RipNAS

[gbruzzo]

super - ticks all the right boxes

[gbruzzo]

Ok, I can now post a short review.
I bought a RipNas Essentials with securerip to go with my T7 TranquilPc Windows Home Server.

As soon as my payment was cleared, I was provided with a link for the installation of the Windows Home Server Console add-in, which I duly installed. No problems whatsoever.

The next day I received the drive via courier, which runs on USB power. Once plugged in it was immediately recognized. I then proceeded to insert a couple of odd CDs - all recognized and faithfully ripped (both in burst and securerip mode).

Conclusion: RipNas does what it says, and does it (in my opinion) very well.

regards,

Giacomo Bruzzo

[spoon]

www.ripnas.com has gone live (for the WHS Ripping NAS box).

[upstatemike]

This looks very cool but I am still concerned about a WHS box having enough horsepower for larger installations (10 or more Squeezebox players playing in sync). Would the RipNAS be a good choice in these cases or would it be better to use a full XP server and just run DBpoweramp on it?

[spoon]

Horsepower concerns of the ATOM cpu? or Windows Home Server?

[upstatemike]

Horsepower concerns of the ATOM cpu? or Windows Home Server?

I don't really know. I have seen posts where people have had poblems with sync'd players served by WHS systems but I don't know if it is because of the OS or because these systems tend to be built on minimalist hardware platforms and are resource starved. I am just trying to understand if this is a real concern or was just unique to those particular individuals (maybe they were backing up their entire network to the WHS machine while also serving music to multiple payers?)I often sync a lot of players at once so I want to make sure there are no potential issues I need to watch out for.

[spoon]

If squeezecenter is not having to transcode the streams (ie in a native format) I would say the ATOM is more than powerful enough to pass 10 streams, but I will not try to fool you by saying I have tested 10 squeezeboxes - although it would be interesting to know what the limit is.

WHS underneath is Windows Server 2003, leaner and faster IMHO than even XP. WHS is often installed on 512MB memory systems (HP MediaSmart), which is a little low IMHO (600MB is being used right now on my test RipNAS with squeezecenter, RipNAS, firefly all running).

Backups tend to be scheduled for the small hours of the morning (the pcs on the network are woken, backed up and sent to sleep again).

[upstatemike]

If squeezecenter is not having to transcode the streams (ie in a native format) I would say the ATOM is more than powerful enough to pass 10 streams, but I will not try to fool you by saying I have tested 10 squeezeboxes - although it would be interesting to know what the limit is.

WHS underneath is Windows Server 2003, leaner and faster IMHO than even XP. WHS is often installed on 512MB memory systems (HP MediaSmart), which is a little low IMHO (600MB is being used right now on my test RipNAS with squeezecenter, RipNAS, firefly all running).

Backups tend to be scheduled for the small hours of the morning (the pcs on the network are woken, backed up and sent to sleep again).

It sounds like it would be fine but maybe a system with 2G of memory would be a good idea to be sure?

[spoon]

Secure versions of RipNAS will have 2GB of memory, I have a feeling that 1GB would be plenty for 10 streams, 2GB for sure.

[spoon]

We have announced RipNAS prices and expected delivery dates:

http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?t=17151