NAIM tested NAS drives

quote:

Originally posted by Dungassin:
Probably going to buy a NAS drive soon, and the Buffalo's look very interesting.

Just wondering if Naim have actually tested the Buffalo linkstation duo drives, as the idea of using RAID for backup redundancy is appealing - mainly for the security of having 2 copies of the data. If ordinary pro would get 2TB, if duo, would be the 4TB model (I've got a LOT of CDs)

Alas, when I look at the specs for these drives, I never see any information about how noisy they are. Very relevant if they are likely to be sited in the same room as the hifi!

Dungassin

RAID doesn't offer you any backup features, it just protects against sudden hardware failure.

It doesn't offer you any backup because if you or the OS writes a wrong file / deletes a file it will always write or delete it from the RAID section as well. So there is no protection again user or software failures only hardware failure.
Hardware failures are in my experience very rare if you use proper brand hardware and also a thing to remind is that when you start to use two new discs at the same time they will probably both die at around the same time because they have an equal life expectancy.

IMHO RAID is somewhat useless in a home situation. I have multi TB storage and I won't use RAID, I just make backups.

For true security you need to make backups with a proper backup software on an offline medium. I use a 2nd NAS with swappable drives to take the backups of my first NAS.

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aleg

quote:

RAID doesn't offer you any backup features, it just protects against sudden hardware failure.

It doesn't offer you any backup because if you or the OS writes a wrong file / deletes a file it will always write or delete it from the RAID section as well. So there is no protection again user or software failures only hardware failure.
Hardware failures are in my experience very rare if you use proper brand hardware and also a thing to remind is that when you start to use two new discs at the same time they will probably both die at around the same time because they have an equal life expectancy.

IMHO RAID is somewhat useless in a home situation. I have multi TB storage and I won't use RAID, I just make backups.

For true security you need to make backups with a proper backup software on an offline medium. I use a 2nd NAS with swappable drives to take the backups of my first NAS.

Thanks. The only reason I had was possible hardware failure. Over the years I have had several hard drives fail, and as a result I always keep 2 backups of all my files - currently on the little external laptop type drives. My standard approach (which I have recently followed again) is that, as soon as one of my backup hard drives fail, is to get another backup drive as soon as possible to replace it. Your solution sounds sensible.

So ... as regards the Buffalo pro drives (not duo) does it matter which model? As said before, I would be happier with a 2TB version if that will work OK with the Unitiserve.

quote:

Originally posted by Dungassin:

Thanks. The only reason I had was possible hardware failure.

OK, you are at least aware of it.

quote:

So ... as regards the Buffalo pro drives (not duo) does it matter which model? As said before, I would be happier with a 2TB version if that will work OK with the Unitiserve.

I have not seen any manual of the UnitiServe but I can't imagine storage size being of any consequence. That part, of maintaining the file structure, is taken care of by the NAS (which normally runs on some kind of Linux which you don't really notice much of).

I run a bigger than 2 TB NAS which I can happily approach from both my Windows machine ( like the UnitiServe is) and Linux based mediaplayer.

If you want to be 100% sure I would write an email to Naim support.

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aleg

quote:

I run a bigger than 2 TB NAS which I can happily approach from both my Windows machine ( like the UnitiServe is) and Linux based mediaplayer.

If you want to be 100% sure I would write an email to Naim support.

Not totally wedded to the Buffalo, but I had heard (forget where from) that it was quiet, which is important as it would be in the same room as the system.

I would keep that drive purely for audio use ATM.

Presumably if I manually backed up from an NAS drive to a detachable drive, the copy would still be bit-perfect?

quote:

Originally posted by Dungassin:
Presumably if I manually backed up from an NAS drive to a detachable drive, the copy would still be bit-perfect?

Yes, as long as your backup software does a verification run, to verify that the files backed up are identical to the originals.

If you are planning to do a manual copy by hand and not using Backup software, I would use an MD5 hashing program (freeware) to do the verification myself.

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aleg

Thanks. When I buy a backup drive for this purpose, I must remember not to delete the software supplied, which is my usual approach.

I can use a computer pretty basically compared with many of you, but even after 15+ years to be honest it's not much more to me than a typewriter connected to a thin black box and a little telly! By using analogies, I do understand what the main active components are inside, but that's it!

So you will understand that as interested as I am trying to become in this distibuted audio business, progress is slow.

So I would like to thank Paul very much for starting this very helpful thread of highly practical application.

A shortlist of partnering storage components of the necessary standard is very useful indeed.

By the time I can afford to dip my toes into the world of UnitiServe, I might just about understand it!

Good wishes,
James

There is a lab test of Nas Boxes in this months Custom PC Magazine.

Buffalo TeraStation - TS-RX4 passes the test.

quote:

Originally posted by Alamanka:
Hello,

Did you test the Synology DS209+II or any other Synology product?

One user on the forum (Malicorne) reported streaming issue when using the DS209 with the Uniti. Has this been investigated?

Thanks.

Hi Everyone,

I bought a Synonology DS410j and had it connected and streaming to my Uniti within 30 minutes.

With the exception of the gapless issue, no problems so far.

quote:

Originally posted by AndyHamburg:

quote:

Originally posted by Alamanka:
Hello,

Did you test the Synology DS209+II or any other Synology product?

One user on the forum (Malicorne) reported streaming issue when using the DS209 with the Uniti. Has this been investigated?

Thanks.

Hi Everyone,

I bought a Synonology DS410j and had it connected and streaming to my Uniti within 30 minutes.

With the exception of the gapless issue, no problems so far.

Hallo Andy,

Vielen Dank fur deine Antwort. Es kommt aber zu spat, als Ich einen Qnap server gekauft habe.

I did not want to take the risk of buying something that was not on the tested list, so I got a Qnap server with Twonky media server on it. It works well.

Thanks for replying, though, I am sure it will help others.

Bis bald,

Any chance of testing a Vortexbox 2TB RAID

Tog

Recently been through the rigmarole of doing a clean install of Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit on my Acer laptop. Now I can't seem to get my Buffalo 2TB Linkstation Pro to work. My home network is CAT6 wired, and I usually have the laptops wifi switched off (unless using it in another room)

I tried initially with its supplied CD. All seemed to install correctly, after I remembered to reinitialise the Buffalo first! All the expected icons appeared on my desktop, but when I tried to access the Buffalo drive, I am immediately asked for a network password and username. I have no such username or password, and don't know what it's asking for. I tried accessing it using wifi (after disconnecting the ethernet cable), and using my BTHomehub2 WPA key as the password. No joy.

There is only one user (John) set up on my laptop. My only network is my "homegroup". When I set up my laptop I changed its name to AFAIR to the one I used before. I have, from choice, left my Windows 7 installation so that it does not ask for a password at startup - after all, the only ones using it are me and my family.

So, I have downloaded various firmware/software upgrades from the Buffalo site. So far have only tried the latest version of the installion CD image (after extracting it from its zip file). That is even worse, and just keeps cycling through the screen at "step 4", which is the one where it asks you to click on "NEXT" after the top light on the Buffalo drive stops blinking.

Buffalo site and Buffalo FAQs alas not really helpful. Anyone here have any ideas?

Dungassin

Did you get this sorted?

I'm just about to buy an NAS. Are you otherwise happy with the Buffalo? It was at the top of my list.

One query, does it power down when not being accessed? How quiet is it in use and on 'standby'

Bruce

Dungassin if you have not sorted the problem, have you seen this Making Windows 7 PC's compatible with older Buffalo NAS productspage on the Buffalo website? It may not apply, but just might.

I sorted the Buffalo NAS and Windows 7 purely by accident. I hadn't set a User login for Windows 7, so I tried it, and then used my Windows 7 login and password when asked for the Network password. Of course, I had to restart between setting up the Windows 7 user login and doing the NAS/Network password bit - again discovered that by accident!

All working well now. So, the message is "you MUST have a Windows 7 Username and password to get the Buffalo NAS to work" Blood annoying, and Buffalo didn't know this!

quote:

Originally posted by Bruce Woodhouse:
Dungassin

Did you get this sorted?

I'm just about to buy an NAS. Are you otherwise happy with the Buffalo? It was at the top of my list.

One query, does it power down when not being accessed? How quiet is it in use and on 'standby'

Bruce

Sorry, just read the rest of your post. I am happy with the Buffalo. I have it set on "Auto", which means it powers down when the PC is off. Fairly quiet in use, but don't stand it on the bottom shelf of a cheapo computer desk, as any drive noise seems to be amplified when you do this. I've got mine standing on a mouse mat on top of the carpet next to my feet.

One other detail : I found that if you download the latest CD software image from Buffalo, it won't work properly unless you decompress it and copy it to a CD before use. If you don't, it goes into a loop at the "looking for Network drive" stage.

quote:

Originally posted by Peter_RN:
Dungassin if you have not sorted the problem, have you seen this Making Windows 7 PC's compatible with older Buffalo NAS productspage on the Buffalo website? It may not apply, but just might.

Didn't apply - it was one of the things I tried. Thanks anyway.

I just bought a Buffalo Linkstation Live and it failed the test (on Max Read Response time =600 not <500m/s).

I was busy on the network at the time, and also using the PC for some other tasks. I did not get time to retest but can anyone tell me if this might be passed when the PC/network is 'quiet' and more importantly what it might mean if I go ahead and used the NAS anyway. Will it just not work, or is there a potential problem with data loss because of the fail?

I need to sort this in a day or so as I have an option to return the NAS to my local PC supplier!

Bruce

Sorry your having problems. My Buffalo is a 2TB Linkstation Pro, and is now working well.

For the record, here are the results of the Naim NAS test on the LaCie Network Space Max (2 TB). Test conducted with no other traffic on network. All tests passed successfully.

Network share that test was applied to: \\Networkspacemax\openshare\Music\MQ
Period that test ran for: 00:01:49:06
Time taken to write the test files to NAS drive: 00:00:49:01
Time taken to remove the test files from the NAS drive: 00:00:00:03

Options:

TotalRoomsPlayingAtOnce: 4
Audiotype: CdQuality
Period: Sixty_Minutes
SimulateBackgroundMusicRescan: True
RescanThrottle (ms): 0
SimulateRandomPlayback: True
TotalArtists: 4
TotalAlbumsPerArtist: 5


Results:


Result:
Name: Initial Connect Time
Measured: 93
Threshold: < 5000 ms
PassFail: Pass

Result:
Name: Average Write Throughput
Measured: 3,26
Threshold: > 2 Mbyte / sec
PassFail: Pass

Result:
Name: Average Read Response Time
Measured: 2,50
Threshold: < 25 ms
PassFail: Pass

Result:
Name: Max Read Response Time
Measured: 62,5
Threshold: < 500 ms
PassFail: Pass

Result:
Name: Total Audio Breakups
Measured: 0
Threshold: = 0
PassFail: Pass

Result:
Name: File Scanning Performance
Measured: 53,56
Threshold: > 10 per second
PassFail: Pass

Result:
Name: Overall Result
Measured:
Threshold:
PassFail: Pass

I tested w/ the WD My Book Live. Bought this one at it is considered one of the NAS w/ lowest noise emission and lowest power consumption around (and I don't need full-fledged RAID or customization). I can confirm I hardly hear the device from 1m distance, even when it's in operation mode.

Test software run from an old Windows 7 IBM Thinkpad notebook (with couple of minor tasks performing in the background). Although the NAS supports 1Gbit, my network does not. NAS is wired to my router (and, fyi only, from there my FLACs - and web radio - are streamed to the Qute via WLAN).

Ok, so here are the results (total rooms playing at once set to 2, other kept at default,test time 5min):

It passed all tests and with significantly better values than the Lacie Network space mentioned above. Exception: The WD failed the "Max Read Response Time" (592) - why is that? What is measured with this one, please?

Anyway, in operation everything works and sounds superb. No wireless-caused issues.