<<<Network Attached Storage>>> I NEED INFO?!

[willpower101]

There is a hack to mount a network NTFS drive as a time machine backup, but it's janky as ****. I have tried just about everything to get time machine working with anything but hfs+, and the truth is that there just isn't anything which directly supports it unless you're over the network. If you want a NAS for time machine, partition your nas with a osx jorunaled hfs+ partition or get an external drive to plug up to your router usb port. Failing any of those options, just get an external hard drive for it.

My 2tb wd passport ultra is MBR format, 16gb hfs+ boot for restoring osx, 800gb hfs for backups and mac apps that don't like my media bay which is formatted ntfs. And the other 1TB is formatted ntfs.

I purchased paragon.

I don't like software like this. But xfat doesn't have redundant partition tables and speedtests show r/w speeds are within 5-10% of each other on hfs+ vs ntfs. Best of both worlds until something better comes along. I occasionally have to run windows disk utility on my ntfs drive and HFS is a suprerior format, but ntfs is more compatible. sigh.

Btw. After working IT. I will never setup any raid array that isn't raid 6. PERIOD.

With raid six, you can use ****ty old drives that don't even pass smart. And you can use them until they physically lock up with absolutely NO worries. Get an old dell rack and set it up raid 6. Any time an old drive dies... Throw another one in there. With Raid 6, you have to have TWO drive fail simultaneously to lose data.

 

[rob1980]

mine uses XFS file system for internal drives.

supports time machine and windows, linux.

I think the downside to it is slightly slower performance, but i think the network might be a bottleneck anyway?

I admit I don't know a great deal about it, just know that it works lol

 

[T1hom7as]

Btw. After working IT. I will never setup any raid array that isn't raid 6. PERIOD.

With raid six, you can use ****ty old drives that don't even pass smart. And you can use them until they physically lock up with absolutely NO worries. Get an old dell rack and set it up raid 6. Any time an old drive dies... Throw another one in there. With Raid 6, you have to have TWO drive fail simultaneously to lose data.

Depends what you want and why your data is so important. I'm sure you will find that RAID 5 is more than enough for most users. RAID 6 can be a waste of space sometimes due to the redundant backup X2, like I said, it depends what you are storing...

 

[RehabMan]

Depends what you want and why your data is so important. I'm sure you will find that RAID 5 is more than enough for most users. RAID 6 can be a waste of space sometimes due to the redundant backup X2, like I said, it depends what you are storing...

And no form of RAID will protect you against theft, disaster (fire/other), software error, or the most common of all: user error.

RAID is not a backup.

 

[chmod]

Seagate GoFlex NAS works quite well. I have a 1TB single drive for network storage. Seagate includes files to install onto the formatted NTFS drive to allow read/write access from Macs, and backs up Time Machine without any problems.

I haven't had any issue with file losses, corruption, etc. For me, it has done what I need from it.

Edit: I forgot to add that you can access your files over the Internet by setting up an account for you NAS at the Seagate website.

 

[agrajag]

I am very happy with my Synology DS 213j NAS. It has well supported software and interfaces nicely with my Macs and my family's iDevices. I have a time machine backup from my MacBook Pro to the NAS over wifi, in addition to the more periodic external drive one. Nearly all of my DVD collection is transferred over, and I can view things on the Macs as well as Apple TV and idevices. I also store general access files and large files there to reduce the burden on my other machines. It has it's own cloud storage (CloudStation) among the many options possible. My only regret was not having moved stuff over to the NAS earlier.

 

[T1hom7as]

And no form of RAID will protect you against theft, disaster (fire/other), software error, or the most common of all: user error.

RAID is not a backup.

+1

 

[rjstott]

I also am very interested in File Servers. My latest discovery is Amahi (http://www.amahi.org/features) and it does have a Time Machine capability. It has many of the other features mentioned but the ones that attracted me were the JBOD ability and the option to remove a drive and access the files on another system.

Other options for servers were FreeNAS and unRaid. The option to run server applications on the server are highly desirable capabilities for me and provided the apps aren't processor greedy they shouldn't affect the file serving capability, especially for the likes of a media server.

R.

 

[rob1980]

I may be wrong, but I believe JBOD is simply the setup of using two drives independent of each other, thats how I understand it anyway, its the way mine are setup, Id not heard of JBOD before that though..

I think I was put off raid by data loss if one drive failed, from what Ive read that is perhaps not the case now? but either way, having two separate drives =, one for TM, and one for data / media centre works for me.

I'm probably not making use of it anywhere near as much as I could be, I only use the TM side of things, hardly use the data side, but thats more to do with having unlimited cloud storage.

Thats my next venture possibly, online cloud time machine backup, must be possible?