of
> 
> 
>         What a procedure to hack that thing!
> 
>                 The problem I see with going the all-in-one NAS route is
>                 that down the
>                 road, there's always some function you'd like to add -
>                 but you can't.
>                 You've hit the limitations of the box.
> 
> 
>         That's why I want to put straight Linux on it:)
> 
>         As fun as hacking that thing would be, I might just buy one of
>         the tiny
>         boards, but for the price if I brick the DNS-323 it would still
>         be fun
>         and I wouldn't really care!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> http://www.readynas.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/readynas_specs.swf
>  
> 

I had the ReadyNAS NV+ and finally sold it because i found it too slow 
and too choppy.  To reach its full potential, which on paper is supposed 
to be able to transfer around 30 MBps (i never go that), you have to use 
jumbo frames and gigabit ethernet.

The problem is that the CPU is very slow.  The ReadyNAS was supposed to 
offer shell access but it never happened during the time i had it.  The 
ReadyNAS was one of the fastest on the market if not the fastest.  Then 
Infrant was bought by Netgear.

Sure it had many cool features like their X-Raid technology.  The casing 
was slick and solid.  I used it for storing my music (i do disk jockey) 
and the ReadyNAS was choppy.  It seems to be weak at multitasking 
requests (playing a song while searching for another).  Playing Music 
was glitching while i was doing a "filesystem search", not cool for a DJ!

I replaced the thing by an Asus micro-ATX mainboard and an Athlon Dual 
Core 4600+ i had here (there's so cheap now!).  I took the 4 hard drives 
i had on the ReadyNAS (Western-Digital 500 Gigs RAID Edition) and i do 
software Raid 5 with CentOS 5: the result is very good (transfer around 
35-40 MB/s and the cpu usage is low).  I experienced the Samba problem 
that made "disconfort" to Winblows XP but it's fixed now with the update 
of Samba.

If you're not into performance, one of these boxes could do it but don't 
expect something zippy.  Don't expect high transfer rate.

Guy Boisvert, ing.
IngTegration inc.