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Synology Announces 4-bay NAS with Support for Apple's Time Machine

Ryan Whitwam — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:50:10 -0600

Synology has a history of making excellent NAS boxes, and the new four bay DS410j is no exception. Front and center on the spec sheet is support for Apple’s Time Machine backup system, a rarity on third-party NAS units.

The unit is designed for home and entry-level business use. The four drive bays can take up to 2TB 3.5 inch drives. The DS410j also supports multiple RAID configurations when loaded with multiple compatible drives. Automated backup and DNLA support come standard as well. The DS410j can be purchased with or without hard drives preinstalled, but either way it’s going to be pricey. If you look around, the driveless version can be had for a bit under $400.

LG Unveils New 2TB NAS with Built-In DVD burner

Ryan Whitwam — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:16:24 -0500

LG has chosen CEDIA as the venue to show off its new N2R1 NAS box. The product’s aim, according to the press release, is to protect digital media files. The unit is capable of up to 2TB of RAID storage, and has a built-in DVD burner. Other specs include DLNA, Ethernet, and WiFi. Unfortunately, the wireless networking is limited to 802.11g. With 2TB of storage, you might want to wire this one in via Ethernet.

The system has remote access support, allowing consumers to access their files from any internet connection. The N2R1 is fully compatible with Windows, Linux, and Mac operating systems. LG’s new NAS will be available sometime this fall with a price of $299 for the 1TB version, or $399 for 2TB.

New Adaptec System Promises Massive Increase in RAID Array Performance

Ryan Whitwam — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 20:48:12 -0500

Adaptec seems to have come up with a new use for sold state drives. The new MaxiQ RAID controller cards use a modified 32GB Intel X25-E SSD, in conjunction with Adaptec software, to dramatically increase RAID array performance. How dramatically? The company is claiming a fivefold performance boost. The system also requires no operating system drivers, meaning it should be compatible with all setups.

SSDs are known for their performance, but have yet to catch up to standard rotating drives in capacity. The new Adaptec system aims to get the best of both worlds with huge read/write speeds, and the capacity people are accustomed to. The kits won’t come cheap, though. Each 32GB module has a retail price of $1295.

HighPoint RocketRAID 2640x4

Nathan Edwards — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:00:03 -0500

A decent entry-level RAID card

Power users who want to take advantage of RAID are typically stuck between a rock and a hard place: their motherboard’s integrated RAID (the quality of which can vary wildly between chipsets) and expensive discrete controllers. HighPoint’s RocketRAID 2640x4 attempts to bridge the gap by offering better-than-onboard performance at a price much lower than fancier discrete cards.

As expected, the RocketRAID 2640x4, which has four SAS/SATA 3Gb/s ports but no onboard processor or memory, performed better than our test bed motherboard’s onboard RAID controller but couldn’t match the performance of the $450 Adaptec 5405, which boasts an onboard 1.2GHz processor and 256MB DDR2 cache.

Setting up the RocketRAID 2640x4 is simple: Drop in the card, hook up the drives, power up your computer, and hit Ctrl+H during boot. HighPoint’s BIOS makes creating and maintaining RAID a snap, and its Windows drivers are easy to install from the included disc.

The RocketRAID 2640x4 is inexpensive, easy to use, and offers huge RAID 5 write speed improvements over integrated controllers.

In two-disk RAID 0, the RocketRAID averaged 174MB/s reads and 148MB/s writes, slightly better than the EVGA’s 166MB/s and 135.9MB/s, but no match for Adaptec’s 210MB/s and 209MB/s. RAID 5, however, is where the difference between onboard RAID and even an inexpensive discrete card like the 2640x4 shines through. Echoing results from our May 2008 RAID controller showdown, using a discrete RAID controller rather than onboard upped RAID 5 write speeds nearly tenfold: 216.5MB/s on the 2640x4 versus only 25.3MB/s onboard. The 2640x4 even surpassed Adaptec’s much more expensive RAID controller in RAID 5 writes, though the Adaptec far outstripped the RocketRAID’s read speeds.

In our previous RAID card roundup, the RocketRAID 3510 took high honors for speedy RAID 5 performance on the cheap, and the 2640x4 continues that trend. As we said at the time, whether you need a discrete RAID card really depends on what you’re doing with it. For RAID 0, an entry-level RAID card like the 2640x4 offers modest boosts over the motherboard’s controller, while a more expensive card will give you bigger gains. In RAID 5, adding a drop-in card will immediately give you a significant increase in average write speeds.

The HighPoint RocketRAID 2640x4 isn’t the most feature-rich RAID card we’ve ever tested, but you get a lot of performance for $140, especially if you want to run RAID 5. The low price point, decent performance, and ease of use make this a good choice for an entry-level RAID controller.

RAIDing Spaces

The Maximum PC Staff — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:00:10 -0500

I have RAID 0 on my PC and store my OS on it. But what else goes there? Do I install my games to the RAID or to my other drive? I also have games imaged so I don’t need the CD/DVD. Should those games be on the RAID or not? Are there any apps that would do better on the RAID? As it stands, I install most of my apps to the RAID 0 (Firewall, antivirus, Yahoo!, etc.). Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

—Martin Cates

Martin, the rule we generally follow is that documents, music, movies, etc., reside on a secondary drive. RAID 0 is fast and useful for running your operating system and oft-used programs like games—depending on your RAID controller, you can nearly double your read and write speeds, offering a big performance boost. But because your data is striped across two drives, the chance of mechanical failure doubles, and RAID arrays are susceptible to motherboard problems too—the last thing you want is a BIOS update destroying your data. So, weigh your options: A RAID 0 array is great if you’re chasing speed, but you run a greater risk of data loss, and it’s certainly going to be more expensive than buying a single high-performance drive.

SUBMIT YOUR QUESTION Are flames shooting out of the back of your rig? First, grab a fire extinguisher and douse the flames. Once the pyrotechnic display has fizzled, email the doctor at doctor@maximumpc.com for advice on how to solve your technological woes.

Backing up 2TB?

The Maximum PC Staff — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 11:25:46 -0500

I have 2TBs of movies that I’m afraid I’ll lose if the NAS device they’re stored on fails. Is it possible to recover the files on these hard drives by putting them in another device, or do I have to have the same product I’m using now? Making DVDs for 2TB of files is not realistic and I don’t really want to buy another 2TB of hard drives just for backup. How long can I expect a typical hard drive to retain data before it fails? One year? Five?

—Norm

This is a problem that’s going to crop up more and more often now that storage size is increasing so rapidly—how do you back up 2TB worth of data? Depending on how your NAS formats its internal drives (for example, if they’re in a RAID), you might not be able to just stick the hard drives in a different device and expect them to work. If the NAS tanks, rather than the disks themselves, you’d think you’d be able to put the drives in a new unit of the same model, but rebuilding RAIDs on different controllers is an iffy proposition.

We know you don’t want to plunk down a few Franklins on backup drives, but we honestly think that’s the best course of action—stick a few large drives in your main rig and back up your NAS to them. You can grab a couple 1.5TB drives for about $130 each; that’ll give you room to back up and room to grow. And although it may seem counterintuitive to back up your NAS to your desktop, what else are you going to do?

As to your second question, hard drives can fail at any time, but we usually expect them to last around five years. It’s not a bad idea to upgrade every few years anyway, as storage gets faster, better, and cheaper.

Ask the Doctor: RAM Timing Again

The Maximum PC Staff — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 00:37:56 -0500

I’m building a new system consisting of an Intel Q9650 processor, an EVGA 790i Ultra SLI mobo, an EVGA GTX 280 videocard, 2GB of Corsair Twin 3X2048-1600C7DHXG memory, a SoundBlaster X-Fi XtremeGamer PCI soundcard, three SATA 500GB 5000AAKS Western Digital hard drives, and a retail version of Windows XP Pro with SP2. My BIOS is Phoenix Award. I have all default settings for everything in the BIOS except I disabled HD Audio.

When I try to load Windows, I get a generic blue screen that tells me to run a system diagnostic, do a memory check, and remove any mismatched memory or newly installed hardware. I’m wondering if I might have a conflict with the Corsair memory. The motherboard’s spec sheet states that it supports dual-channel DDR3 800/1,066/1,333, and SLI-ready memory up to 2,000MHz.

In a recent review of the 790i Ultra, you used 2GB of Crucial 1,333MHz on the mobo. Was this memory EPP 2.0, or do you need EPP 2.0 at slower speeds? My RAM is rated at 1,600MHz, but the BIOS tells me that EPP 2.0 is not detected. I have the latest BIOS version, but there is no listing for enabling SLI memory under the Advanced Chipset section in the FSB & Memory Config subsection. Does this appear if EPP 2.0 memory is detected? Can I run higher-speed non-EPP 2.0 memory, or would this create a conflict with Windows?

I also read in the “BIOS Tweaks” article (November 2008) that not addressing the AHCI issue could cause Windows to not load. I would like to eventually set up a RAID, but can I disable AHCI to load Windows or do I need to load AHCI drivers at the
F6 point?

—Thomas DeKalb

The Doctor’s gut feeling is that you have a RAM timing issue. To eliminate any problems, you should make sure you are running default timings and speeds for the RAM and front-side bus. Go into the BIOS and set the RAM at DDR3/1333 and set the timing at default values and make sure that SLI memory is disabled. You should now be able to install XP without issues.

Once you’re up and running, you can increase your clocks. Remember that to get the higher speeds out of DDR3 (at least with Core 2 machines), you’ll need to increase the voltage to the modules. For the 1600C7DHXG, you’ll need to run it at 1.80 volts, with a timing of 7-7-7-20.

As far as RAID support goes, Nvidia does not support AHCI with its chipsets. But one of the pluses of the nForce chipset is that you can configure the SATA ports as RAID after the fact.

The Freeware Files: Make the Most of your Spare Storage with Five Freeware Servers!

David Murphy — Tue, 26 May 2009 12:30:00 -0500

So here's the deal. You have a ton of extra storage sitting around your house/apartment/basement. That's great. So what's the problem? It's just sitting there, doing you absolutely no good. You've maxed out the SATA ports on your desktop rig, but would love for a way to make use of your hard drives in some manner that's geekier than a doorstop, a height extension for your coffee table, or a crude weapon.

Have you thought about building your own server?

Woah, woah. Don't skip over this article just yet. It sounds complicated, but crafting up your own personal server for your files (and multimedia) isn't that complicated. In fact, for some of the free solutions I'm about to show you, all you need is a working PC that accepts USB keys. That's it. Plug it in, fire up the software, and you'll have a brand-new storage array that's ready to receive your file backups and music files in equal measure. And why is that important? Because you're probably not running a RAID array on your main PC--if your primary drive goes, that's it. Game over. End of story. And if you're the most backup-conscious person around, wouldn't it be nice to have a low-powered PC that serves up multimedia for any networked computer in your abode? I thought so.

unRAID Server

What it does: Boot this free server from a flash drive and you'll be ready to tap into the power of RAID-based redundancy for your files in no time. Unlike a traditional RAID-based NAS, the proprietary technology found in unRAID allows for multiple drive failures without a catastrophic loss of data. Sure, you'll lose whatever files happened to be on said dead drives, but you won't lose an entire array's worth of material as if you just watched two drives in your RAID 5 array disintegrate. Although unRAID is Linux-based, you can access its configuration screens via a standard Web browser. Take that, complexity.

Download it here!

FreeNAS

What it does: The ever-tiny FreeNAS requires few resources to operate: 128MB of RAM and at least 32MB of free storage space on any number of potential candidates, including USB keys, CDs, and other forms of portable storage (CF cards, anyone?) But that's not to say that FreeNAS is light on its features to match. RAID functionality, Web-based file management, iTunes server support, and an integrated BitTorrent client are among some of the unique applications you'll find on this lightweight server software. Heck, you can even encrypt your drives as well--an ideal solution if you'll be making heavy use of FreeNAS' torrent features, to say the least...

Download it here!

ClarkConnect

What it does: This kitchen sink of server software blends a large number of services and software applications into its meaty 513MB package. Where to begin? Firewall functionality is included, as is bandwidth management technology and VPN connectivity. You can use ClarkConnect to share contacts, calendars, and tasks--amongst other Outlook and Thunderbird-based features--with all the PCs connected to your network. LAN-based backup is included in the installation, as well as integrated FTP server functionality and user-based file shares. If you're looking for a total-package home server, you'd be wise to consider ClarkConnect. If media-sharing is your only interest, you would be better-served by a simpler server solution.

Download it here!

Amahi Home Server

What it does: This no-fuss home server software is free to operate and only requires that you have a working Fedora 10 operating system prior to installation. The Web site walks you through the brief install process, which then opens up your home network to server-based file hosting, backups, media sharing, and integrated search via your Web browser of choice. On top of that, Amahi's rich community has generated a number of add-ons that extend the power and functionality of this robust server software. Because of these, you can blend BitTorrent downloading, media catalogues, Web-based media streaming, and a sharable recipe book, as well as other features, into your default installation.

Download it here!

Tonido

What it does: Do you want the functionality of a full-fledged home server for your desktop machine, but still want to retain your standard, working operating system for normal use? Check out Tonido. Install this application and you can access a variety of server-themed services from any Web browser on the planet. Share the photographs on your home PC using an easy-to-access Web interface--files too. You can pull up and play your music collection as if you were sitting right in front of your desktop PC, as Tonido eliminates the need to install and configure fancy network tunneling software or VNC connectivity just to access an iTunes share. For the worker bee, Tonido's built-in workspace for note-taking, calendaring, and contact-sharing is ideal for maintaining a central repository of your thoughts. Oh, and the software integrates with Twitter too, just in case you needed to share those 140-character witticisms as well.

Download it here!