NAS Devices

[Paul Runyan]

Paul - IMO the UI is acceptably responsive. However, the speed is not as fast as compared to my 2.6MHz Athlon server. The only latency that I experience is when attempting to browse my rather large music folder while it's serving music. Browsing albums, artists, jumping to next track, etc., is quite responsive. Cheers, mac.

Thanks Mac. I''ll go ahead and order one.

[haberschnasel]

I own a Linkstation and plan to connect a Squeezebox to it. This is what I will do:
1) Update the Linkstation with a hacked firmware: http://linkstationwiki.org/Projects/OpenLink
2) Install the LS development tools:
http://linkstationwiki.org/Projects/DevelopmentTools
3) Install Slimserver, i.e. the "Perl Source Code (tar.gz)" from http://slimdevices.com/su_downloads.html following the instructions on the lower part of the page http://fieldnetworks.com/slim/linkstation3.html
4) Install the CPAN modules for Perl that Slimserver requires: http://linkstationwiki.org/Projects/...mServerModules
5) Continue Slimserver setup and start it as described on the page http://fieldnetworks.com/slim/linkstation4.html

All this should be doable with virtually no linux knowledge. Just take care that there are two versions of the LS around, see http://linkstationwiki.org/Main/FAQ (I gave the links for the PPC version). This Wiki really is the place for all Linkstation topics, questions and solutions.

Kerstin, you do not have to bother with manually hacking the LS or installing perl because the hacked fw update includes perl 5.8.7 already (and many more small goodies, like ssh access etc.). Moreover, there are no cgi problems reported for this fw version.

[pfm21]

I am a bit new here, so please forgive the newbie question. Over the course of my searches on this forum for an NAS device there are many references to 'power consumption.' Clearly this is an issue if you are going to leave something on 24/7. However I have not found any quantification of power consumption.

My preferred solution, so far, is to buy a mac mini and use it as a server. The only power related info I could find on the apple site is:

<<Maximum continuous power: 85W >>

Any idea if this is what people are referring to when they talk about power consumption? If so is 85W high or low? How does it compare to some of the out of the box NAS devices?

thanks for any help.

pm

[MrC]

People are more and more concerned about how much electricity appliances consume, especially those that run 24x7. Watt is a standard unit of power - more precisely, an amount of energy used per unit of time.

A Wattage rating on an electrical device indicates how much power the device will consume over a period of time. The 85W maximum power rating indicates that the unit will consume at most 85 Watts of power when operating at full capacity (ie. the disks are spinning up, fans are starting, etc.). The maximum rating is important to calculate circuit loads, so that circuits are not overloaded with too much equipment. It also indicates an amount of heat generated, which is useful for calculating, for example, air conditioning requirements.

Almost no devices consume on average their maximum ratings - rather, they consume typically far less, and some devices will have nominal wattage ratings (ie - a typical load).

It is difficult to describe how much power a Watt is in non-technical jargon, so its best to describe in relative terms. Consider a 100 Watt light bulb as a relative comparison.

Many "green" devices also operate in low-power modes, where they consume much less power during non-critical periods of time. Your computer might shut down the disks, or power down USB devices and root hubs to conserve energy when the system is idle. Your system might then be consuming only 15 Watts of power.

Servers would typically not go into power savings modes, as they are generally... serving something. Their disks will be spinning 24x7, the CPU running at full power, and RAM is not put into low power mode. This can be different for home-appliance type servers, where the system can go into lower power mode at night when the demands are much less.

Help this helps a bit.

[yahooadam]

hey guys

my dads friend is looking at buying a TeraStation

I was wondering, is it possible to hack these like the linkstations to run slimserver, as hes also interested in a squeezebox for his network, and any features are a benefit

[TiredLegs]

I am a bit new here, so please forgive the newbie question. Over the course of my searches on this forum for an NAS device there are many references to 'power consumption.' Clearly this is an issue if you are going to leave something on 24/7. However I have not found any quantification of power consumption.

My preferred solution, so far, is to buy a mac mini and use it as a server. The only power related info I could find on the apple site is:

<<Maximum continuous power: 85W >>

Any idea if this is what people are referring to when they talk about power consumption? If so is 85W high or low? How does it compare to some of the out of the box NAS devices?

thanks for any help.

pm

Average power consumption for my Buffalo LinkStation NAS is 21 watts, according to the manual. A 3GHz Pentium 4 processor alone consumes over 80 watts. That's just the processor chip, so there's no way a PC will come close to as low power as an NAS, unless the whole computer is put into a standby mode (a state in which it won't function as a server).